Hundreds of trees planted as support for  Silsden park grows

The Barrett family (pictured above) were among local people who answered a call to help plant 250 saplings in Silsden park on Saturday, March 14th. Richard and Rachael Barrett and their 11-month-old daughter Suzie joined in the "Great Tree Planting Day" organised by the Friends of Silsden Park alongside the charity Trees for Cities in partnership with Bradford Council's parks and green spaces department.

The Friends of Silsden Park came into being in autumn 2017 when it was realised that Bradford Council, debilitated by the then government's austerity measures, intended to reduce maintenance to a minimum. Friends' chairman Richard Barton, a Silsden town councillor, is pictured above with founder-members (left to right) Anne Knight, who specialises in tree work, Dorothy Leary and Mags Croft.

Trees for Cities supplied the 250 saplings for planting on the park slope opposite Fletcher Avenue and in the boggy south corner of the park by Mitchell Lane. Trees for Cities' Mel Frances (right), who runs the charity's edible-playgrounds network, is pictured at the plant-in with volunteer Lucia Gomez.  

Above: Bob Thorp (in baseball cap), of Bradford Council's parks and green spaces department, provided equipment and oversaw the volunteers. The partnership between Trees for Cities and the council has additionally resulted in 1,250 trees being planted, mainly on the sloping area between the two rugby pitches, leaving a 20-metre clear strip for the sledge run.

Above: also helping with the planting on March 14th were left to right Caroline Whitaker, who is a member of Silsden town council and leader of the Plastic Free Silsden initiative, Joyce Kilvington, who chairs the Friends of Silsden's Green Places, and local resident Jackie Bates. All the park's saplings have been planted without plastic tree guards. Instead, stakes and close-planting have been deployed. Oak, hawthorn, holly, rowan (mountain ash), blackthorn and Scots pine will add to the park's established trees, a dazzling highlight of which are the flowering cherry trees each spring. Also, the Woodland Trust have donated around 100 hedging saplings, which have been planted on the east side of the park.   

As well as transforming the tree cover, the Friends of Silsden Park have reinstated the flower beds above the bowling green and tennis courts, planted more than 1,000 daffodils and hundreds of bluebells. The emphasis is on pollinator-friendly plants for the borders. Plantings have been designed and sourced by Joyce Grant, who is pictured above. Silsden residents and the Friends of Silsden Green Places have also donated shrubs and plants. The Friends of Silsden Park have received funding from the Town Council, Skipton Building Society's Grassroots Giving and the Harry Beverley Tillotson Trust. Practical support has come from Bradford Council and other agencies and businesses.  

Preparing the ground for Silsden's new primary school

Preparatory work has started on the site of Silsden's new primary school off Hawber Cote Lane. Galliford Try, a major national construction firm, is first creating access to and from the site for works traffic prior to building the school, which is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2021. Catering for up to 640 pupils, the new premises will replace the Hothfield Street and Aire View schools.

The new Kirkgate accountancy office that amazingly once combined a hat shop and butcher's

Opening a new accountancy office (pictured below) in Kirkgate last May, Peter Marshall was amazed to discover that he is distantly related to the family who were in business at the same premises nearly 120 years ago. The photograph above, supplied by Peter, shows the early 1900s when William Jackson ran a butcher's shop at No. 70 while his daughter Mary Elizabeth opened a milliner's at No. 72. Mary, who married a Wainman, is pictured on the left on the steps with her sister-in-law Florence Shenton. The little boy is Florence's son, Harold, who was born in 1902. The Jacksons and Wainmans, whose descendants include Silsden's famous Wainman stock-car racing champions, lived above their respective shops. 

Peter Marshall's connection comes through his late father, Peter, whose cousin, Janet Whitelock, was a great granddaughter of William Jackson the butcher.
Peter and his business partner, Rebekah Krysko, are pictured above at their office at 70-72 Kirkgate. They were friends at primary school in Keighley and worked together for an Ilkley practice before setting up their own accountancy services, initially working from Peter's home and then becoming a prominent presence in Kirkgate. Their number of clients has grown far faster than Peter and Rebekah expected, and by March Marshall Krysko will be a four-person operation.

This photograph from the early 1900s shows the stretch soon after the ground floors of the houses were converted to shops.

A 1950s view. From left to right are Marion's, tobacconist and toys; chemist Herbert J. Clark; Waterhouses's ironmongery; Ernest Todd's gardening supplies; Nancy Lund's ladies' outfitters; and the Post Office, which occupied this site from 1907 to 2017 and is now at Twigg's the newsagents.

The scene in the 1960s, when No. 70-72 (which had become single premises) was the Leek and Westbourne Building Society office. Prior to Marshall Krysco moving in, the premises had housed estate agents Dale Edison and at one time before that the Britannia Building Society.

Kirkgate today from Rowlands pharmacy to the Old Post Office cafe and bar, which opened after the traditional Post Office relocated to Twigg's on the other side of Kirkgate.

Change of name and owner at upmarket barber's shop

Manetain is the new name of the barber's shop at No 27 Kirkgate, which previously was Dexter's. Mikey Whitaker, pictured above, has bought the business from Josh Matthew, who opened Dexter's in July 2015 and quickly showed there was a local demand for upmarket male grooming. At work on the left is Mikey's fellow barber Joe Sorge.

Mikey, from Bingley, worked for Josh before acquiring the business in September, 2019. The following month he changed the frontage colours from red to a distinctive blue and gave the business an eye-catching new name and lion logo. Mikey trained at Craven College and has been a hairdresser/barber for six years.

Stakes Beck in spate the focus for snapshots and selfies  

The effects of Storm Dennis on the weekend of February 15th and 16th and Storm Ciara the weekend before brought out the cameras, particularly at Stakes Beck by the Old Post Office. Sandbags were deployed at the ramp in front of the cottages.

The beck was in predictable spate. 

The Aire Valley at Silsden suffered as the storms caused flooding and other damage nationwide.  

Taking Valentine's Day to heart

The Curve hair, beauty, tanning and nails salon in St John's Street took Valentine's Day to heart with an eye-catching window display.

Pink balloons were a main feature of the romantic depictions, which were designed and installed by customer Samantha Green, who has brought her Making Memories Facebook business to Silsden. At work in the above photograph is Alix Driver, one of five self-employed hair and beauty experts at the salon. 

The Valentine's Day sparkle was a welcome respite for The Curve owner, Claire Appleton, pictured above, who the previous weekend had to contend with Storm Ciara, which  flooded the salon's beck-side cellar. Claire has been running her own business for nine of her 15 years as a hairdresser. She opened The Curve five years ago last June. 

A Valentine's Day treat arrived at the salon for nail technician Charlotte Harrison, sent by her boyfiend. After leaving South Craven School, Charlotte worked for Claire for five years before starting her own business, Nails, Lashes and Brows by Charlotte. 

Rugged and resilient: Silsden Moor where farming has been a way of life for centuries

Fresh bedding for fat lambs raised at Cowburn Beck Farm, one of the long-established family enterprises on Silsden Moor where making a living from the land is known to go back 300 years. There was even a unique moorland dialect spoken here for centuries, which was recorded by a Leeds University professor in 1912 - but sadly both the dialect and the recording canisters have long since disappeared.

The Breares run Cowburn Beck Farm (above), where the family has farmed for more than 150 years. They are among an elite group of local families - Throups, Forts and Breares - who have been farming on Silsden Moor for generations. Flax grown along the beck's marshy banks was used in Silsden's noted linen trade of the 17th and 18th centuries.

High Bracken Hill Farm, in Green Lane, is owned by a branch of the famed Fort family. The house, initialled and dated WMW 1691, has double-chamfered mullioned windows. Like several of its Silsden Moor neighbours, High Bracken Hill Farm is Grade 2 listed. The 1841 Census recorded 39 Throups, 26 Forts and 18 Breares. (There were also 63 Jacksons, whose descendants farm at Woodside in Silsden. Jacksons and Throups have been in Silsden since the 1600s.)

The picture above shows on the skyline the highest of the Silsden Moor farms, Snow Hill. It is run by members of the Throup farming dynasty. In the left foreground is Haygill Farm.

Farms and their barns that are no longer working have become desirable residences,  set amidst stunning moorland scenery. One such is Middlebrough House, named after one of the earliest occupants of this remote settlement.

Schoolmaster Place Farm takes its name from John Wade, whose family farmed on Silsden Moor for generations. For over half of the 19th century John Wade was schoolmaster to Silsden's children. Starting at the end of the 1700s, he gave lessons at home to children from neighbouring farms until 1820 when he was appointed by the parish church as headmaster at the newly opened National School in the village.

This photograph, taken in 2008, shows High Edge and Low Edge, which like all the Silsden farms were owned by the Skipton Castle Estate until being sold in the early 1950s. High Edge Farm included a room for the use of game-shooting parties. The sale particulars reserved a right for the landlord to lunch in the house on shooting days.

Woofa Bank, in Cringles Lane, is run by another branch of the Throup family and is among local farms investing heavily in the future of the business. 

A recent development at Woofa Bank is this building in Jowett's Lane to house the dairy herd. Jowett's Lane is named after the family that farmed at Woofa Bank in the 1800s. John Jowett was a local preacher and the farmhouse was used for weekly Primitive Methodist services around 1840, before Silsden Moor Methodist Chapel was built.

   Distinctively-designed moorland shed.

A happy pig with the sun on its back.

The former Horne House Farm has long been an attractive residence. 

Another farm where development and expansion have taken place recently is the Heights.

Far Cringles Farm is undergoing extensive development with new accommodation and outbuildings.

After standing empty and derelict for many years, Walton Hole has been transformed into a working farm again. The date stone is 1719.

Wet welcome for new arrivals

These are the first lambs I have seen this year and as far as I can recall January arrivals are not common locally. Atrocious conditions and greater unpredictability in recent years have made it more difficult for farmers to settle on optimum lambing times. These lambs are pictured at a farm near Throup's Bridge.   

Barratt about a quarter of the way through  Belton Road development of 230 homes

Developer Barratt Homes appears to have opted for an odd mix of street names for its Saxon Dene development off Belton Road. Perhaps opportunity could have been taken to honour local people who have played a notable part in the community over the years. Lampkin Chase stands out.

The builder is about a quarter of the way through its development of 230 homes on what was previously farmland. Buyers so far are mainly first-timers or down-sizers and largely come from Silsden and nearby villages.

The development comprises two-, three- and four-bedroom properties with prices between £189,995 and £324,995. Still to be developed over the next two or three years are fields to the east and south of the present estate.