Desmond Jackson 2013
I did not come to live here until 1967 but had known the area before then. I was the Youth Clb leader at Long Lee for about 4 years from 1946. Before then I was in the Home Guard and we used the rifle range and at the other end of Kendal Street there was a building which looked like an air raid shelter but was a place where the H.G. and various army units stationed in Keighley learned about decontamination in case of gas attack and it could be filled with thick smoke so that you could get used to wearing a gas a mask. The police also used these facilities.
In Park Lane, what is now Parkwood Rise, there was a street called Brick Street and this went up to the clay pits where the material for making bricks came from In the 1960s my son was metal detecting in the wood in that area and came upon a number of clay pipes, used for smoking which would indicate that there was also white clay as well as red. He also found an ammonite this could have been there from when the ice age melted.
The area in Park Lane in front of the Flats the green mound was an area filled with back to back houses. If you can ever get chance to see the film Room at the Top this area was used in part of the film, it can be recognised in a scene where a man is leading a donkey and cart up the hill.
Where Fosters furniture store is now the buildings which had been part of the brick works was a tripe dressers and during the war they also produced Neats Foot Oil which was used for softening leather. (A neat is a calf) and where the substation is there was a Methodist Chapel.
The gas lamps were there in the 1940s. In the 1970s there were new electric lights installed there is still the remains of one as you enter the wood from Thwaites Brow.
In Park Lane, what is now Parkwood Rise, there was a street called Brick Street and this went up to the clay pits where the material for making bricks came from In the 1960s my son was metal detecting in the wood in that area and came upon a number of clay pipes, used for smoking which would indicate that there was also white clay as well as red. He also found an ammonite this could have been there from when the ice age melted.
The area in Park Lane in front of the Flats the green mound was an area filled with back to back houses. If you can ever get chance to see the film Room at the Top this area was used in part of the film, it can be recognised in a scene where a man is leading a donkey and cart up the hill.
Where Fosters furniture store is now the buildings which had been part of the brick works was a tripe dressers and during the war they also produced Neats Foot Oil which was used for softening leather. (A neat is a calf) and where the substation is there was a Methodist Chapel.
The gas lamps were there in the 1940s. In the 1970s there were new electric lights installed there is still the remains of one as you enter the wood from Thwaites Brow.
