Demolition is under way of  Riverside Works, Keighley Road, which was a £4.5 million state-of-the-art weaving mill when it opened less than 25 years ago. The single-storey plant was built by Courtaulds Textiles for its furnishing-fabric subsidiary, Weavestyle (formerly C. H. Fletcher). The historic C. H. Fletcher business became part of Courtaulds around 1970. Market turbulence has seen successive ventures come and go at the mill. Most recently, unoccupied Riverside Works has been vandalised apparently beyond use.  There are no publicly known plans to develop the site following the demolition.

Sunday, April 14, early evening, 14 waxwings on a high in Laurel Grove. They had been feeding on berries on a cotoneaster shrub near the pavement.

Hothfield Junior School will be celebrating its centenary next year. Pictured above are head teacher James Procter (seated at the front) and his management team: deputy head Su Lord-Cloke (front right), Jennie Hudson (front left) and, at back, Elisa Woffenden and Jonathan Crossley. The school has 277 pupils. Hothfield replaced the Bolton Road School, which had been built in 1852 by the trustees of the Wesleyan Methodist Church and which soon came under the rule of the local School Board.  

The longest-serving head of the Bolton Road School was David Longbottom, who is pictured above with the staff in about 1910. On the left is his nephew Ambrose Longbottom, a trainee teacher at the time. The door behind the group can still be seen. It is part of the present Silsden Library, the middle one of three red doors when viewed from Botlon Road. David Longbottom made an unmatched contribution to the development of education and culture in Silsden. Longbottom Avenue is named after him. He was head master from 1880 until the school closed in 1914. His daughter, Margaret Wintringham, was the first British-born woman to become a Member of Parliament. 

Hothfield School's catering team (pictured above) serves around 170 meals a day. Left to right are: manager Gillian Cooper, Christine Thomas, Sue Hopkins, Kay Waddington and assistant manager Janet Ellis. The children's favourite lunches are roasts and sausages and mash.

Pictured above are Hothfield's lunchtime supervisors. In the middle at the front is senior supervisor Pam Ogston. 

Pictured above are Hothfield's finance administrator Pauline Pring (right) and clerical assistants Karen Farrar (centre) and Anita Wilkinson.

Year 3 children recently were given a hands-on insight into the life and times of the Romans. Visiting expert Murray Edwards instructed pupils in Legionnaire disciplines (pictured above). 

Above: Role-playing included masters being waited upon by their servants, who brought them food typical of the time. Year 3 teachers Bevan Bolland, Jennie Hudson and Nicky Illsley, who is pictured below, joined in the spirit of the day.  

Replicas of Roman helmets (pictured below) were among the exhibits providing historical authenticity.  

Tree-planting (above and below) at Hothfield in 1952, when it was Silsden Secondary Modern School, although it also included juniors as in these two pictures. The trees were planted in front of classrooms (Horsa huts) which were on the site of the present swimming pool. 

The teacher in the above photograph is the late Geoffrey Rundle, who taught at South Craven Comprehensive School after Silsden County Secondary ceased to exist in 1967, subsequently becoming Hothfield Junior School, fed by Aire View Infants, which had opened as a junior school in 1872 and later became a primary school. Pupils in the above picture include Marian Dobson, Ann Rawnsley, Joan Waterhouse, Christine Astbury, Cedric Webster, Joan Pickles, Jim Wade, Mavis Watson, Kenny Whitaker, Tony Bailey, Stuart Parker, Barry Ellison, Graham Thompson, Mel Driver, Richard Clarkson, Jack Driver, Robert Whitlock and Jean Tillotson. (My apologies if some of the names are misspelt.)

Above: The Secondary Modern School's 1949-50 soccer team pictured with headmaster George Manners and teacher Arthur Southwell. Back row (left to right): believed to be Bruce Pinder; name not known; Donald Whittingham; David Boothman; Raymond Clayton; Granville Burkitt; Peter Smith.  Middle row (left to right): Malcolm Barrett; Mr Manners; John Newton; Mr Southwell; Brian Whittingham. At front: Jack Nicholson (left) and Matt Farrow. (Photograph by courtesy of Brian Whittingham.)

Above: Mrs Broughton's class of 1953, or thereabouts. Many of the children in this photograph are in the earlier picture with Geoffrey Rundle.

The students pictured above with their teacher, Miss Wilkinson, were photographed in about 1957.

After 94 cold and colourless days in 2013, Silsden basked in welcome warmth on April 6 with temperatures rising to 9C and crocuses opening fully to the sun. A few bees emerged. Daffodils, celandines and wood anemones were still well behind flowering schedule.

Above and below: Oh, to be in England now that April's there......April 3, 2013: snow still sentinel in towering drifts along Lightbank Lane near the Nab.

A typical sign of our retail times. Pictured above is the view from Clog Bridge towards Kirkgate where Betfred ("the bonus kings") dominates the spot where the Co-op once had a furnishings department on two floors (pictured below). Also fondly remembered, next door by the junction with Elliott Street, was electrician Joe Whitham's shop, selling televisions and radios among a customary array of electrical goods. Photograph by courtesy of Silsden Camera Club. The former Whitham's shop has been home to several different traders. For the last 20 years or so it has been a rather smart kitchens specialist, the last few years under the name Arabesque, as the above photograph shows.

Clog Bridge was built around 1830 to provide a new route over the village beck as the population grew  rapidly. Until then, the ford near the post office was the only crossing point. The name is said to have arisen  when the Skipton Castle estate, which owned all the local land, offered a gift of £30 to provide clogs for needy children; villagers petitioned for a bridge instead. The width of the bridge was doubled in 1964.

Above: At one time the Elliott Street-Kirkgate corner shop was The Boat House, selling canal and marine merchandise and clothing, capitalising on the boat-hire business on the opposite side of Elliott Street.  

The Bridge Road thoroughfare into Bell Square and onward to Bridge Street and Chapel Street was  fundamentally changed by the pre-1974 clearances of unfit housing by the Urban District Council, in the days when local government was actually local. Bridge Road starts below the Punch Bowl (above) from the junction with Bolton Road.

Above: from the junction with Bell Square, Bridge Road continues between the rear of the King's Arms and the pub's triangle-shaped car park.

Above: Bridge Road looking towards the Punch Bowl from the junction with Bridge Street, opposite the entrance to the Co-op car park.

Above: taken from near the gable end of the Punch Bowl, this picture shows the old Bell Square looking towards the junction with Bridge Street and the cottages by the beck below the present-day Co-op car park. The lamp-post is once again a good indicator for comparison's sake.

Above: these buildings were to the rear of the Punch Bowl where the present-day Bell Square is. The area included garaging for livestock-carrier Jeff Morrow's trucks.

Above: a post-demolition view across Bell Square from the windowed gable end of the Punch Bowl (bottom left). The above three photos are by courtesy of Silsden Camera Club.

Above: Bell Square 'garage', looking towards the Stirling Street shop. Below: Bell Square barn. To the right is the present-day Bridge Street car park.

Above and below: Bridge Road terrace on the stretch near the junction with Bridge Street opposite the present-day Co-op car park. The row on the left was demolished but the house on the right is still there. The demolition team pictured below worked for Silsden Urban District Council's highways department.