Derby street in late Victorian years ...dog and partridge

The text reads... "There were apparently no parking restrictions in Derby Street when this picture was taken in the late Victorian Years. The inno n th eleft, with its hanging sign and shops on either side, was the Dog and Partridge".

"Town Scenes our Grandparents Knew"

The first picture is of Derby street, not as many will recognise it now to what it used to be then, "A fine view of Derby street in about 1910. Skinner and Son, the ironmongers and hardware store on the left, was founded in 1894 and is still trading today". The Church in the background, the steeple standing high, is still there now in 2008, so is the roebuck pub which stands more in the foreground yet not very clear to the eye.

The other buildings down on the left is the Manchester banking corporation building If I remember rightly, which stands after the Roebuck pub (this pub was built in 1626).

Shops and Retail in Leek

Shops and Markets of Yesteryear...



When you look at the new retail stores of today, their windows have little character like the shop frontage and presentations of yesteryear. Leek like many towns of victorian era had many characteristics amongst the retail trade that are worlds apart from today. You will not walk down a town centre today and observe men selling cattle to make a living, do not get me wrong, cattle and livestock is still sold yet not in the original market places where they used to. Leek cattle market used to stand where the Smithfield centre stands today, and there was no monument on the square like regular visitors to Leek will see, oh no, by the Cattle market inn and The Talbot public houses and even the small roundabout by the square and its monument, stood what was the cattle market of Leek, a huge area for selling livestock in its day.

Here are the draymen and their horses outside the pub in the market square! You wont see these today, more like a wagon or two bringing in barrels of beer and bottles of all sorts.

The following photos show what selling from shops and the market was like a few decades ago.

This guy is W. Fallon and seemed to have a few different shops in Leek at the time!
Here are traders at the cattle market, as mentioned before, situated where the bus station and Smithfield centre, mini roundabout and square with monument stand today.

There were many modes of transport in the victorian era, canal barge usage was one of them, here is Leek canal basin that was, sadly it is not there anymore, instead an industrial estate stands where the canal basin and wharf used to be.

Leeks Industrial Times

What was Leek known for?

Well some know that Longton, Stoke and Hanley were renown for bottle kilns, the pottery industry, such as Spode, Wedgewood, Royal Doulton, Aynsley to name a few, yet Leek and Macclesfield have been known for materials such as the silk and textile industry which moves up towards lancashire where you have such places as Styal in Cheshire, Blackburn and other Cheshire and Lancashire towns that were known for the cotton industries.

Such places as Brough, Nicholson and Hall Ltd, and S Mayers and Company, Wardle and Davenport, Clemesha Brothers and Birch were known for manufacturing textile products, garments and household goods in the 1930s. One hazard with the textile firms though was the risk of a factory fire, Brough, Nicholson and Halls major fire happened in 1915, on the 31st August, the photos are the evidence.

Where there are and were mills, there would be mill workers houses, alot of them were 3 or 4 storeys high (if you count the cellars) here, you can see the demolition of houses that once stood in Stockwell street, beside the Nicholson institute. Some houses of this style can be seen in Albion Street and King street as I have seen them myself. If you have read before this in my blog you would have seen the two pictures I took of King street.

Deep Haye Country Park

Like many a country park in Britain, some were once an industry and once the industry had gone, buildings demolished, the area was kept as a park area. Brough Hall once stood on the grounds we now know in Leek as Brough Park, Deep Haye country park was it seems a brickworks industry.

"A group of workmen at "all Grange Brickworks at about the turn of the century. The works closed in 1960, after a long and chequered history, when the kilns and workshops were demolished. The area has now been landscaped, and forms part of the Deep Haye Country Park.

Around Leek In old photographs

by Ray Poole ISBN 0-7509-0623-5

When living in a generation where there are tv screens, digital tv and a luxury such as running water from a tap, motorised delivery vans and trains, being brought up in the age of computers also, it seems hard to imagine life without any of these things, although I was reminded as a child in the late 1970s and 1980s that we were lucky to have a television and a telephone.

I remmber a time where you could walk down the high street and nobody owned a mobile phone yet the older generation whom were born in the late 1920s onwards will remember that the only form of communication was a letter and in some homes, the rich owned a telephone in their own homes.

Leek, Staffordshire, known to many as the "Queen of the Moorlands", is no different to other towns back in the victorian times (when Queen Victoria was on the throne) many goods were transported by horse and cart, in some cases steam trains or even by canal, deliveries from local shops to the surrounding area were regularly done by bicycle.

A prime example on how Leek, like many other towns in its era, that has changed dramatically in this photo of Derby street in late victorian times. If you compare that photo to one of now (2008), then you can see the vast difference. There's no cobbled road and the only existing cobbled areas I have so far observed, are the market square, Albion street and the little side road adjacent to St. Edwards church in Stockwell street, which leads to 'Mount Pleasant' and Brough Park.

The Book I resourced some of this information and photographs actually remind me of older photographs from my family, my mum for example, in her Sunday best back in the late 1940s to 1950s, posing for a Sunday school photograph, together with my two aunts and my eldest uncle, a similar style dress to many of that the children are seen to be wearing in old school photographs in this book.

Schools of Leek...

There seemed to be quite a lot of schools back then, as there is now, I know of 4 first schools in Leek, there is St Edwards in Cheddleton, Westbrook junior/1st school over the West end of Leek, 1st school on the Haregate estate off the Buxton Road and All Saints primary by the junction of Compton and junction road, in fact there may be more.

Leeks schooling system has nursery to primary at first schools which are aged 3years/4years to 8 years adn then there is Churnet View Middle school and St Edwards Junior High (nee middle) whom cater for 9 years to 13 year old pupils, then it is on to a choice of either Leek high school or Westwood High. It surely takes some getting used to.

Now to schools in Leek around a hundred years ago...

St Lukes build in 1871 to cater for 164 pupils, a church school, the picture in the book was taken in 1912.

Ramshaw Primary, Buxton Road, photo taken around 1904









All Saints school, photo taken in 1920, not sure where this stood yet I have a feeling it was either opposite all saints church on Compton or on the same side of Compton, where some small modern flats now stand?



These two pictures on the left are of Regent Street School. Sadly the school has since been demolished. I doubt any of the children in these photographs are still iving today, my great aunt is 102 years of age, and although born in 1906, there are not, to my knowledge, any other elder generations of her age still living in staffordshire.

Cheddleton School is still standing if it is the one I am thinking of that is now named St Edwards (first) primary and is situated near Ostlers Lane, 50 Yards from St Edward the confessor church. There was also Leek Girls High School (shown here in 1921) and I am unsure if that it is the same High School which is now known as Leek High School?

If you wander out of Leeks main retail area and market square, towards what is known as Clerk Bank, there is a pink building and a blue building, to look at them and realise that htere contemporary make up hid what was in 1723, The Old Leek Grammar school would be hard to imagine.

It seems that Leeks original high school was not up off the Ashbourne Road, yet it was originally situated in the inner quadrangle behind the Nicholson Institute in and around 1901.

1 week later...

On Monday I needed to visit the library to pick up a fiction book and wished to visit the 'local studies' section at the Nicholas institute (our local library) In Leek, so I got the following three books to research for this blog!

1. Staffordshire Moorlands THEN & NOW by Lindsey Porter [isbn 1-84306-317-4]
2. Cheddleton North Staffordshire - A village history Edited by Robert Milner [isbn not shown]
3. Around Leek IN OLD PHOTOGRAPHS by Ray Poole [isbn 0-7509-0623-5]

I am hoping to retrieve some much required information from these books before returning them to the library and gaining more books about Leek!

Rudyard Kipling did you say?

Rudyard Lake is a splendid area, situated on the outskirts of Leek!

Here I have found some information that will interest you to visit such a lovely, splendiforous, natural lake, with beautiful wildlife!

The story of Rudyard really began in 1797 when an Act of Parliament authorised the construction of a two and a half mile long reservoir just north of Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Its purpose was to feed the ever growing system of canals that were vital arteries of the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands.

Then, in 1829, the North Staffordshire Railway Company laid a track skirting the lake, part of a line linking Manchester with Uttoxeter, and built two stations at each end of the lake. Before long it became a weekend mecca for day trippers, with a constant stream of excursion trains from Manchester and the Potteries disgorging thousands attracted by the beautiful surroundings and the many activities laid on for their pleasure. Awaiting them was a fleet of rowing boats, a funfair, brass band concerts and dozens of tearooms.
Among the numerous courting couples who walked the tranquil banks of the lake in 1863 were a certain John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Macdonald. Their love blossomed, they married, and their first-born was named after the lake. He became one of Britain's greatest writers.

Rudyard Lake's peak of popularity was towards the end of the 1800s, when in one day as many as 20,000 excursionists would buy cheap train tickets. There were plenty of celebrities to entertain them too. The world's greatest trapeze artist, Blondin, fresh from his feat of crossing Niagara Falls on the high wire, came to Rudyard to repeat his achievement. And Captain Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, delighted the crowds lining the line with a demonstration of his prowess.

Researching the "Leek"

I have been trying to research 'Leek' and Surrounding Area, and I have come across some lovely photos as you can see by this blog already! However, I was really impressed to find this photo, the insides of the junction box at 'Leekbrook Junction'...

It's half term in Leek this next fortnight so I'm hoping to take the children exploring and see what we can find!

Leek History by a 10 year old

Well Dec had his school report back and as far as history goes, he is and should be learning about Leek!

I have told him that anything he learns, any pictures he has in school books or writing i want to scan and include on here!

It will be excellent to have his input! His school report is exceedingly perfect!!!!

I am yet to find any evidence of him doing any history of Leek but if i find some I WILL be copying it onto here!

Leekbrook and Leek March Adventures

Well EJ and I went on one of our little adventures today! We walked down the Leekbrook Line. I took some photos of EJ and most of all i managed to capture the Leekbrook line signal box (which is to the side of where the estate is where we live)













We got talking to a couple walking their dogs and they told us the easiest way to get to the canal before walking towards Denford and the well known 'Holly Bush' public house.

Once we got into town I took the opportunity to take some photos (again in sepia tone) of St Edward Street, where, if you travel along, has some grand old buildings, some were built in the early 1700s which are nice to see still standing.











I have to admit that I would have liked to have a look around the town a bit more, maybe go beside Clark Bank, by the side of St Edwards Church yet sadly EJ was too tired so maybe next week it will be a time for adventure with both EJ and Dec.

I'd like to go and visit St Edwards the Confessor to see the Saxon crosses, ancient and yet still standing in the church yard and near the vicarage.

Returning home, I have to say that by the time you get to the Birchall playing fields you can see this tower...





...it towers above the trees, and although I'm not sure as yet what part of the hospital it originally was, it has now been formed into a home? Yes it is actually a home to somebody now! Redrow builders have constructed/renovated buildings all around this including renovating the old hospital site which must be a listed building so they cannot disrupt most of the original work there.