Burley Village

[chomic]

As a child I would often play in the village, my memory suggests that parts of the buildings were definitely intact and we would collect tailor's chalk and other stuff that had just been left there.'Jock' Tracey cut me and my brothers' hair for years too!

[Bramley4woods]

chomic wrote: As a child I would often play in the village, my memory suggests that parts of the buildings were definitely intact and we would collect tailor's chalk and other stuff that had just been left there.'Jock' Tracey cut me and my brothers' hair for years too! Well, there's a thing. Your custom paid for our wedding !And here's another, oddly enough my late father worked as a tailor at Price's / John Colliers and used the 77 bus to / from Bramley walking up Haddon Place to the stop in Burley, which from what I've been told was close to the Barbers Shop. He did that from 1938 'till CA 1968. But never knew father in law until we got engaged.I think tailors chalk must have been on free issue in Price's 'cos there was no shortage in our house. Mum worked in Yates's mill and had access to cheap offcuts of gents suitings at the "Fent Sale". I've Still got some but they aren't exactly fashionable nowadays (being 35 years old) and would cost about 300 quid to "Cut, Make, and Trim". I saw cheap imported gents suits on sale in Leeds last week at £15 a pop. One wonders if all this ultra-cheap manufacturing is sustainable. Or if it's our way of life that cannot be sustained. It's one or t'other. Anyway, we were quite poor but be we all had hand stitched suits etc ! I'd guess if tailor's chalk was scattered about Burley village the local kids probably got it from mum or dad who worked at Price's.

[chomic]

Bramley4woods wrote: chomic wrote: As a child I would often play in the village, my memory suggests that parts of the buildings were definitely intact and we would collect tailor's chalk and other stuff that had just been left there.'Jock' Tracey cut me and my brothers' hair for years too! Well, there's a thing. Your custom paid for our wedding !And here's another, oddly enough my late father worked as a tailor at Price's / John Colliers and used the 77 bus to / from Bramley walking up Haddon Place to the stop in Burley, which from what I've been told was close to the Barbers Shop. He did that from 1938 'till CA 1968. But never knew father in law until we got engaged.I think tailors chalk must have been on free issue in Price's 'cos there was no shortage in our house. Mum worked in Yates's mill and had access to cheap offcuts of gents suitings at the "Fent Sale". I've Still got some but they aren't exactly fashionable nowadays (being 35 years old) and would cost about 300 quid to "Cut, Make, and Trim". I saw cheap imported gents suits on sale in Leeds last week at £15 a pop. One wonders if all this ultra-cheap manufacturing is sustainable. Or if it's our way of life that cannot be sustained. It's one or t'other. Anyway, we were quite poor but be we all had hand stitched suits etc ! I'd guess if tailor's chalk was scattered about Burley village the local kids probably got it from mum or dad who worked at Price's.

[chomic]

Oops! Anyway, my father was also the pools man for the Norwoods and Broomfields, so we saw Jock outside the barbers too. If his score-draws had come up you could've had a better wedding than my haircuts ever paid for!

[Bramley4woods]

chomic wrote: Oops! Anyway, my father was also the pools man for the Norwoods and Broomfields, so we saw Jock outside the barbers too. If his score-draws had come up you could've had a better wedding than my haircuts ever paid for! Oh yeah ?It was at the Parkway with Rolls Royces in 1972.After he passed away my wife who is a company secretary inherited his accounts.All I can say is many a mickle mak's a muckle.

[chomic]

The building on Cardigan Lane that housed his later shop has also gone now. Had my father had the accumen of Jock Tracey I'm sure he wouldn't have been out collecting pools money any road!

[stevief]

Bramley4woods wrote: itsmehere wrote: I can remember about 1958-59 on my way home from "Burley National" (Burley St Mathias) School. Walking through some of the streets of Burley Village. I recall especially a Barbers Shop. How come the council was allowed to cover over this village and as a result part of our heritage and history? I have a book which relates to Burley and its history if anyone is interested. Also does anyone recall Burley Park and the little Day Nursery there? The Barber's shop belonged to my late father in law, "Jock the Barber" . who came down from Glasgow in 1949 and worked in Panther's Ladies and Gents hairdressers on the Headrow. Some time in the mid '50s he moved into a shop of his own in Burley Village. He remained in there until the council demolished it when he moved to an old Doctor's surgery on Cardigan Lane. He always reckoned the new shop was never as good as "That first wee shop in the village".By chance his son worked in the Council and his job was compulsory purchase of properties for demolition for road widening so was familiar with the state of old buildings and valuing them etc.Just recently I discussed with him the state of the houses in Burley Village, (he was familiar with them because of his dad's shop), he said that whilst many sound houses and shops were demolished during the slum clearances, Burley Village was not in that category. they couldn't be made habitable because of their condition.Seeing the state of some of them on the Leodis site I couldn't challenge that.Having said that - a whole village, no buildings repaired, no buildings replaced just eliminated en-mass. My guess is that the geography and the presence of the old cellars would have made it expensive to re-build. Don't forget that in any case the Council were into high rise flats at that time.I'm sure if the same thing was to happen now the land would be sold to a developer and there'd be high density houses and apartments, or "Student Accomodation" (Oops hush my lips lets not give them ideas) on there before you could say "John Prescott". This was originally 'Jocks' on Cardigan Lane,I can remember it from childhood.Still a barbers today.    

[Bramley4woods]

chomic wrote: The building on Cardigan Lane that housed his later shop has also gone now. Had my father had the accumen of Jock Tracey I'm sure he wouldn't have been out collecting pools money any road! We didn't know it had gone and will investigate 8-|, it's a pity when I knew it the structure of the building was quite sound. It must have been fairly recent, say in the last 8 weeks, though time flies. If we'd known it was to be demolished we'd have gone and rescued his "Burler" (Glaswegian for rotating illuminated Barber's Pole).The house was, from what I remember, 3 storeys high from pavement level, plus cellars which were exposed at the back. It was on a large wide site but on the right hand side of the house the ground fell away precipitously behind a fence/hoarding to a depth of 40 (?) feet from pavement level and was heavily overgrown, even having mature trees down there below street level. The buildings over the back had a window below pavement level which might also have been a problem.He tried more than once to get planning permission to build a pair of semis on the land at the side, there was more than enough room, but had been refused because a main drain went under the site. If it has now been demolished then it will be interesting to see how the site developers propose to deal with that issue, The Council made no proposals as to what might be acceptable to them to us. At the time he would have wanted to keep the shop trading so probably didn't consider a solution that involved demolishing it. This serves to highlight the difficulty (& therefore cost) of building and rebuilding in Burley Village, given the geography.It will be a bit galling if a big company comes along and builds yet more soddin' "Bijou Studio Apartments" on the site. Let's see 12 (6 front, 6 back) apartments on each of 3 floors = 36 x £160k ...

[bitvacuous]

big_rob2004 wrote: Any info that anyone can provide would help my grandad and myself from scratching our heads. 3 years ago I borrowed a couple of local history books about the old burley village from headingley library - one was a walk about the old village and the other was more about the Alphabet streets (where the Willows and YTV are now) if I remember correctly. I expect they are still there...

[chomic]

Bramley4woods wrote: chomic wrote: The building on Cardigan Lane that housed his later shop has also gone now. Had my father had the accumen of Jock Tracey I'm sure he wouldn't have been out collecting pools money any road! We didn't know it had gone and will investigate 8-|, it's a pity when I knew it the structure of the building was quite sound. It must have been fairly recent, say in the last 8 weeks, though time flies. If we'd known it was to be demolished we'd have gone and rescued his "Burler" (Glaswegian for rotating illuminated Barber's Pole).The house was, from what I remember, 3 storeys high from pavement level, plus cellars which were exposed at the back. It was on a large wide site but on the right hand side of the house the ground fell away precipitously behind a fence/hoarding to a depth of 40 (?) feet from pavement level and was heavily overgrown, even having mature trees down there below street level. The buildings over the back had a window below pavement level which might also have been a problem.He tried more than once to get planning permission to build a pair of semis on the land at the side, there was more than enough room, but had been refused because a main drain went under the site. If it has now been demolished then it will be interesting to see how the site developers propose to deal with that issue, The Council made no proposals as to what might be acceptable to them to us. At the time he would have wanted to keep the shop trading so probably didn't consider a solution that involved demolishing it. This serves to highlight the difficulty (& therefore cost) of building and rebuilding in Burley Village, given the geography.It will be a bit galling if a big company comes along and builds yet more soddin' "Bijou Studio Apartments" on the site. Let's see 12 (6 front, 6 back) apartments on each of 3 floors = 36 x £160k ...It is still there. I was told it had gone but checked on Friday.