SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Phill the sidings you mention were built i think to service the leeds steel works that existed there before the war, later replaced (1948-49) by a steel stockholders owned by Leeds Utd chairman Harry Reynolds who my old man worked for; for forty odd years.The bridge near the Rex cinema mentioned by Tyke Bhoy carried,I believe the great northern railway line which ran as far as the container base at Stourton , I remember the original railway bridge,now the motorway bridge crossing Belle Ilse road, and walking along the disused track bed from the Rex to Stourton as a kid (a great adventure for a ten year old and his pals!) and thinking we had walked across five continents!!

Thats my mystery sidings near Leak street flats you mean Tabby? They've bugged me for years now. I have a 1980's pic of the area & sidings around Hunslet down yard i'll post tommorow. You can fill in some more gen for me if you can. Cheers

This thread results from a discussion started on thishttp://www.secretleeds.com/forum/messages.aspx ... D=228Maybe one of the administrators could move this to the more appropriate transport section of the forum.The round structure which presumably housed the workings of the swing bridge shown in that thread appears to be still in existtence on the southern side of the canal and river and visible on google earth at53 degrees 46 minutes north and 33 seconds north1degree 30minutes 42 seconds west

As requested...

Phill hope this helps the sidings as was http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL

Great find there Tabby cat. Wow that looks some extensive piece of railway sidings. I can't quite get my bearings as to which side of Hunslet it is. Can you mark a google image do you think?

Thanks for the kind words Phill, if you look at the picture that you posted Leeds steelworks occupied the site that you ringed yourself at the bottom. which is occupied there by the steel stockholders known over the years as H.L Reynolds ,Miles Druce,GKNsteelstock,Walkersteel etc.it also covered the cold storage depot to the right of that shot. the photo of the old works was taken , judging by the angle ,I think from the bridge at the bottom of Belle Isle rd/ start of Balm rd. Sorry I cant google earth because as far as the web is concerned, I am terminaly thick!!! I thought google earth was something you grew radishes in!!! (oh dear)             regards tabbycat

Don't knock yourself Tabby. I'm sure you would be totally p.c literate if you put your mind to it mate. Ok i've ringed this area were i think the above picture is taken from? Is it right? It looks far more extensive than i imagined. There was also a line branched away where i've marked the dotted line. On the maps i have it's listed as 'government cold storage' whatever that means.

Phill, have you considered obtaining historic aerial photos from the national archives in Swindon to help solve this mystery? They cover a wide range of dates from WW2 up to more recent times. Although getting proper prints is quite expensive, they can photocopy extracts for you for a low price and post them up to you if you provide co-ordinates (oblique and vertical pics are available). If you go down to Swindon you can photocopy them yourself which is even cheaper. I've used them a few times at work where we've needed to know about the past history of a site (to assess potential land contamination issues), and they're very informative, even as black and white photocopies. Hopefully one day they will all be online in a google-earth type viewer, overlain on modern aerial pictures.More details are available here:http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/uplo ... erview.pdf

Spot on Phill thats the area and also all the way right as far as Pepper rd (some 25 acres in total!!) I spoke to my dad about this and he told me that when they laid the foundations and dug the footings for H.L Reynolds in 1948, great voids would suddenly open up in the ground and they would spend weeks removing slag clinker rubble and bits of old funaces that had been buried there!! The Government cold storage is where the common market "butter mountains" or in our language, produce that was grown/made over EEC quotas is stored. (or at least it was). They were supposed to be secret i am reliably informed. You may recall some years ago free butter being handed out to Leeds pensioners.This is, I believe, where it came from.