IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Crookes, SHEFFIELD, S10 1TF

The road leads from Crookes, at the top of the hill, on down to Crookesmoor. Nothing has changed much here in the last 60 years. It was my regular route down to the school on Western Road and it was a great sledging run many years ago, when there were very few cars about. For a long time, I lived at the top of here, but across the other side of the main road.

The red brick building at the corner is The Punch Bowl, public house. Across the main road is F.A.B.L.E., a charity shop, which used to be The Sheffield Savings Bank, 239 Crookes. Above the bank was a nine-roomed flat. The central skylight is where my bedroom was and beneath it the master bedroom. To the left was the front room, which had views of the Park Hill flats, some distance away. We actually watched them being built, bit by bit, but it took some time to figure out where they were.

Now a charity shop, but years ago, my parents and my brother and I lived above this former bank. Part of the agreement for living in the flat meant the occupants become caretakers of the bank and as result of that, someone had to clean it; wash the floor behind the counter, dust all the furniture, polish the brasses and the pewter inkwells and do whatever was necessary to clean the lino floor on the staff side of the counter, and also clean the windows. The weather made a big difference to the work involved. There was also the staff toilet to clean and the pots to wash, but not in that order. Basically, the bank was one large room with an internal entrance porch and chunk taken out of the far left corner for the staff room. The entrance doorway was central, with two large windows either side. The double–doors led into an internal porch with a door at 90º to the left and right. The lower half was wood–panelled and the upper half was glazed with obscure glass. Facing the porch was a full–width counter with flip–tops at either end for the staff and a small screened off privacy section. The customer side was lino tiled and it took plenty of Vim and elbow grease to clean them. To the far right of the bank stood two large safes. Ahead was a door to the exit and staff toilet. Between the door and the staffroom was a barred window with obscure glass. The staffroom wall that faced the counter had a large desk up against it. The returning wall had a built–in cupboard to the left, which contained the ledgers. The staffroom door was to the right of this. Between the far wall and the counter was a huge desk and a supporting pillar. The small staffroom had table, chairs, odds and ends and an entrance door to the cellar and a matching barred window. There was also a low metal box, but I don’t know what it was used for. It may have been another safe. Through the door to the cellar, the steps led to the left. To the right was storage space for mop, bucket and other cleaning items and was underneath the stairway to the flat above. The rear entrance/exit and toilet was in a part of the building that extended from the main building. The left-hand window of the flat belongs to the lounge, the other, the front bedroom. To the left is a Pizza Shop, to the right is a Beauty Salon. To the left of the block - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1226951 to the right - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232146 The pub opposite - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232455 and the road opposite - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232278

This view has changed very little in the last 60–plus–years. It’s a bit more colourful and there’s a bit more street furniture, the pub chimneys have gone and so have the tram tracks. Many of the shops have been re–opened as something else, although as far back as 1925 there was a chip shop here, but yes, it still looks pretty much the same. I stood on this very spot in the snow about 40–years–ago, to take a photograph of Crookes at night and within seconds of setting the tripod up, was stopped by a passing policeman who asked what I was doing. I think he thought I was a little ‘off my head’ and quickly went on his way. To the right is Bolehill Lane, to the left is Springvale Road.

At the age of seven, way back in 1949, when I lived here above the former Sheffield Savings Bank http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232062 this was a little known, but World Class cricket ground. From 1949 to the early ‘50s, many test matches were played here and many a sixer was belted out of the boundary only to fall foul of the dreaded tramcar wheels on the main road. The wickets were scrawled in chalk on the right–hand corner of the then garage. It can be seen here though that the garage doors have been removed and the garage turned into an outbuilding. Remarkably, only one window was ever broken and that was due to substituting the rubber ball for a golf ball. I dread to think what the result would have been if it had connected with the bowler’s head. Back then, the ground seemed so big and it was certainly in better condition. There were no Wheelie bins, only a bin for the waste bits of meat from Peat’s butchers shop. At times there was a bit of a hum from the bin, but on cold days it wasn’t too bad. The corrugated sheeting of the add–on was painted black back then and the building was a handy leg–up when the ball got lodged in the guttering. Similarly, an outside toilet that was to the right and at the back of the fence was useful for access to the upstairs kitchen window when I came home from school and no one was in.

A block of shops that contains the former Sheffield Savings Bank and nine-roomed flat where I used to live with my parents many years ago. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1226951 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232062 Previously to that we lived in a house up this road to the right - 56 Bolehill Lane, which has since been demolished. I saw the winter of '47 in that house, when the snow drifted above the height of the back door. As a family, we didn't live on a diet of fish & chips, but many's the time I've been in this chip shop.

The infield of this famous cricket ground was the yard. The outfield was anywhere out the yard, especially over the rooftops. The boundary was the tram tracks. The wickets, now faded away, were chalk marks once drawn on the brickwork to the right of this former garage. The match was declared over at teatime, dark or when a tram cut the ball in half. If the latter happened early on, the game reverted to hide & seek, marbles, or tig. For a wider view of the ground http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1234094#form

This block of shops, at the corner of Crookes and Toftwood Road, once incorporated a bank and it was there as far back as 1925, at least. At 239 Crookes, where F.A.B.L.E. is now, there used to be the Sheffield Savings Bank, with a nine–roomed flat overlooking Springvale Road. In later years, the flat was numbered as 239A. When I lived in the flat with my parents and brother, the corner shop at 235 was Peat’s, Butchers Shop, run by Jack, Ron and his wife Betty. Oddly, the 1965 Kelly’s Directory does not list the shop at all. The frontage was faced with cream and black glass tiles, very similar to the livery worn by the old tramcars. In drab dark green, was Melias, Grocers Shop at 237, which later became Joe Winter & Son, Plumber and Building Contractor. Then came the varnished Sheffield Savings Bank, followed in white by Hancock’s, Confectioners, but when we moved here in 1949 it may have belonged to someone else. Back in 1925 it was owned by John Steven Abbey, so it may have been back then. The next four shops were Mountain, Baker’s Shop – Priestley, Fishmonger – then came a Food Specialists Shop, which was another shop belonging to Peat’s, and then not surprisingly with a fishmonger nearby, was Haines, Fish and Chip Shop at 249. We used to get three penneth (3d) of chips with scraps on and a fish. The scraps were small pieces of batter, scooped out of the hot fat and put one side for those that wanted them and if you wanted to take them home to eat, they would wrap them in a few layers of newspaper. The shops are now, from left to right, A & K, Butcher’s Shop – Pisa Pizza, Burger, Kebab and Pizza Shop – F.A.B.L.E., Charity Shop – The Cutting Edge, Hair & Beauty Salon – Saxton Mee, Estate Agents – Bolehill Fisheries, Fish & Chip Shop. The whole block of shops have back yards, but are divided at 239 by a high wall. This drawing, http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/escafeld01/DSCF2001f.jpg which is mine, and I retain the copyright; shows the block as it was back in 1968.

The pub stands at the corner of Crookes and Springvale Road. In the years that I remember it, there was a snooker room to the right of the building. A doorway facing Springvale Road led to an off-sales where customers would go and buy cigarettes, bottled drinks or even take a jug and get it filled with beer. A toothless old grandma would walk down Toftwood Road, come Sunday, resplendent in beret, with strands of wispy grey hair splaying out. She always had on a long oversized coat, with one arm tucked away inside. The returning walk would be painfully slow to avoid spilling the beer and exposing the disguise. Very occasionally her daughter would take her place and mimic the ritual. She never wore a beret, but a scarf over hair curlers and always had a cigarette drooping out of the corner of her mouth. The publican's name was Lawrence 'Lol' Wright. He was a big chap, some say ex-boxer and he was always very pleasant. There was hardly ever trouble in the pub, but one day a guy did start throwing snooker balls about. I see some of the windows are boarded up and that's what reminded me of the incident. The small building to the right is a bookies and is built on land that was vacant for years. It may have been a bombsite, but I've never heard anything to confirm that.

The rear entrance to the properties 235-239 Crookes. Unusually, the houses on Toftwood Road, at left, start at number six. The two houses in the distance are on Bolehill Lane.