Anybody fancy some investigating?

jojo · Post by **jojo** » Thu 10 May, 2007 2:23 am

hiok i wasn't sure about ladybeck. i pass there each week ill take alook myself. doubt ill smell any cocoa tho lolid put a pic on but it wont let me, errrrr. in a few yrs it will all be gone anyway.

TomD · Post by **TomD** » Thu 10 May, 2007 12:53 pm

i was chatting to my grandad about this the other day. He seems to think that on or near that site there was a workhouse, and remembers kids walking the streets with black hands and feet, wearing only pants and vests... summons up a kind of Dickensian Hard Times image to me...If he is right, I wonder why there was a tunnel there.

mourning_belle · Post by **mourning_belle** » Thu 10 May, 2007 7:18 pm

i thought the cocoa works was the biiiiiig building still there with 'lyons' emblazened across the top (it has a china 'town' in it now...) but i could be wrong it looks like a cellar to me, its rightly placed for it and all!

simon2710 · Post by **simon2710** » Sat 12 May, 2007 3:35 pm

The first picture in your first post in this thread looks to me as if it's just a wall with nothing behind it. When you were there is there actually anything behind it that you could see of?It seems to me as if it is too small for people to walk under so it may have been there to allow water through and people to walk above?Mind you, people were ten times smaller those days lol!

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Sun 13 May, 2007 3:34 pm

You aint seen the size of some tunnels Simon. This one is positevely huge compared to some!!!

mourning_belle · Post by **mourning_belle** » Mon 14 May, 2007 1:55 am

simon2710 wrote: The first picture in your first post in this thread looks to me as if it's just a wall with nothing behind it. When you were there is there actually anything behind it that you could see of?It seems to me as if it is too small for people to walk under so it may have been there to allow water through and people to walk above?Mind you, people were ten times smaller those days lol! behind the wall the ground is level with the top of the wall, its a car park. You can see building foundations on the ground but other than that there is little else to see.

Barwicker · Post by **Barwicker** » Fri 18 May, 2007 9:10 pm

A couple of points about this thread1 It is close to the old WEST YORKSHIRE Bus station, not West Riding.2 There was a sweet and chocolate manufacturer very close to this site certainly up to the 1960s I believe it was called Henry Thorne. They made Thorne's Butter Dainties.

clydehouse · Post by **clydehouse** » Thu 23 Aug, 2007 7:12 pm

You are referring to the cellars of the former Henry Thorne & Co. Ltd, Cocoa Works on Lady Lane. Founded in 1837, Thornes moved to Lady Lane in 1889 - described then as "a new factory of solid and substantial appearance, having a floor space of 5,000 square feet, with lofty well-lighted workrooms… This new mill was devoted to the production of Confectionery, and, in addition, there was a smithy, joiners and mechanics' shop, a cooperage and spacious office accomodation." The factory started where you photographed the bricked up archway, then spread to fill the whole block that is now derelict ground used as NCP car parking. From the plans the arch must be part of the 1889 building. The company closed in 1971, when the factory was demolished. There are several pictures of the works on Leodis - just search for "Thornes".