Birstall
Birstall maps (2 available)
Map of West Yorkshire
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
See this old map of West Yorkshire
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Birstall books (23 available)
Harrogate Town Walk Guide
Paperback
- 1 photos on Birstall appear in 1 Frith books - View photos of Birstall
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Birstall and West Yorkshire
Birstall memories
Read and share memories of Birstall and West Yorkshire inspired by Frith photos
Growing up in Birstall in the sixties
My memory of the market square was catching the bus in in the middle of the square to go to Batley and Dewsbury on Saturday shopping with my mother. My mother buying fresh tripe from a blue trailer parked in the square across from Bond Street. Living on The Mount (the houses have been torn down now) and going to primary school on Raikes Lane then walking up and down the big hill on Middlegate to school that was on Kirkgate.
My grandfather delivering fresh eggs.
Looking at these old pictures brings back a lot of memories of my life there, before I left England in 1967. I have never returned but hope to do so sometime in the next ...read more here
Contributed by Kathy Sturhahn
Cinema on a Saturday as a boy
I grew up in Driglington late 50s/ 60s and remember going to watch Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy, now that was another lifetime ago.
As I got a bit older lots of us drig lads used to visit a coffee shop in the main street - cannot remember its name, and met lots of Birstall girls there. I also remember the first 3d movie I saw there, it was the House of Wax, we had to wear those red and green glasses.
Contributed by First name Last name
An industrial village
Having grown up in Birstall I have a fondness for this little market town in West Yorkshire, situated approximately 8 miles from Leeds and centrally placed for easy access to other major towns Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield.
Fifty years ago Birstall was a thriving village, where everyone knew everybody else (and their business!). There were several mills in the area, Birstall Carpet Company, Holton's, Charles Sheards to name but a few.
The shopping centre was busy and there was a variety of shops, unlike today when the centre seems to be full of beauty parlours, hairdressers and takeaways, with traditional shopkeepers struggling to earn a living.
In the market place stands a statue of Joseph Priestley, ...read more here
Contributed by Jennifer Ineson
West Yorkshire memories
Growing up in Birstall in the sixties
My memory of the market square was catching the bus in in the middle of the square to go to Batley and Dewsbury on Saturday shopping with my mother. My mother buying fresh tripe from a blue trailer parked in the square across from Bond Street. Living on The Mount (the houses have been torn down now) and going to primary school on Raikes Lane then walking up and down the big hill on Middlegate to school that was on Kirkgate.
My grandfather delivering fresh eggs.
Looking at these old pictures brings back a lot of memories of my life there, before I left England in 1967. I have never returned but hope to do so sometime in the next ...read more here
A memory of Birstall contributed by Kathy Sturhahn
Extracts From Birstall & West 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".