Berry Brow, A Thriving Community

A Memory of Berry Brow.

Back in the 1950s I lived in Primrose Hill, my father was a plumber / electrician working for Joe Ellam in Lockwood, my mother a millworker at Brooks Mill, Armitage Bridge, before I was of school age I can remember having to go to a house in Berry Brow to await my mother finishing work when she would call it to collect me then go back home, at the time Berry Brow was a very large community, all its roads, including Waingate were cobbled, halfway down Waingate on the right was a tiny shop where penny iced lollies could be bought by kids, I recall a pub where the Laxmi car park now stands, Black Bull ? not sure, to the left at the crossroads heading towards the Fleece was a cycle shop. At the side of the Fleece a tunnel through the railway embankment was used by the dustbin wagons going to the landfill site situated behind the playing fields at the bottom of Newsome Road South, the vents are still visible.