17 APRIL 1926, Page 3

Manchester is fortunate in receiving from Mr. and Mrs. E.

D. Simon the noble gift of Wythenshawe Hall together with 250 acres of land to be used as a public park. The donors say that this act of generosity and civic patriotism is " some return for all that we owe to Manchester." Wythenshawe has been in the unbroken possession of the Tatton family since the middle of the fourteenth century. The original house has been altered and added to in every century, but the greater part of the building is two or three hundred years old and at the heart of it the mediaeval structure still stands. In the Civil War Cromwell's forces besieged the house for nearly a year and the mark of a cannon ball is still seen on one of the walls.