The park is divided into two parts by a working railway line and was the site of Handsworth Wood railway station until 1942. Its western half was landscaped by the award-winning landscape architect Richard Hartland Vertegans who had a liking for broad tree-lined boulevards leading visitors to unexpected prospects. Far from being a disadvantage, the railway running through the completed park would prove consistent with Vertegan's intention, since, to this day, there are people who speak of "never having been to the other side of the park". The eastern side of Handsworth Park - Victoria Park Extension - was laid out 10 years later under the supervision of the local surveyor, Edwin Kenworthy, by the new Handsworth Urban District Council on St. Mary's glebe-land, with the support of a new vicar, the Rev. Prebendary Hodgson, and amid a steady downpour of rain declared "open to the people for ever" by the 6th Earl of Dartmouth on 30 March 1898.