Travel agent celebrating a decade of Destination delights

Destination, the travel agent at No. 57 Kirkgate, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Owners Shevaun Joy (seated) and Lisa Manditsch (standing left) are pictured above with sales consultant Natalie Bowden (centre) and administrator Jill Swire.

Shevaun and Lisa both worked for Specialist Travel, which closed in Silsden in February 2009, having occupied No. 57 for 14 years and prior to that an office across the road. Shevaun and Lisa opened Destination in June 2009 after securing their ABTA licence and becoming ABTA bonded. They both went into the travel business from school, Shevaun aged 16 and Lisa 18.

The company offers a wide range of holidays and says river cruising in Europe is the big draw at the moment. Compared with 10 years ago, families are going farther afield and 'experience' holidays are popular with young families who have older children. Destination will mark its anniversary in June.  

Specialist Travel moved into No. 57 following the closure of H. Cooper, a well-known shoe shop, which was a Kirkgate mainstay for many years. 

This photograph from the 1950s shows a gala procession passing No. 57 Kirkgate when it was the drapery store of W. Sugden & Sons. Next door was the National Provincial Bank, which became Natwest. The bank moved out a few years ago. Solicitors Walker Foster moved in recently.

Stylish addition to Silsden's retail reputationThe Carelli B fashion and accessories shop at 82 Kirkgate will soon be completing a successful first year in Silsden.  

Owner Beverley Ford, from Bingley, had spent nearly 30 years in education, starting as a secretary at Beckfoot School before becoming an extended services manager at Crossflatts Primary and then for the last 10 years at Burnley Upper School. But with increasing demands on the role, which involved running numerous special projects for young students, and ever-shrinking funding Beverley decided it was time for a complete change and opened Carelli B in March 2018.  Her previous retail experience had been a shoe shop she owned in Bingley for two years.

The shop has proved popular across all age ranges beyond teenagers, who are more likely to buy online. "My customers still like to see and feel and try on garments before buying," says Beverley, who sources most of her ranges from suppliers in Manchester. The name Carelli B comes from her granddaughters, Carmen and Ellie, and B for Beverley. My blog of September 12th, 2013, shows No. 82 Kirkgate as a barber's in about 1912. In the 1950s, No. 82 was well-known as Mr Sanderson's sweet shop. It has seen many changes of trade since then.

MP shows support for campaign to save our countryside

The campaign to save Silsden's countryside goes into the new year with the placing of an eye-catching banner in one of the fields under threat. Local MP John Grogan is pictured above next to the banner on the right on Saturday, January 12th, when he met campaigners in the field alongside historic Brown Bank Lane, where planning permission is being sought for a new road, which would pave the way for up to 1,000 homes to be built on farmland towards Hawber Cote. The gathering included town councillors Darren Edwards, David Loud and Mark Wogden. Plans for the road, which would also serve Silsden's new school in Hawber Cote Lane, were the subject of my posts of September 30th, August 24th and July 17th.

Town Council returns to its traditional home

Silsden's Town Mayor Peter Robinson (fifth from left) and his deputy, Margaret Croft (next to him), are pictured with town councillors at their first meeting of 2019, held at the Town Hall on January 10th. Left to right are David Loud, David Rushworth, Michael O'Dwyer, Adrian Naylor, who is also a Bradford district councillor, Peter Robinson, Margaret Croft, Rebecca Whitaker, who is also a Bradford district councillor, Richard Barton, Mark Wogden, Darren Edwards and Lawrence Walton. A vacancy is in the process of being filled to bring the council up to its full complement of 12 members. The Town Council has returned to the Town Hall, the traditional home of local government, after a period of self-imposed exile during which it met in a  back room at the Co-op. The council decamped following the £300,000 upgrade of the Town Hall five years ago when the former meeting chamber was turned into a new home for the town's library.

This Will Baldwin photograph of Silsden Town Council in its early days in the 1970s, when it was a parish council, was first published with the names of the members in my blog of December 30th, 2017.

Silsden's local authority up to 1974 was the Urban District Council, which had come into being in 1895. This photograph of the UDC was taken during the Second World War. The chairman, Horace Fortune, is pictured wearing the chain of office. He chaired the council from 1940-43 and served a second term from 1949-52. His wife Nellie chaired the council from 1955-58. The UDC gave way to Bradford Metropolitan District Council in a bitterly opposed nationwide reorganisation of local government.

Silsden soccer stars of a silverware season 66 years on

Above: four of Silsden AFC's silverware-winning first team of the 1951-52 season -- Herbert Spencer, 87 (back left), and Bill 'Jock' Kelly, 91 (back right), Cameron Wilson, 90 (front left), and Jeffrey Atkinson, 86 -- are pictured above enjoying themselves at the Christmas tea for senior citizens on December 8th. The annual treat is provided by the Friends of Silsden Town Hall and funded by the Harry Beverley Tillotson Trust. 

Above: the four teammates are in this club photograph from the late Neil Cathey's collection. Bill is on the extreme left of the back row, Cameron is fourth from the left back row, Herbert is second from the left in the middle row, and Jeffrey is second from right in the front row. 

Those were the days: when petrol cost 6s.2d. (31p) a gallon

Above: this photograph shows the Bolton Road garage around the 1960s when Bill Mawtus was the owner and before Bell Square was built. The garage abutted the King's Arms forecourt and the petrol pump on the right obscures the pub's mounting steps, which can be seen in the photograph below. The garage's wooden workshop was demolished to make way for Bell Square. Note the 'gents' toilets sign by the low wall. The smart red and white Ford Prefect has a 1960 registration plate (663 WW). Petrol cost 6s.2d (31p) a gallon in 1970 and forecourts had attendants. Weekly wages averaged £32. A loaf of bread cost 9p, a pint of lager 20p. 

The same scene in 1972, minus the garage, which moved to the other side of the King's Arms, where it continued for a number of years as Longbottom and Green, managed by the late Geoffrey Drake, whose wife, Margaret, still lives in Silsden. Bell Square was built as part of the pre-1974 clearances of unfit housing in Bridge Road by the Urban District Council. The garage site had several different uses after Longbottom and Green closed and is now the home of Jacksons funeral services, in association with Whitlock and Craven. 

Demolition and the new lay-out opened up this view towards the Co-op parade of shops in Bridge Street. Photographs of the old streets and buildings before demolition are shown in my blog of April 1st, 2013.

Out Laith, Rivock Oven, Dirk Hill Sike, Black Pots: poetic names in an ancient area of Silsden

The public bridleway through the commercial forest at Rivock Edge skirts an area rich in pre-history. There is evidence of Bronze Age travellers and in and beyond the plantation there are rocks with cup-and-ring markings. 

Atmospheric stretches of the wood are interspersed with glades. Rivock Oven, a sort of chamber of rock (marked as a cave on maps) is in this vicinty. The bridleway, used by walkers, runners, cyclists and horse riders, hugs the conifer plantation boundary between the television relay station and the farmhouse at Black Pots, which has a colourful history going back more than 400 years. 

 The plantation floor is densely carpeted by conifer needles. 

In addition to the bridleway, there is a public footpath through the wood on the flanks of Rombalds Moor. The entire wood is private land. An Ordnance Survey map is an essential aid to walking here and over the rough moorland bounded by Silsden Road, Ghyll Grange, Doubler Stones and Black Pots.   

Distant view of Silsden from the bridleway near the Stanza Stone where significant hillside felling has taken place, revealing an outcrop of millstone grit.  The ruin in the foreground on the right is Out Laith. Nearby, Dirk Hill Sike, which rises in the plantation, forms a ruggedly attractive valley replete with modest waterfalls. Passing beneath Lumb Bridge, the sike (a small stream) flows into Holden Beck through Jacobs Wood.