Penistone Street Views

Britain from Above
The 'Britain from Above' website hosts a large collection on a commercial basis of the old Aerofilms photographs from 1919 to 2006. They had been taken from light aeroplanes and covered the whole country as a valuable look into the development of our towns and cities. We can legally use their low-resolution pictures, with attribution, for non-commercial purposes such as on this website.

If we take a look at this 1952 view of Penistone here, taken from the south side of town, we can see that the prefabricated Airey houses had been newly-built at that time. They were made from concrete panels on steel supports and were cold and draughty (Airey in name and airy in nature). See how clean they look on the bottom-right. They had a limited designated lifespan of perhaps only fifteen years but which was very much extended.

The top row would be on Victoria Street and we can see that Lees Avenue had not yet been built north of there on the open ground. Incidentally, it is likely that Lees Avenue would be named after the Station master Mr James Lees, who retired from the MS & L Railway in 1912 and died in October 1914 (1915 Almanack). The street connecting Victoria Street with Ward Street and Unwin Street was Wilson Avenue, presumably named after ACJ Wilson JP. In the modern age, the lower part of Wilson Avenue to Unwin Street was removed and 'Weaver's Court' sheltered flats for old people is there now.

The large diamond-shaped area between Victoria Street and Ward Street can be seen to the right of what was then St Paul's Methodist chapel (now St Andrew's church) and would be built upon in 1966 by Penistone Library and a few private garages. It led into an area of allotments lower down the hill, which are visible here and still in use in 2024. You can see that there was no car park for the Town Hall, as there were not a lot of cars in 1952 and local people would walk anyway. Every day, young children would walk (unsupervised) all the way down to Spring Vale school from the houses in this picture. Everybody knew everybody else in those times and neighbours would step in and help if there were any problems. Neither did many people have private telephones but used the red public telephone boxes as required.

There were clusters of private garages dotted around Penistone in several locations, such as the ones by the Library, on land off Castle Lane, across the top of Lyttleton Crescent by the recreation area in Cubley (mostly gone by the new century), next to the PCFC football club and by the Bowling Club (still there). There might have been a few right at the top of Clarel Street next to the fields (now housing) and perhaps on Boggard Lane behind Park Avenue. They were all built by and rented from the local council but might have been later purchased or adopted by the car owners. Many garages were constructed with asbestos panels and roofing. Very few survive.

What the locals call 'Old Ward Street' used to be called 'Peverel' for some odd reason, perhaps from a house name. There was a tennis court on the bend near the top of Ward Street, with a row of poplar trees adjacent which are difficult to see on the above photo. In the 1960-70s, the tennis court was replaced by a small cluster of red bricked houses built by the local Cutts builders, as told by Jonathan Cutts who says that his father's business had built them.

Ward Street
The first picture below looks up at 'Old Ward Street' was taken from near the ginnel into Unwin Street. Old Ward Street used to terminate there with only the fields below until the new Airey housing estate arrived in the fifties. An old photograph on Facebook (Archive Group) names the area of the old stone-built houses as 'Peverel.' As remarked above, the large housing development of mostly Airey prefabricated and red-bricked houses was built on those fields to accommodate the post-war 'Baby Boomer' increase in population.

The next shot is from lower down on Ward Street, looking towards Old Ward Street in the distance. The red bricked houses on the left came with the Airey houses and had been council-owned until the 'Right-to-buy' was introduced in the 1980s. The houses on the right are social housing replacing the earlier 'Airey' council houses which had to be demolished. You can read up on the post-war housing at the University of West England (Section 5). In those days, nearly everyone rented their homes and usually from their local council. The homes were not described as 'Social housing' until much later. Just off Ward Street is mostly old people's bungalows built in the 1980s on Dransfield Avenue and Victoria Street.

The third picture is of the nearby Weaver's Court, which was built after 'Airey' houses and that part of Wilson Avenue were demolished. Weavers Court is classed as being on Unwin Street now. It is a quiet area with sheltered housing, retirement housing and supported housing for older people who might perhaps have medical conditions, with a central area for social activities. The fourth picture is the bottom part of Ward Street where it joins Green Road. Ward Street used to be a rat-run for cars going to and from David Brown's foundry just around the corner on Green Road. That ended with the demise of David Brown's but new hazards arrived on Green Road, in the form of trainee truck drivers based on the old DB site. The errant trucks often make unwanted adjustments to High Street car mirrors. New houses arrived next to Rose Hill but the fourth picture is from 2006, not long before they were built.

Green Road
Bottom left is Green Road, opposite the old David Brown's entrance and not far from Southgate and Westgate. Cubley Brook goes under Green Road near the junction with Ward Street on its way to the River Don at Spring Vale and this area has been prone to flooding in heavy rain. A particularly bad flood in the sixties saw the water rise half-way up the raised pathway on the left of the picture, to about where the roof of the parked car is. The 2007 floods did not rise quite as far. Usually the flooding was down to poor maintenance of gulleys and drains.

The sixth view above looks in the other direction, towards Waddie's Shop (now closed) on Castle Lane with the long red-brick wall of David Brown's, before it was demolished for more new houses. As a child, local sportsman Alan Beever used to kick a ball of Brown's wall all the way from Victoria Street to Spring Vale school in the morning and all the way back at the end of the school day. The red-brick wall was something of a landmark and had broken glass embedded in the top to deter anyone wishing to climb it. The white van is on Castle lane which leads towards Castle dam and Roughbirchworth.

Winnie's Chip Shop
Older locals will remember 'Winnie's Chipoyl' after the local character, Winnie Adams. Her fish and chip shop was just up Castle Lane from Green Road in a red-brick building on the right, now turned into a house. There were two old bench seats in the shop under the steamed-up window. Winnie was a very chatty person and well-known in the community. Her habit of biting a chip to see if it was cooked, then tossing it back in the pan, meant that any half-chips were avoided in the eating. Not that they were a health hazard given the high temperature of the cooking fat, which was probably lard. In Winnie's day, oil would have been unusual for a chip shop. The usual name for this sort of fast food outlet is a 'Chipoyl.'

Our district has always been well-served by chipoyls. There was on in Thurlstone nearly in the wall opposite the Crystal Palace but there is no evidence of it now. Also one on the main road by the Blacksmith's Arms (a pub which has now gone). Penistone had Winnie's on Castle Lane, Laundon's opposite Green Kleen's (now Penistone Fish and Chips), Rusby's at Bridge End (still there under a different name) and the town centre one which was Edric Foster's and is now Yates' chip shop (which cuts its chips on Church Street).

Winnie's chip shop had just two rooms. The door went into the left side and there was a storeroom on the right. The shop was very sparsely furnished with just a simple wooden bench for customers. On top of the fryer were the usual salt shaker, vinegar bottle and small wooden forks that you would find in every chip shop, possibly with a bottle of ketchup. Chip shops were often called Chippies and Chipoyls. Of course, in those days, the fish and chips were always wrapped up in white paper encased in a couple of sheets of newspaper.

Winnie's chipoyl lasted many decades before it changed hands to be run by two men, Geof Beard and another fellow. Then everyone called it Chippie Geoff's. That might have been in the 1970s and selling f & c in newspapers was beginning to be look unhygienic. Winnie's old, red-bricked chip shop was demolished perhaps in 2006 and a new and larger red-bricked house went up in its place.

The last two pictures above are of Barratt Homes built in 2007 on the site of the old Hitech X-Ray machine, which had been housed in a huge, square concrete building to protect people from the powerful X-Rays used to detect flaws in metal castings.

With new houses going up, this area is now called Saunderson Gardens (more like Kensington Gardens) which do not appear to have any gardens. Saunderson was of course the famous blind mathematician born in Thurlstone in 1682. He was a contemporary and friend of Sir Isaac Newton.

Towards Spring Vale
A little note about the 'Spring Vale' name; somebody has changed it to 'Springvale' without asking anyone! The change probably came from Barnsley council, which has some form in that respect by renaming the wrong part of the Town Hall building (Town Hall history). The new name was probably first seen on a sign for the Sheffield Road depot. An old and fading sign for 'Spring Vale Council Depot' was replaced when Barnsley took over local government in the mid-1970s. Then it appeared as Springvale and people copied it but that was not its old name. The problem is that BMBC often does stuff without consulting the local council, who know the locality much better. Spring Vale was the name on older maps, a Working Man's Club membership card and my school Report Book. There is evidence!

It is only in recent times that the old and descriptive name has been mostly side-lined but it has lost some charm in the process, like those German compound words. Looking at some local maps (including current on-line BMBC Planning Explorer maps) it is still shown as two words. See the BMBC cycling map (2020). As I usually gain some feeble pleasure from blaming Barnsley for most of our woes, they can own this one too. After all, BMBC makes all of the signage in the borough.

Carry on along Green Road and, just before you turn a corner, you will see a shop of some sort on the right, across from the new houses. This was Waddington's shop and known to one and all as 'Waddie's shop' for general goods. It was well-known for a Victoria Reign 'VR' post box buit into the wall, as shown here. Waddie's (Waddington's really) had been a fixture of Green Road which one might think would last forever but it closed as a general shop some time in the 'noughties' to become an industrial shop of some sort.

As you turn the corner, there is a row of stone terraced houses on the left, the first of which had been Singleton's sweet shop in the 1950s. As you drop down a hill, you will see a pathway on the left which leads to the Trans-Pennine Trail. It also leads to tow disused features of the old railway: 1 What was a railway turntable and 2. A tank ramp. The turntable was used to swing around locomotives to face the opposite way and the tank ramp was used during the Second World War to load or offload tanks from/to the railway. The tanks were taken to Scout Dyke which had an army camp populated by US soldiers, many of whom were dark-skinned. Penistone people at the time were quite unused to the visitors such as these, but they were welcomed in.

Continue down the hill and you come upon another railway bridge. The Woodhead Line railway was from Manchester Piccadily to Sheffield Victoria stations. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a wonderful and sulphurous smell of steam engines in the air. There was an actual working gas lamp on the bridge's inner wall, with its ticking eight-day clockwork timer that someone would have to wind up once a week. It was probably the last gas lamp left in Penistone and the only one I ever saw in active service.

It was a popular route for schoolies going to and from Spring Vale School at the start and end of the school day. Schoolchildren nearly always walked to school in those days and they would not normally be accompanied by any adults. Roads were much quieter and safer then. If a child was a bit late setting off, they might sometimes catch a Tracky bus (Yorkshire Traction red buses). The bridge now has traffic lights but not in this 2004 picture.

Top-right picture is the view down Green Road to Sheffield Road junction from just after the bridge. This row of houses was nicknamed 'Birdcage Walk' and known to every local person by that name. Cage-like railings used to adorn each house's entrance but most have been removed now. From the same viewpoint but looking left is a large, new housing estate (bottom-left) with the sort of name beloved by developers, 'Green Acres'. Plans for these 47 houses on the old Cammel-Laird site were passed by Barnsley MB Council in 1999, with the houses being built soon after.

Spring Vale WMC
The last picture in this block is a rather sad view of the old, deserted and dilapidated Working Men's Club building as it looked in 2004. This was the Penistone and District Working Men's Club and Institute' and known universally as 'The Club.' It became registered as a business on 10th May 1923 (FCA) and the club building opened on Saturday, 17th January 1925. The building would last until the new Woodhead tunnel was completed in the early 1950s, when fate would conspire to make a better building available.

A wooden building which had been built as a cinema for the Woodhead tunnel 'navvies' (workmen) was no longer required. There had been quite a collection of huts for the workmen located near Woodhead but they became redundant upon the tunnel being completed in the early 1950s. The new club building was painted green and served its purpose until the wood had become rotten, as it was not really made to last. The building ended its days and had to be demolished and replaced around 1958.

The replacement, purpose-built club building was spacious and had a movable divider down the middle, with a dance hall and stage on the left side and a games room on the right with much more seating. The concertina-style divider could be opened up to make one large room, as needed. It was a thriving and popular institution in the area, with comfortable seating, regular entertainment and ample car parking. Its dance nights were legendary in the area and it had popular 'turn' nights. Towards the end, it perked up with such as Line Dancing, which went through a popular phase, and even aerobics classes.

The Penistone WMC club trips to the seaside were legendary in the area and could could fill eight railway coaches on chartered seaside trips. The train was almost too long for Penistone Station. Children were always given free pop and crisps for the trips. The follow-on for Club Trip would later be provided by Penistone Royal British Legion (and still continues), as the natural successor to the WMC.

Unfortunately, whether through mismanagement (as often suggested) or perhaps through the tighter drink-driving laws, the club went into decline and closed some time in the 1990s. The building was then boarded up, abandoned and a depressing sight until it was demolished in 2005. Part of the new junior school is now on the site. See my Spring Vale reminiscences page.

Green Road Development
With the relentless expansion of house-building in Penistone, some old familiar views have gone forever. One of these was David Brown's red-brick wall that ran along much of Green Road. A hole was knocked into it in 2007 and then most of the wall was demolished in 2009, with the factory behind revealed to the world. New houses sprang up, such as the 'Kensington Gardens' area and red-bricked houses opposite Waddies' shop.

Ex-pats and older Penistonians might be unsettled at how the landscape changed. The old wall was a special feature of Green Road that a good many Spring Vale alumni will remember, as it had stood the same for many decades. One local sportsman remembers kicking a football all along the wall every morning on his way to school and all the way home. New buildings went up in what is now called Fairfield Business Park (Reg Company 13147667) where a variety of businesses have moved in, including my old friends at Eskia Computers, although these are industrial units and not open to the public.