Cut Italia barber's shop changes hands

Cut Italia, for many years a mainstay of men's hairdressing in Silsden, is now owned by Molly Frankland, pictured above, who two years ago bought the business from Gino and Nancy Familio. Molly worked with Gino and Nancy for seven years and took over when the renowned couple retired.

Before moving to Cut Italia, Molly had been a barber in Skipton for 10 years after making a major career change. Following university she was a school teacher in Liverpool but didn't take to the job and quit in order to train as a barber.

Molly is progressively putting her own stamp on the interior and exterior design and decor of the shop at No. 88 Kirkgate, which Gino opened as a barber's in 1989. The sign above is a prominent addition to the gable end in Wesley Place. Silsden has a long tradition of barbers going back to the 1870s. A number of them lived and worked in the town for incredibly many years. (See my Blog posts of September 13th 2013 and April 11th 2019.) 

Heaven Scent move continues family link with Briggate shop

A Briggate shop which has been a hairdresser's for nearly 50 years has been given a change of direction by the late owner's daughter. Mrs Sally Spencer, pictured above, couldn't bear the thought of the premises being sold after her mother, well-known hairdresser Beryl Southwell, who started the salon in 1977, died last November, one month short of her 90th birthday.

Sally negotiated with her sister, Wendy Southwell, to buy the shop and the adjoining house where their parents lived. Sally has converted the salon into a shop, calling it Heaven Scent and selling home fragrances, including melts, which she makes herself, gifts, shoulder bags and cards. After Beryl retired in the 1990s, the salon was run by daughter Wendy and subsequently by Wendy's son Lawrence Hindle, who now has a chair at Themis, the swish salon at No. 19 Briggate.

The iconic premises have been used for an array of retail purposes since the late 1800s.

Butcher John Lund, pictured above in the doorway, was there from the 1890s and possibly before then. Dick Ashton opened his electrical and radio shop here around the 1920s and was followed by Leonard Dyer's electrical shop in the late 1950s/early1960s.

The shop briefly was a snack bar as can be seen in this nostalgic photo taken in the late 1960s.

Sisters' salon brings Briggate a stunning new look

Sisters Jody Ellis (above left), a beauty specialist, and hairdresser Jade Whitehead (on the right) have taken their hair and beauty salon, The Lounge, to new heights. They have left the cramped premises they have occupied for the last eight years and moved across the road into one of Briggate's oldest properties, which has been amazingly modernised.  

The building, previously used as offices, has been transformed inside and out. Silsden-born Jody and Jade are pictured in front of the new-look Lounge with colleague Nicola Slingsby, one of the salon's three hairdressers. The other hairdresser is Michelle Lund. 

The Lounge has four chairs downstairs and three upstairs, in addition to three treatment rooms. The Lounge also includes a nail bar run by Amy Lambert; beauty therapist Jade Woolley; and aesthetics by lash and brow technician Lily Fieldhouse. Chairs and a beauty room are available to rent.

In the 19th century, the building (pictured below) that is now home to The Lounge was  known as the "band 'oil" from the days when Silsden Brass Band, formed by renowned musician Edward Newton in 1872, practised there. From the late 1950s to the mid-1990s the shop area on the right was open for the sale of Sunday newspapers.

Treemendous news for countryside campaigners: council says 'nationally significant' tree must not be felled

Bradford council has turned down house-builder Persimmon's request to fully remove to ground level the 'nationally significant' veteran ash tree pictured above. The ash is a stand-out feature of the wonderfully hedgerowed fields at Hawber Cote where Persimmon controversially is to build 138 upmarket homes. Walkers accompanied by a giant model of a curlew are pictured heading towards the ash tree during a community ramble held by Silsden's Campaign for the Countryside last May to celebrate the beauty of the Hawber fields and to lament all that will be lost to housing.

Persimmon applied to completely fell the tree last September. Soon after, as I showed in my blog of November 6th, the tree lost a major arm, apparently in high winds. The ash is thought to be around 150 years old and is protected by a preservation order. Refusing premission to fell it, Bradford council says the ash is highly significant in the landscape. It is not showing signs of ash dieback and could be a resistant specimen, adding to the importance of its retention.

The intact ash, pictured here in January 2024, is a veteran tree listed in the Woodland Trusts Ancient Tree Inventory and as such is considered to be nationally significant and irreplaceable habitat. Persimmon says it is concerned about the safety of the tree and insists the ash will inevitably succumb to the dieback disease.

The tree is shown here in all its summer splendour in 2021. The council says that on balance Persimmon's case for removing a veteran tree is not compelling and the evidence provided to justify such action doesn't outweigh the harm that would be caused by the removal of a nationally significant tree. Persimmon has the right to appeal against the decision.

Plans for 147 affordable homes in ancient Sykes Lane

Pictured above is the site plan for Yorkshire Housing's proposed development of 147 urgently-needed affordable homes in fields either side of tranquil Sykes Lane. The project, which has been submitted to Bradford council for approval, is adjacent to the  Weavers View estate of mixed-tenure affordable homes built by Yorkshire Housing on the former Riverside Works and Becks Mill site in Keighley Road opposite the Aldi supermarket.

Sykes Lane, next to the canal, for many years was home to an old-fashioned mix of pens, smallholdings, allotments, stables, buildings, shelters and sheds of the kind pictured above. It was also the site of the town's first recreation ground, opened in 1914, before the park was created in 1934. Records indicate the lane was in existence by 1565 (see my blog of February 24th, 2021).

The plans show that a new footpath would be created from the canal towpath to join Sykes Lane (pictured above), which is designated as ancient highway and will be retained in one form or another as a pedestrian route.

Yorkshire Housing's Weavers Walk development of 156 mixed-tenure affordable homes, built by Lindum, of York, fronts Keighley Road (pictured above). The estate runs west towards Sykes Lane and will be adjacent to the proposed new development, for which Yorkshire Housing's construction partner is the Vistry Group. Vistry describes itself as the country's largest home-builder.

Yorkshire Housing is a not-for-profit association and with its subsidiary Space Homes manages more than 20,000 homes for rent and low-cost home ownership. The Weavers Walk estate is pictured above in the foreground. Keighley Road can be seen on the right at the bottom of the picture. The line of trees bottom left behind the new homes is in Sykes Lane. The public can have their say online by using Bradford council's planning portal (reference 25/02807/MAF). There are more than 100 documents relating to the planning application, including reports by the council's countryside and rights of way service, the trees team and landscape architects.