Fir Vale
Fir Vale maps (2 available)
Map of South Yorkshire
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
See this old map of South Yorkshire
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Fir Vale books (23 available)
Harrogate Town Walk Guide
Paperback
Fir Vale memories
Read and share memories of Fir Vale and South Yorkshire inspired by Frith photos
Be the first to add a memory of Fir Vale.
You can also read memories of nearby places in South Yorkshire below.
South Yorkshire memories
Unsettled Times
I have very vivid memories of the war years as it was coming to an end. I was born in Cambridge Street in The Sportdman's public house, which up to the present time is the only pub left on Cambridge Street. Where the John Lewis store now stands on the corner of Barkers Pool/ Cambridge St there was a firm called, The Steel City Works, that got bombed, oh don't I remember the sounds around that night!!!. I remember the City Hall getting hit by the tracer bullets, I still think we were lucky not to have the City Hall bombed. I am now in my 68th year and as I walk around the city centre, memories still stick with me ...read more here
A memory of Sheffield contributed by David Rowe
Magic and mischief
When it was new , the changing colours of floodlights that swept round the fountain and tinted the sprays looked so futuristic and bright, You could stare at them waiting for the cycle to run over again. At times it froze into grotesque lumps, but the most amazing was when students put Teepol or other industrial strength soaps into it and the froth flowed down the street. Equally impressive was the fluorescent dye that gave the water a yellow green radiance. It was much abused but ever entertaining. Shame it has gone, probably offended Health and Safety?
A memory of Sheffield contributed by Mike Toohill
Sticklebacks at Wire Mill Dam
After dad got his first car, an Austin A30, he used to take me and my younger brother out for trips a little further afield, and Wire Mill Dam was one of our very favourite places. We'd be armed with a jam jar and fishing net apiece, and spend hours trying to catch the numerous sticklebacks, and watch people sailing their model boats. The sticklebacks were carefully carried home, but they never survived long in their glass jars.
It was a very busy place, the photographer must have been there during the week, and during school term time.
This photo gave me a wry smile, as the photographer must have been standing in the exact spot from which I ...read more here
A memory of Sheffield contributed by Jean Smith
Songs of Praise at Ecclesall Church
This was the church I went to as a child - mostly I had to go as a condition of attending Brownies, but it was always both imposing and comforting as a building and place of worship. However, the most outstanding memory I have is when, in the early sixties, the BBC visited to broadcast a live service. Normally the church was about two-thirds full, but that day, there were far more people than spaces on pews, and the BBC chaps on the door were 'vetting' people as they tried to enter. Luckily mum was dressed in a new outfit which was the height of fashion. I don't remember her smart skirt suit, but I do remember her dark maroon hat ...read more here
A memory of Sheffield contributed by Jean Smith
Extracts From Fir Vale & South Yorkshire books
Looking towards the Bull Ring from Union Street, we
see (right) the rebuilt Strafford Hotel and the former
shops, now a café bar. At the centre is the magnificent
Cloth Hall building at the head of Cross Street. The Bull
Ring is now partly pedestrianised, offering a relaxed
starting point for a walk to the cathedral.
An extract from from"Wakefield and the Five Towns Living Memories".
The Market Place was renamed the Bull Ring in 1910, to recall the ‘sport’ of bull baiting a century before. In the centre of
the Market Place, a busy intersection even before cars were invented, was the Toll Booth (demolished 1857) and the Boy
and Barrel Inn (removed 1898). The dominant row of shops has been modernised, but the bus station (centre right), which
opened on September 1952, has now been moved a hundred yards to the east.
An extract from from"Wakefield and the Five Towns Living Memories".
At the head of Cross Street the market
cross once stood, from 1707 to
1866. Cross Street is now traffic free
down to the cathedral and Kirkgate.
The magnificent Grand Clothing
Hall, left, remains. Designed in an
Italian Renaissance style by Percy
Robinson (1879-1950), it opened in
1906. Robinson also designed the old
Leeds Fire Station. Hartley Shaw’s
household furnishings emporium
(right) is now an optician’s, but
the Black Rock next door, its name
commemorating the coal industry,
is still a thriving pub. The café at the
end of the row is also flourishing.
An extract from from"Wakefield and the Five Towns Living Memories".
This scene is little changed in forty years. Market Place still contains Cresswell’s, a seafood shop (left), and a coffee bar
beyond. The Shakespeare, right, is ‘as we like it’ these days, a charity shop. The Market Hall, (centre), opened on 23 April
1964; it cost £289,000 and holds 87 stalls, and replaced the old one which was in use from 29 August 1851.
An extract from from"Wakefield and the Five Towns Living Memories".
Here we are at the lower end of Kirkgate, all car-free today. Behind us is the long established Woolworth’s store, and the shop
buildings on the right are also long-standing, with only cosmetic changes - like the removal of the chimneys and dormers
from the central building.
An extract from from"Wakefield and the Five Towns Living Memories".