Main Street
Main Street in the early 1900s
Main Street was called Town Street until 1898.
This view is approximately from the large bungalow, Stocks Hill, Main Street.
On right the girl and child are on footpath in front of the village blacksmith's
and shoeing shop. Children often gathered in the forecourt watching farm and
carriage horses being shod. The blacksmiths were Longbottoms and then Parrotts.
The two tall houses set back from the road, each with a long garden (68 and
70 Main Street) are still standing though now are plaster-rendered. The mock-Tudor
building is the Lord Nelson Inn - with the houses of Nelson Yard at the rear.
Its overhanging upper storey hides the Bay Horse and older houses beyond.
Further along is the high-gabled Primitive Methodist Chapel and its forecourt
and beyond this the two shops - Milner's drapers (first Mrs. Asquith's) and
Parkers (later Barkers) grocer, which stood directly on the pavement, almost
where the present mini market is, though the new shop is are set further back
from the road.
Across the road, though lower down than the
shops, is the gable of Woodhall Manor, opposite to 4 older houses. Next comes
Manor Farm, the house, the low stone wall of the farmyard and the two front
houses of Bickerdyke Buildings with their private low-walled frontage. Between
the farmyard wall and the house of Bickerdyke Buildings is a dark patch which
was a 'ginnel' to the rear houses of Bickerdyke Buildings. The bedroom above
the 'ginnel' belonged to the front house. The rear Bickerdyke Buildings houses
are at right angles to Main Street.
The tree in the foreground, a sycamore, grew in the grounds of the Garden
House. Websdale's fish and chip shop, which was opposite to the blacksmiths
is not on this picture.
Main Street 1985
Looking towards theSavile Pit from approximately
the same position as in the illustration above.
On the right, the bricks and rubble is that from a row of houses of Stocks
Hill and two cottages and a shop (Hill's greengrocery and pot shop) which
stood in front of the bungalow No 66 Main Street. Two large houses, 68 and
70 Main Street are set back from the road. Shrubs grow where the Lord Nelson
Inn and Nelson's yard houses stood. The white gable is that of the Bay Horse,
then the plaster-rendered older cottages, the two new shops, the solitary
house at the top of Mill Lane and, in the background, the entrance to Savile
Pit.
On the left the Community Centre stands approximately where the Malt Shovel
and the 'Bank House' were; flats replace Taylor's house and Websdale's house
and shops. Just two of the original rear houses of Bickerdyke Buildings remain.
Flats and council-built houses replace Manor Farm and Woodhall Manor. The
flats were built 1970-72 and occupied January 1972
