Sunday 6 January 2013

Four views of Kirkgate over the years, looking towards the Post Office from or near the junction with Aire View. Above: mid-morning on Sunday, January 6, 2013.
Above: late 1950s. The Milk Bar on the left later became a launderette and is now the Rice Bowl Chinese take-away shop with the red frontage in the first picture of the series. Note the hoist arm and goods door by the first-floor window before the Milk Bar sign. The shop in the left foreground was a draper's, which also sold corsets and ladies' underwear. It is now Hill's Bakery.
 Above: late 1940s/early 1950s. The pavement scene shows some evidence of the post-war baby boom.
Above: postcard stamped 1915. The double-fronted shop in the left foreground is the property that many years later became the Milk Bar. The UFO-like mark on the Post Office gable end is a cross made by the person who sent the postcard to a Mrs Chiddy in Giggleswick. The Post Office was indicated because it faced the correspondent's own shop. (The stamp cost a halfpenny.)