The Heart of Old Beeston

There are Beestoners and Beeston Linnets.  Annie Benge is a Beestoner.  She brings to these pages a lifetime of experience that only one born and bred in Beeston can tell and in the process explains the difference between those two qualifications.
Readers may be interested to have some background knowledge as to what old Beeston was like before most of the old property was demolished by Leeds Corporation in the 1950s - a heartbreaking time for many old people who had to be re-housed in other parts of Leeds/
From 1901 to 1917 my father, a shoe repairer, occupied a small wooden lock-up shop (one of four shops) which were sited where now is the frontage of the working men's club.  In 1917 he moved to 3 Town Street / 5 Webster Fold, a shop formerly occupied by Mr Roberts, a tailor.  From 1917 to 1956 father carried on as a shoe repairer.  In 1956 this property was demolished and during the last few years there he attended to Leeds United football boots and running shoes.
These stone-fronted cottages ran from Old Lane to Town Street.  The electricity sub-station was built in what used to be a farmyard and was just behind the first cottage - the sub-station still stands, although clad in new brickwork to form a bridge in the passageway beside the Co-op.  The farmyard belonged to Mrs "Farmer Wood who lived on the other side of Old Lane in a little white-washed cottage below the level of the road.
When I was a small child in our early days at No.3, stables adjoined our shop and ran parallel with Town Street.  I well remember hearing the horses stamping and neighing when things were quiet at night.  These stables were set back a little from Town Street and were hidden from the street by hoardings.
The hoardings and stables were pulled down in the 1920s when Beeston Picture House was built, and later a garage and billiards hall covered most of the old farmyard site.  A row of lock-up shops between our shop and the Picture House completed the development.  Before the farmyard and stables disappeared, in the farmyard was a garage for a Crawford's Biscuits delivery van.
In Roger Row, off Town Street at the far end of the Co-op, a woman and her son used to make brushes.  In front of Roger Row was Amblers Printing Works, a small family business with house adjoining and a pretty garden;  I well remember as a small child a summer-house with rambler roses climbing round it.  I believe there was originally a large farmhouse somewhere near Amblers and a pond near Back Lane.
Parallel to St Anthony's Drive was Taylor's Laundry, approached from Mill Fold.  At the junction of Old Lane and Town Street were two red brick cottages and hoardings.  One cottage faced Webster Fold Cottages and was occupied by Paddy Mills who for years was caretaker and bell ringer at St. Anthony's Church.
Beeston was well served by a variety of good private shops- and even had two Co-ops!  Leeds Co-op and Butcher's Shop was beyond the White Hard and Beeston Co-op was opposite Beeston Hall which was where the Oldroyd Estate is now situated.
Public services included a good and frequent tram service.  This was a railway station and a Police Station opposite the old school with policemen who walked their beats - no patrol cars then.
Churches and chapels swerved our religious needs.  Beeston Parish Church of St Mary replaces an earlier building ad was reconsecrated in 1886; this has been a religious site since at least the thirteenth century.  St Anthony's Church in Old Lane was built in 1904 to give a permanent home for Roman Catholicism in the village.  There was a Methodist Chapel in Chapel Fold until the new Chapel was built in Town Street, the foundation stone of which was laid on Whit Tuesday, 1865, and the chapel opened on 30th July 1866.  The Primitive Methodist Chapel was almost opposite Beeston School and I seem to remember it being in use in 1945.
The Methodist Cricket and Tennis clubs were in a field behind Ivy Cottage, Town Street and alongside Back Lane opposite what is now Thackray's.  The 1939-1945 war put an end to this.  Much of the social life centred round the churches and chapels, their dramatic societies, concerts, guilds, socials, etc.
To be called an Old Beestoner one must have been born here.  A Beeston Linnet is one who was born in the old village, beyond Old Lane.  I am an Old Beestoner but do not qualify to be a Linnet.  I wonder how many readers can say they are true Beestoners - or even Beeston Linnets!