IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Crookes, SHEFFIELD, S10 1TH

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.

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.

The road is viewed from outside the former Sheffield Savings Bank and nine-roomed flat where I used to live with my parents many years ago and it leads down to my former school http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1206782 Part way down the road is the former Crookes Congregational Church, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1175483 which can be seen to the left, beyond is the city. This same view could be had from the front room and bedroom of the flat http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232062

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.

Carrack's - Paint Merchants, at the corner of Stothard Road. They've been here for years. Fifty at least.

These two shops are on what is the start of Northfield Road. The road drops down from Crookes to Walkley. The Horse & Rider is a former Co-op.

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

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.