OneGuyFromBarlick

Manchester Road, or rather the upper narrow part past the park gates at Letcliffe is a forgotten corner. Rather than just an old out dated piece of road it is a good medieval survival and hasn't changed materially in 500 years apart from road surfacing. It has a very useful function, forget about it being a choke point for traffic and look on it as a very effective road safety device. It slows down traffic coming down the hill and makes the lower pert much safer. One of these days some bright spark in the traffic department will decide it needs 'modernising'. When that happens resist it, it is an asset to the town in more ways than one!

Gott's Garage in about 2010. Gott's started in West Marton with a garage in the barn on the corner of Barnoldswick Road and the main Skipton Road. The building behind is the bakery and retail premises built by Sainty's who were at one time the biggest confectioners and outside caterers in the town.

The bakery is of course Hackings..... I think I must have been having a senior moment! By the way, the gutters on the bakery are a forgotten corner at the moment, they need looking at as they drop water on the passer by when it's raining.....

Have you ever noticed the unusual design of the roof on the bakery? The eaves are far wider than on any other building in the town except the gable ends on the Majestic.

I love this old pic. Westgate was like this until the 1950s when the houses on the left were demolished for road widening. You can still see their back walls acting as revetments for the bank behind if you look carefully.

The Midland Bank in 1982.

A snippet about Sainty's; Elaine Garnett has posted on Facebook that her family lived in Barlick from 1963 to '68, selling the shop to Ronnie Sainty when they left.

In World War One, what became Sainty's was George Leepers drapery shop.

We had a good thread on the old site about Leeper's drapers and this image turned up.

The aftermath of the Alhambra fire in 1923. I wonder if any of the kids are still alive?

The clock on the Council Offices at what used to be Post Office Corner. Both the Post Office and the clock are now forgotten corners, I noted yesterday that the old clock has gone....

A victim of our bloom judging visual audit in June...



The clock was installed when the council shop was opened (1996?). With four clock faces on the bus shelter tower opposite, removing, rather than replacing, the rusty clock was seen to be most cost effective.

Have a really close look at the clock on the bus shelter, it's as rusty as the council clock was (unless my eyes are deceiving me....).

We get so used to the public clocks on our churches but many never give a second's thought to where they came from. All our mechanical public clocks in Barlick started life in a shed at the back of Federation Street made by one man, my hero Johnny Pickles, a most remarkable engineer. He made them in his spare time and gave them to the churches, installing them for free as well. So next time you glance up to see the time remember this man..... (He's working on Holy Trinity clock in this picture)

When Johnny's men were installing the clock in St Joseph's church Johnny walked in one day when they were up on a scaffold drilling the hole through the wall for the drive to the hands on the clock face and had hit a particularly hard piece of stone. They only had star drills in those days. One of the men was swearing at the stone and johnny stood there and shouted "Less of the bloody swearing, remember where you are!" Walt Fisher said that he had his bowler hat on and a fag in his mouth at the time.....

I love this picture because of the information it contains. It's Bob Fort and Newton Pickles in 1930 and from the look of it they have been picking wild flowers. Not exactly what I would have expected of them and perhaps they had been 'persuaded' to do it for the pic. You couldn't have a better pic of what a typical ten year old schoolboy was wearing then. Looks like the old Sunday suit, they both look a bit small. Boots and school caps. Definitely a picture of its time!

Class One, Rainhall Road School in about 1885. Isaac Barrett on the right is the headmaster.

A similar class at Kelbrook in 1949. This was in bad economic times but look at the difference!

This is a personal forgotten corner because I can't remember where it was but I think there might have been some connection with a wedding......

Johnny Pickles with his pattern maker in the Wellhouse shop in 1924.

Albert Road in the snow, winter 1982.

Albert Road in 1982.

Spot the Barlickers in that picture...

I wasn't wasting my time when I did all these 'boring' pictures was I....

More Barlickers in the snow on Albert Road in 1982.