Barnbow

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Fri 23 Mar, 2007 10:37 pm

Fascinating stuff on here!As a kid in the 80's I can remember cycling to Barnbow to watch the tanks on the test track through the chain link fence.If you go down Austhorpe Road (where it turns through 90 degrees near the Manston pub and old tram terminus), before you get to the railway bridge there are still the old gates, complete with guard posts either side of them still with machine gun slits in them! Sadly the machine guns are now long since gone, although I would have thought they'd have a very limited range of fire from that position...As for the closure of the "modern" Barnbow, the factory in the North East that it was decided to keep open instead just happened to be in the consituency of a certain Tony Blair

liits · Post by **liits** » Mon 26 Mar, 2007 7:13 pm

That gate was known as the "West Gate" and, until they put in a new gate near the test track, was where the completed vehicles were brought out of the factory. The bit of land in front of the Manston pub was only ever a bus terminus, and only ever for the busses laid on for the factory, it was never a tram terminus. Trams teminated at the top of Crossgates Rd, where the public toilets wereand, more recently, the memorial to the "Barnbow Lasses" killed at the WW1 shell filling factory. The piece of land was put up for auction by Leeds City Council and was sold [so I believe] for a few pounds to a "charming" gentleman who lived / lives at the end house on Austhorpe Rd. He would take great delight in tying bits of string across the gaps in the railings in the hope of preventing customers from the Manston parking their cars on his land when the pub car park was full. He was also a bit of a one for turning up in the pub at 10.25pm with his side-kick and ordering 6 pints of Guinness [this was before 11..00pm closing] and then proclaiming his rights, as he mistakenly understood them, when he was asked to "go home" after the, then, ten mminute drinking up time had elapsed. And he was rubbish at cricket.

bigpants · Post by **bigpants** » Wed 28 Mar, 2007 2:29 pm

Ive finally uploaded some of my pics form my recent roam around the old barnbow site.hopefully the link below will work!http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakedogsguns/

floodland · Post by **floodland** » Wed 28 Mar, 2007 2:30 pm

in 1998, when the closure of Vickers was announced, i did a two-week work experience placement at the Barnbow factory and got to see most of the complex for myself, inside and out. i don't know of anyone who had a better time on work experience than me! the main building housed the production line, which was 3/4 mile long, adjoining the largest open-plan office space you'll ever see - very impressive! behind this were sheds in which older vehicles were maintained, and a yard from which the army collected tanks from the production line. the testing area, where new tanks were put through their paces, can be seen from the train to York. not sure whether the grounds are still fenced off today?also, my girlfriend believes that her great-grandmother was one of those workers killed in an explosion there during WW1.

Post by **cnosni** » Fri 13 Apr, 2007 2:20 am

Phill_d wrote: Is it the strip of land running between Sandleas way & Chelsfield way? Phill you might be interested to know that the sidings on the Leeds/selby line are still referred to as Barnbow Sidings and appear in the signal box at York IECC as such,so enven though they are removed they are stil a valid "Railway location"

Post by **cnosni** » Fri 13 Apr, 2007 2:35 am

rikj wrote: I can see what you mean about those lines/tracks to the south, but I can't see where they would be heading. The land to the south of the Leeds/York line looks as if has always been agricultural.The old Leeds/Wetherby line is very visible on google earth and looks quite different to the remains south of the tanl factory. However, as you say, they do look remarlably like old railway lines. The curves are just what you would expect from a mainline.Intriguing! Rick the "Bumps in the field" between south of the railway line and Austhorpe Hall look a little too bumpy to have been agricultural, im not exactly sure as to what the nature of the topography is but i would hazard a guess at a bit of mining/quarrying.perhaps contacting the YAS at Claremont house in Leeds might provide the answer.do you know i think i will do just that.

Barwicker · Post by **Barwicker** » Fri 13 Apr, 2007 10:36 pm

Reading the comments above about earthworks to the south of the Crossgates to Garforth line opposite the old ROFactory prompted me to have a quick reread of Graham S Hudson's excellent book "The Aberford Railway and the History of the Garforth Collieries" published in 1971. He states quite categorically that there was a branch off the main line to the south which led to three separate pits, Adelaide, West Yorkshire & Brown Moor. Adelaide pit was roughly midway between the main line and Austhorpe Hall, West Yorkshire somewhere close to Austhorpe Primary School and Brown Moor is the site of the present Brown Moor Farm off Barrowby Lane. In 1971 there still existed most of the "waggonway" embankment from Brown Moor pit to the main line and at that time the farm occupied some of the pit buildings. There were also some remains of the West Yorkshire pit. I have no idea what remains today.The map in Mr Hudson's book also shows the railway lines around the WW1 Barnbow shell filling factory, the lines over the Wetherby branch to Crossgates pit (in the present Arndale Centre Car park!!) with its extension along what is now Church Lane to Sandbeds & Victoria pits close to the present Manston Church, and obviously given the book's title, the Aberford Railway.The now largely unoccupied former Vickers Factory, built on the site of the WW2 ROF Barnbow, apparently covers what was Manston Lodge Colliery.All of the Manston/Crossgates/Austhorpe pits were operated by the Waud family but some of the land was owned by John Wilson, the then squire of Seacroft. The "Wilson's Arms" is presumably named after him.

rikj · Post by **rikj** » Sat 14 Apr, 2007 12:03 am

Thanks for that barwicker. I've had that book out of the library but I think I'll have to take it out again now!That side of Leeds is just one big swiss cheese of old mines and workings. One thing that intrigued me from the book was the mention of an old drainage channel from the pits still emptying into Cock Beck. Will have to go and have a look.

wickedwitch · Post by **wickedwitch** » Sat 14 Apr, 2007 12:17 am

I worked there from 1985 to 1987 and was one of those made redundant a few months after Vickers Defence Systems bought it. I loved working there and was very sad to leave. I worked in the Design Centre which was the newest building on the site. I don't think I'm breaking the Official Secrets Act (which I've now signed twice) to say that nearly all the windows were opaqued to stop the secret new designs being stolen!I used to walk miles every week delivering files and documents from one end of the site to the other. The main admin block was very pre-war with lots of dark wood panelling and parquet floors. Very MOD!I used to work on Chieftain Post Design Services and for my other half's 40th birthday I paid for him to drive a Chieftain tank round a track in Devon. I felt quite emotional when I got close to her knowing I had worked for the team that developed her. I can seriously recommend the place if anyone is interested!! A Leeds built tank just waiting to be put through her paces.More amusingly, I do remember that one time when some gentlemen from the Middle East visited the site, as they often did, I and another female colleague where asked by one of the managers whether we would mind accompanying them to dinner and a club. When we expressed our reservations to the manager (as you would as a civil servant - and a Yorkshirewoman!) we were told 'there'll probably be a nice watch in it for you'. We both declined and to this day I'm still convinced he was absolutely serious!!

liits · Post by **liits** » Sat 14 Apr, 2007 2:34 pm

Two storis about coal mining on the ROF site. A friend on my fathers worked at Barnbow in 1940 prior to being called up [and again after he was demobbed, right up until he retired] He says that when he first went to work there the factory was still being built and where the "East Shop" was [the smallest of the three large workshops and the one closest towards where the test track eventualy was] coal was still being mined.When Vickers were building their tin shed and planning our redundancy, they put out a news sheet about how marvelously they were doing. One of the articles concerned how, when digging the foorings for the new steel work, mine wokrings had been discovered and they were having to in-fill the voids with thousands of tons of "fly-ash" to stop the whole thing sinking.I still have all the news sheets so may scan the relevant bits and put them here.