Mark's History 2

31/08/2026

Do you recognise anyone in these 1982 photos?

If you have been looking at old photographs of Leeds, especially those from around 1982, you might recognise the name Oliver, Kitchen and Flynn on the old property boards. Established way back in 1825, they were a long-standing firm of estate agents, auctioneers, and valuers based right in the city centre at 30 Albion Place.
During their busiest years in the eighties, they were one of the main companies dealing with commercial property across West Yorkshire. They were particularly well known for buying, selling, and valuing pubs, working men's clubs, restaurants, and hotels. Their work also went beyond property, as they regularly stepped in to auction off business equipment, hotel furniture, and the contents of large houses, even handling auctions for items from Temple Newsam earlier in the century.
The firm was also involved in local charity efforts. For example, when Mrs Edith Garrett of Moor Grange View, Headingley, Leeds, generously gave a nearly new house on Wensley Drive in Chapel Allerton to the Leeds Infirmary Appeal Fund, Oliver, Kitchen and Flynn provided their auctioneer services completely free of charge. They teamed up with another local agency, J. W. Watson and Son, whose staff volunteered their weekends to show prospective buyers around the property before the auction at Albion Place.
The business kept going well into the 1990s before it was eventually bought out or merged with another company.
I have shared some pictures of the firm today, mostly dating from around 1982. Are you in them, or do you recognise anyone who is?

30/08/2026

30/08/2026

Leeds Intelligencer 03 December 1853

30/08/2026

30/08/2026

Whether they signal a drug drop, a local memorial, a graduation prank, or just neighbourhood folklore, shoes hanging from overhead wires – known as shoefiti – always spark curiosity. This photo was captured close to the Hyde Park Picture House. What does it mean to you?

29/08/2026

Leeds Artist Who Painted the World's First Steam Engine…

Back in 1781, George Walker was born at Killingbeck Hall, right around where the Asda off York Road sits today. He went to school in York and grew up to be an artist with a real knack for capturing everyday local life like an early photographer.
His family's connection to the area ran deep. Around 1788, the local estate—which included Killingbeck Hall, Manston Hall, and Killingbeck Lodge—was acquired by the textile merchant William Walker. William and his older son Thomas lived at the main hall, while George made his home nearby at Killingbeck Lodge, a spot nestled right next to the Roman Catholic cemetery.
In 1814, a local bookseller commissioned him to paint a series that became known as The Costume of Yorkshire. Tucked inside this collection is a fascinating piece of history: the very first published painting of a steam engine on rails. Built by Murray and Blenkinsop in 1812, this engine appeared in Walker's work about two years before George Stephenson's famous locomotives took off.
After George passed away in 1856, the estate was sold and eventually came into the hands of the Meynell-Ingram family. By 1898, Mrs. Meynell-Ingram sold the land to Leeds Corporation, paving the way for Killingbeck Hall to become the site of Killingbeck Hospital and Manston Hall to become Seacroft Hospital.
Killingbeck Lodge survived through these changes for a long time, eventually standing derelict with boarded windows and overgrown climbing plants before it was finally demolished. Today, Lyme Chase stands directly on the site of the old lodge.

28/08/2026

The Boys of Pudsey…

Tracing local family histories often uncovers fascinating stories. Back in 1841, Samuel Boys and his wife Hannah ran The Travellers Rest inn at Fartown, Pudsey, living there with their young son John. Samuel also rented some nearby fields to help with the business. They stayed until the mid-1840s when another landlord took over, and by 1851, the Boys family had moved to Church Lane, where John was working as a butcher.

Meanwhile, the Pearson family were living on Back Lane in Pudsey. Charles and Elizabeth Pearson, along with their daughter Mary, worked in the woollen cloth trade. By the 1861 census, the families had merged. John Boys was living at a property in the Marsh area of Pudsey with Charles and Elizabeth. John was listed as a widower and Charles's son-in-law, meaning he had married Mary Pearson, but she sadly passed away in the 1850s. John was left raising their three young children, Emma, Eva, and a son named Pearson.

Ten years later, tragedy struck the family. Young Pearson Boys, then aged 17, was working as a quarryman at Bramley Fall Woods. A report from the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer on the 16th of June 1871 captured exactly what happened.

The paper reported that Mr Emsley, the Leeds borough coroner, held an inquest on the body of Pearson Boys, aged 17 years, who had lived with his father at Pudsey, and was employed at Messrs Ward & Wright's quarry, at Bramley. On Wednesday at mid-day the persons employed at the quarry, amongst whom was the deceased, were sheltering from a shower of rain in a cabin. Deceased left the cabin for the purpose of getting some coal for the fire, and on his way to the place where the coal was he had to cross a plank stretching from one point of the quarry to another. The persons left in the cabin hearing a noise went out to ascertain the cause, when they found deceased lying at the bottom of the quarry in such a condition that he died almost immediately. It was surmised that the plank being slippery from the recent rain, the deceased slipped and fell to the bottom of the quarry, a distance of 12 or 14 yards. His skull was fractured. A surgeon was sent for, but his services were of no avail. The jury believing the occurrence to have been accidental, returned a verdict accordingly.

The family pushed forward, and by 1901, Eva Boys had married a local photographer named William Spencer. They lived at 8 Marsh with their children Joseph, Mary, and Edith. Eva's father John, now in his seventies, lived with them too and was recorded as a gentleman.

The Spencers later moved to 35 Richardshaw Lane in Pudsey by 1911. Fast forward to the 1939 Register, and the three children, Joseph, Mary, and Edith, were all still living together at that same address. Joseph followed his father into photography, while his sisters were engaged in domestic duties, closing a quiet chapter on a century of local family history.

For more information on the old inns of the area, including places like The Travellers Rest mentioned at the start of this story, follow the link below to read about Pudsey's lost pubs:

https://thepudsey.blog/2021/08/damons-history-pudseys-lost-pubs-part-3/

27/08/2026

Who remembers the massive Sandoz works at Horsforth???

Many people who know the stretch along the River Aire and Leeds–Liverpool Canal near Calverley Lane will remember the sprawling Sandoz complex. Developed through the 1950s and 1960s, the Horsforth site served as the UK base for the Swiss firm. For decades, it was a hive of activity, providing dyes, pigments, and process chemicals to the region's busy textile, leather, and paper mills, alongside housing modern laboratories and administrative offices.
The site saw a major shift in the mid-1990s when the chemical operations were spun off under Clariant, while Sandoz went on to form part of Novartis. As heavy industry declined in the area, the works eventually closed down in the 2000s. The large industrial blocks and chimneys have since been demolished, and the land was cleared to make way for new housing and mixed developments, completely changing the character of the valley floor.

27/08/2026

Armley and Wortley News 13 October 1893

26/08/2026

Wykebeck Avenue's Historic 1834 Railway Bridge…

When the Leeds and Selby Railway was being built in the early 1830s, the engineers ran into a few awkward obstacles that needed clever solutions.
One of those problems was an existing mineral tramway that carried coal from the pits at Osmondthorpe Colliery up towards York Road, near where the Gilchrist Bakery stands today. If you know the area now, that old tramway route survives as the public ginnel running between Osmondthorpe Lane and Wykebeck Avenue.
To get the new railway across it at Wykebeck Avenue, chief engineer James Walker had to build an underbridge, now known as the Osmondthorpe Subway. It was not just an ordinary bridge for its time. Walker designed it as a single-span structure stretching an impressive 60 feet across, wide enough to carry four railway tracks rather than the standard two so the line could expand later.
Built between 1830 and 1834, the bridge is still there today and is Grade II listed as a rare surviving piece of pioneering railway engineering.