Skelmanthorpe
Skelmanthorpe photos (12 available)
Skelmanthorpe 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!
Skelmanthorpe books (13 available)
Whitby Photographic Memories
Hardback
Guisborough Photographic Memories
Paperback
Skelmanthorpe memories
Read and share memories of Skelmanthorpe and West Yorkshire inspired by Frith photos
Childhood memories
I was born 1949 in Huddersfield and lived in Skelmanthorpe until 1970. I was delighted to see the photos of Skelmanthorpe taken in the fifties. It brought back wonderful childhood memories of things that I'd already forgotten. I remembered going to Bower's Newsagent to pay for our papers once every week, the chemist shop next door and then there was a greengrocer nearby called Wraggs if I remember rightly. Also a small pretty little shop called Lawton's who sold mirrors and plates etc. We also visited the Savoy picture house once a week although the films were over one year old before they got to Skelmanthorpe. It didn't matter because no one had colour TV in those days so the picture ...read more here
Contributed by Angela Reichert
West Yorkshire memories
Childhood memories
I was born 1949 in Huddersfield and lived in Skelmanthorpe until 1970. I was delighted to see the photos of Skelmanthorpe taken in the fifties. It brought back wonderful childhood memories of things that I'd already forgotten. I remembered going to Bower's Newsagent to pay for our papers once every week, the chemist shop next door and then there was a greengrocer nearby called Wraggs if I remember rightly. Also a small pretty little shop called Lawton's who sold mirrors and plates etc. We also visited the Savoy picture house once a week although the films were over one year old before they got to Skelmanthorpe. It didn't matter because no one had colour TV in those days so the picture ...read more here
A memory of Skelmanthorpe contributed by Angela Reichert
Ackroyd coffee bar
Just down the road from the Shoulder of Mutton pub was Ackroyds coffee bar. In the 60s we young ones would meet, listen to the juke box, drinking frothy coffee.
The horse and cart outside the pub belonged to Herman Wood the local milkman. The cart was a daily sight outside the pub.
A memory of Clayton West contributed by David Johnson
Central Stores
The large 3-storey building to the right of centre, was the village grocery store at 91 Lane Head Road. My father purchased it in 1961 from Frank Armitage. He sold it in 1984 when he retired. At the rear were stables, groceries used to be delivered by horse drawn cart, but my father used a Ford Thames van, until in 1966 when he got a Ford Cortina estate car from H. W. Gill. To the right of our shop was Copleys bakery.
A memory of Shepley contributed by Glen Cheney
Extracts From Skelmanthorpe & 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".