Church Street
This street was here long before Shrewsbury Road became the main road, on the other side of the churchyard. The first view is from about halfway down the hill with the churchyard wall on the left and the green doors of Don Press/Woods Printers to the right. The far building houses HSBC Bank, Robinson's news and Dransfield's solicitors. Dransfield's is very well established and goes back well into the nineteenth century. To its right is Cockpit Lane, a short lane which leads to the former site of a cock fighting pit and an 'eighteen foot wide' access road to the printers and a row of houses. Just above the Don Press is Hacket's flower shop.
Just to the right off the picture is the entrance to the community centre car park and leads us to the next picture, the National School, with its pointy double-glazed windows. After being a night-time gathering place for pharmaceutically minded youths, this building fell into disrepair with damaged windows and roof. It has been radically repaired and extended in 2009 for the 'Busy Bees'. It was a big and expensive project which transformed it into a modern building with good facilities and with a proper outside play area.
The stone on the old school looks out to Church Street and reads 'Female National School - Endowed by Mr. Joseph Camm of Beverley A.D. MDCCCXXII'. It adds up like this - 1000(M) + 500(D) + 300(CCC) + 20(XX) + 2(II) = 1822
The last shot looks down this very old street (the only one-way street in the area) on an autumnal evening, complete with fallen leaves from the churchyard. These houses have changed little over more than a century. The bottom end joins Shrewsbury Road, near Dolphin chip shop and Green Clean's. My spy says that someone tries to come up the hill about once a week and a few liberties are taken from Cockpit Lane. The modern sat-nav age regularly sends large trucks down Church St., in spite of a sign at the top which says 'unsuitable for HGVs'.
