Nostalgia with Margaret Watson: Stories and old photos bring back happy memories of the Dewsbury we once knew

Margaret Watson writes: Many of us, not all I might add, look at photographs of the places they knew in childhood, and they feel a longing to return to them once more.

Whenever I show an old photograph of places now changed beyond all recognition, I always get a strong response from readers.

Some of them can remember every detail of the places where they lived and can even tell you how many steps into the house, how many up into the bedroom and down into the cellar.

They remember the steps outside their house which they sat upon, especially on long summer evenings to cool down.

Perhaps their memories are so vivid because people didn’t move house very often in those days.

And, when they did, it was usually just across the road into a house identical to theirs, and they were still among old neighbours.

Why they ever bothered moving, I don’t know.

But I guess it might have been that the new house was better decorated or was in a better state of repair.

Or in my mother’s case they might have had an inner door which shut the downstairs room off from the outside world, and prevented nosey parkers peeping in.

They certainly didn’t move to get a better view or a bit more privacy.

Because the houses in most streets of this kind were identical to the ones facing theirs.

That was street life I suppose, which is why most people who lived in slum clearance areas didn’t know what to do with their gardens when they were eventually rehoused.

Recently I wrote about Park Street in Crackenedge and how the cobbled street and pavement had been ripped up and replaced with Tarmacadam.

Not a lot of demolition took place in Crackenedge at that time and only two houses in Park Street were pulled down.

There was another house in Crackenedge which I showed some years ago in this column because I didn’t know where it was exactly.

It was the ivy clad house pictured above, standing on its own and looking quite majestic, I think.

There were many large houses like this in Dewsbury which were within a few hundred yards of the town centre.

There were quite a number on The Eightlands, and, of course, in places like Springfield Terrace, off Halifax Road, which I have mentioned before.

Undoubtedly, the owners wanted to be as near as possible to the factories and business they owned.

In the case of Sir Mark Oldroyd, who lived on Springfield Terrace, he wanted to be in walking distance of his mill – Mark Oldroyd’s – just across the road.

Or in the case of the Austin family who also lived on Springfield Terrace in a large mansion called “Austin Friars”.

The man who lived there, James Austin, wanted to live near one of his earlier steel factories which was just across the road at the bottom of Victoria Road.

In the case of the house above, it was the home of a family who owned a florist business just down the road in the Covered Market.

When I first looked at this picture, there was no identification on it except that it had been taken in Dewsbury.

There was no landmark to help me, so the house could have been anywhere, which left me reaching out to readers for help.

I was very fortunate that one reader was not only able to identify it as being on Caulms Wood Road, but also something about the surrounding area.

The reader was Mr Richard Middleton, who was able to give me a detailed description of the house which was called “Caulmswood House”.

It was situated at the top of Park Street and had been occupied for many years by the Hardisty family, who were florists for many years in Dewsbury.

Richard kindly offered to write down everything he knew about the house and that part of Crackenedge, and the following is what he wrote:

“It was occupied for many years, up to 1973 by my mother-in-law – Vera Hardisty - of Hardisty’s florists in the Covered Market.

“I married Vera’s daughter in 1969 at Dewsbury Parish Church and rented a house in Crackenedge Terrace, moving to Park Street five years later after we had built a new bungalow in the grounds of Caulmswood House.

”Crackenedge Terrace and Marsden Terrace, along with many houses in Hardy Street and Tentercroft Road, were pulled down in 1973 as Dewsbury Borough Council wanted to build a new school to replace Eastborough School.

“But it never materialised and the site was left as open ground for over 20 years.

“Eventually, Tentercroft Court and later Naylor Court were built on the site. I have in my garden the stone with the name Marsden Terrace chiselled on it which was going to be discarded when the houses were pulled down and I rescued it.

“Your photograph of Park Street is exactly as it was when the photo was taken, with the exception of the two houses at the bottom of the street which were demolished in the 1980s. All the other houses are still there.”

I am always indebted to readers like Richard who are quick to help me out and in so doing ensure that a great deal of social history is preserved.

For this reason, I don’t mind repeating their stories because they do bring back happy memories of the Dewsbury we once knew.

Still on the subject of houses in Dewsbury, if anyone can help Eleanor Cundall research her childhood home – Highcliff - on Oxford Road, please contact her via email:

[email protected]

You can email your recollections and/or photographs of Dewsbury in years gone by to: [email protected]