From Lovers' Lane to Middleway Meadows and Wayside Mews: Banklands' new identity

Above: a view from across town of the housing development on land between Daisy Hill and Banklands Lane. Two well-known local firms are developing the site. Snell Developments Ltd. are building 26 homes at what the company has named Middleway Meadows. Adjoining the Snell properties is Wayside Mews, next to the playing fields, a development of 14 homes by Croft Building Ltd.

Above: a fine view, again across town, from the 1970s showing on the upper right the field now occupied by the Snell and Croft houses. Heartache was caused there in 1967 when Norman Waterhouse, one of the country's top pigeon racers, and his wife Isobel, and Jack and Margaret Culley were forced to move from their homes because the old Silsden Urban District Council wanted to build a road through their smallholdings to link Daisy Hill and Banklands Lane. The field was untouched for 50 years after the Waterhouse and Culley families had left.

Above: 1960s view of the fields beyond the Primitive Methodist Chapel before Craven Drive and Craven Avenue were built. The Methodists now have a new chapel on the site of the Primitives' handsome edifice. Photograph by Will Baldwin.

Above: Banklands Lane about 100 years ago. Until housing development began in the 20th century, the lane, which borders the Snell and Croft site, was a quiet, tree-shaded pathway known as Lovers' Lane or Lovers' Walk.