The Francis Frith Collection.
You are here:

Yarlet

Yarlet maps

Historic maps of Yarlet and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis.   View all Yarlet maps

Yarlet photos

We have no photos of Yarlet, although we do have photos of these nearby places:

Shallowford| Stone| Aston| Stafford| Oulton| Tixall| Eccleshall| Swynnerton| Hixon| Milford| Great Haywood| Gnosall| Little Haywood

Yarlet area books

Displaying 1 of 4 books about Yarlet and the local area.   View all books for this area

Memories of Yarlet

No memories of Yarlet have been shared yet - be the first!
Add your memory of Yarlet or of a photo of Yarlet.

Staffordshire memories

Norton Bridge

I remember Norton Bridge from 1969 when there were two shops. One that was part of the post office, the Railway Inn pub and the railway staion. Sadly all that exists out of all these now, is just the pub. We made our own fun in the 70's, plenty of fields, a river to go swimming, and pools to go fishing. There were no computers, Xbox or Playstations - there was never a boring moment. My dad was born there 1938 and still lives there, those were the days...

Stone in The 1950s

I am now 57 years of age, and live in Australia. I was born in Stone, Stafforshire in 1949 and would love to go back and visit.
As a child I remember walking along the canal and standing watching as a blacksmith mended a horse's shoe. I remember hating school but even at that very tender age I was interested in the history of the school that I attended. Every day at home-time I walked on the stone footpath that was once laid by the Romans (is it still there?). The school was very old and I think that it was once used by monks?? It had very tall ceilings, rounded arches and big heavy doors. I remember taking a shortcut through the church cemetery across the road from the school.  I was very frightened as some of the graves were very old and some were partly opened, very scary. My parents, my sister and myself lived at 26 Redhill Road. My maiden name was Bruce.

Sandstone Site as at 21 August 2006

First time on web page, co-incidently was at site yesterday 20 Aug 2006. I used to play all around the area as a young child 1970+ when the area was allotments, the current site has lost about 10ft in height due to 20 years of erosion, filling in etc. If you look to the left of the centre pillar and to the root overhang, there is about 2ft of sandstone left visible and then you are at root level to all the remaining trees. I will go back and take a photograph of the site, so it is not lost forever.

Pirehill Lane, Walton, Stone

I suppose as I grow older, memories of my youth increase. I remember living in Pirehill Lane when there was just one row of houses. In front of our house there was a row of huge trees, my bedroom in the back looked upon fields, fields and marshland. My friends and I would jump over our garden fences and disappear till meal times. What a childhood. My mother, sister and I would walk into Stone to do the family shopping and as you got closer to the town you could smell the hops from Joules (beer makers), whenever I smell that smell mmmm gorgeous. A treat was to have tea in the hotel in the centre of the town. I left with my family when I was 14 yrs but I have never forgotten how happy I was then.

Swimming Saturdays

Royal Brine Baths c1950
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

I received a half-crown (2/6d) pocket money per week. This enabled me to travel from Gnosall by train every Saturday (8d return), pay for entrance to the brine swimming baths for the afternoon, (wonderful memories) and have enough for either a cup of hot chocolate, or use of the dryer for my (long) hair, afterwards. The hot chocolate usually won!

Public Disaster!!!!

The Public Library c1955
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

This photograph is taken from the Lichfield Road.  Veering off to the right in the distance is Greengate Street, and to the left, round the far corner of the library, the Newport Road. I used the library often. It had an annexe a little further up and 'off' the Newport road, past the Odeon Cinema, containing the library's music collection.  I spent an even greater amount of time there. It was wonderful. Everything from Scarlatti to Lead Belly. What an education! (This was in my mid-teens.) You could actually borrow these records, take them home and play them on your Dansette if you wanted to, and/or listen to them in cubicles, rather like a 'language laboratory' as we used to call them. Then guess what? They moved the public library to the Shire Hall area, and when I asked where the records were, was told (somewhat disparagingly) that the collection had been AUCTIONED OFF!

The Music Library - Pride of Stafford!

The Public Library c1955
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

The music library was in Friars Terrace until 1994, when it moved to the top floor of the library at the Green, which had been the Art Gallery before that moved to the Shire Hall.

By 1994 the LP collection was little used - it had been the biggest in any library in the UK. By 1994 we had the biggest CD collection in the UK, covering every possible kind of music. Stafford was the first library to lend CDs in the country, starting in 1983.

The Music Library moved to the Shire Hall in 1999 and is still one of the best CD collections in the UK (or world some say), priding itself on getting pretty well anything for anybody. It is one of the only county council services which is at the top of the government charts.

LPs were sold off in library sales because they were not wanted and were no longer being manufactured. We had no complaints.

© Copyright 1998-2012 Frith Content Inc. All rights reserved.