My Top Ten Places in Old East Leeds (Part Two)

   MY TOP TEN PLACES IN OLD EAST LEEDS (PART TWO)

In no particular order: I listed five of my top ten places in old East Leeds last month (in no particular order) here are the next five again in no particular

6. The Schools Churches and Chapels 7. Knosey (Knostrop) 8.East End Park,  9.The Shops, 10. The Ground Underfoot. 

6: The Schools, Churches and Chapels:  The schools were: St. Hilda’s, Mount St Mary’s, All Saints, Ellerby Lane, Victoria, St Charles’s, South Accommodation Road and East End Park, Special School.  The Churches: St Hilda’s, St Saviours, Mount St Mary’s, All Saints. St Patricks, and Leeds Parish Church were a little out of the area. The Chapels: Bourne Chapel, Richmond Hill Chapel and Zion. I think I may have missed some.

Being a St Hilda’s lad that is the church and the school I was most familiar with but we attended Victoria School for wood-work classes and we were familiar with the pupils of the other churches and schools socially and through sport. It was the era of the eleven plus (scholarship) the clever ones who passed that were off to pastures new but the rest of us stayed in the same school (apart from South Accommodation Road (who had to move on at eleven too) until we left at the end of the fourteenth year. We didn’t get the chance to learn a foreign language (although Ellerby Lane learned Spanish) but we were not encumbered with school uniforms or satchels to carry homework around.

 Victoria school

The teachers were strict being mostly Victorian born and wielded the cane liberally but in my own case I always found them fair and inspiring they had lost their best students to colleges at eleven but they didn’t give up on us and inspired me, personally, to pursue more knowledge. So too were the clergy, the churches and chapels were always full on Sunday’s, and they ran Scouts and Guides and the Chapels Boy’s Brigades.  They always tried to put us on the straight and narrow and if we failed it was not usually down to them, we owe them a great deal.

School sport was king. Victoria and Ellerby Lane were the kings in our day but it had Been Richmond Hill and Mount St Mary’s before the war. Sporting notaries were to be found at Victoria, Jackie Overfield and Willie Knot, Mike O’Grady at Corpus Christie, Paul Reaney at St Hilda’s, Brian Monk at Ellerby Lane and a host of later to be professional rugby players’

7. Knosey (Knostrop) I have enough to say about Knostrop that could fill a book but there is insufficient space here but see also Knostrop Tour, Jaw Bone Yard (Knostrop’s  Golden Acre) and the ABC Houses also on this site.

Knostrop was a paradise playground for kids in the 1940s and 50s it had everything: a great hill with a bend for sledging, a pond for fishing for tiddlers and tadpoles two plantations for tree climbing and a host of grand houses: Knostrop House, Knostrop Old Hall, Knostrop New Hall, St Saviour’s Home Thorp Stapleton Hall, The Humbug House,  Jaw Bone Yard, The ABC Houses, Access to Dandy Island, all portals to adventure, all disgustingly demolished on our watch for a concrete wilderness in the pursuit of commerce and nobody seems to care.  No one traversing Knostrop today would ever imagine its forgotten magic.

8. East End Park. East End Park deserves a far greater write up than a fifth of a monthly blog, Please see: East End Park Then and Now else ware on this site by Eric Sanderson. But briefly, East End Park was the centre of our universe. We just called it ‘The Park’ it was the only park in our lives. Any walk or wander we would make would invariably home in on ‘The Park’ There we would meet likeminded individuals if you were a boy this usually meant girls.

            There was a little paddling pool, a kid’s playground, tennis court, football pitches and a bowling green a band stand which in former times had held brass and silver band concerts playing genteel music to be enjoyed by perambulating Edwardians in their straw Benjie’s and ladies in their long skirts To the east there ran the L.N.E.R. railway line to Yok and Scarborough, the engine sheds and the mighty ‘coal cracker’ that lifted full trucks of coal and redeposited them were there for us to gape at. There were old pit hills long since grassed over and flower gardens a plenty guarded by the eagle eyes Parkie’ that had a detached house on site and would lock the gates at dusk – before they were taken away for the war effort.

As St Hilda’s lads we would assemble in the play there before making our way up to ‘Cleggy’s’ woodwork classes at Victoria School. Usually dicing with death on the longboat that a manic lass could take so high it locked and threw you off.

No 9: The old shops, especially the ‘chippies’.

Fish and chips were our staple diet in wartime, they were never on ration as many other foods were at the time and at two penneth of chips and a five penny fish they were an affordable meal for our East Leeds society unlike today, even taking into account inflation, fish and chips do not strike me as a

Cheap family meal today.  We had a great choice of fish and chip shops in our area at the time, here they are: The Copperfield’s, Burt’s on Fewston Avenue, The Cross green Lane the Easy Road Fisheries, Ellerby lane, The Hampton The Berthas’. The Cosy Corner, he Charlton’s, East Park Road Accommodation Road Ivy Street. Doris Stories near the Star Cinema. Apologies if I have missed any out. When we were young and you didn’t have to worry about being overweight we used to fill our boots.

Other shops I remember were Jim Goodall’s off licence on Cross Green Lane, Hick the cobbler on cross green, Lane Bill Benn’s bike shop Charlie Atha’s bike shop near the Princess, we had three Coops, two or three post offices Butchers, Chemists There was a shop on almost every street corner they are too many to mention but here is a list of some of them.

No 10. The area underfoot

    (Remember to ‘Click’ on picture to enlarge

When you spend a lengthy period of your life in a self-contained area like Cross Green, Richmond Hill and East End park where almost everything is available on hand without leaving the area you become familiar with almost every stick of the place that you have needed to access at one time or another and if you return for a nostalgic wander it is like returning to an old friend.

The main portals to adventure were: Red Road, Black Road and Knostrop Lane. Red Road (Halton Moor Road) and Black Road (Pontefract Lane) both stayed for us opposite the Bidgefield Pub. Red Road was a gated road that we used as a way to Temple Newsam, (gates didn’t stop us) Black Road was also a way to Temple Newsam but continued on to Swillington and conker trees.  Knostrop lane I have already covered.

Other main arteries were Cross Green Lane, East Street, Easy Road, Accommodation Road, East Park Road, East Park Parade Pontefract Lane, Dial Street and our bit of York Road. There were a myriad number of streets intersecting them and many groups of streets with an initial name and then tags; Crescent, Grove, View etc.:  Copperfields, St Hilda’s Cross Greens, Glencoe’s, Ascots, East Parks, Ascots, Glensdales, Pretoria’s, Vinery’s, Easys, Falmouth’s, Dawlish’s etc. I could go on but access map to see for yourself.

A wander around today sees many iron grilles and stumped off streets but still nostalgic. I can’t close without mentioning ‘The navvy’ the ultimate scary playground But in my mind I see helicon days with the children running down to school and I penned a poem this one about the Copperfields but it could have been anywhere in our area

Once through these Copperfields streets they came,

Laughing and chattering in sun and in rain

More joined the throng along the way

Futures bright and hearts so gay,

Others came from different paths,

To face English tests and study maths.

Now these streets seem so forlorn

As I wander through them all alone,

Fresher fields called all away,

The time had passed to skip and play,

Where they have flown it is not mine to know,

Have their lives been fulfilled

I’d like to think so.