SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

I was born at No 16 Darnley Street in Beeston. At the top of the street and up a flight of stone steps was Folly Lane. Why was Darnley Street several feet below Folly Lane? The house with the full washing line was where I lived

Folly Lane no longer exists and neither does Darnley Street.
Today Folly Lane has become a part of Bismark Street due to clearance and regeneration, however you can still see the undulations today as to where Folly Lane was higher than Darnley Street on the left on Google Street. Its all uphill from Hunslet Hall Road to Town Street and many streets were higher than the one below them.

https://goo.gl/maps/5qSMBX79aAq

Thanks for that.
Family visits and research mean that I am in that area almost every week, and can recall the changing history of the gradients along Bismark Street. It seems odd that there once was a 10 foot cliff along Folly Lane, at the end of Essex Street Darnley Street and Moorville Place.
If originally it was a gradual gradient then the back to back streets would have matched the slope.
If originally there was a cliff face, surely the house builders would have graded the levels to create a slope ?
I cannot understand how it finished up the way it was,when I lived there and I have not been able to find evidence of the dramatic change in ground level before the roads were built.
When my younger sister was learning to walk, she always held onto something. When she walked down the street, she would hold the house walls. She would disappear into the yards, clinging onto the perimeter walls and reappear a few minutes later.

This picture looking up Darnley Street on Leodis shows how much higher the streets were beyond Folly Lane.

http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL

Before we were married in 1960 my wife lived in Bismark Street in one of the houses opposite side to the small Catholic Church. I don't recall a great deal about the area except that behind the Church there were allotments and the land sloped up very sharply in line with Lady Pit Lane ( Plaza Social Club ?. etc.) About that time the house next door to my Mother in Law had its chimney stack collapse in a storm and went through the next doors roof killing the young couple in bed.
This made the Yorks. Evening Post at the time but i can't find it now on line.

buffaloskinner wrote:

This picture looking up Darnley Street on Leodis shows how much higher the streets were beyond Folly Lane.

http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL

Your photo shows the full parapet wall at the left and right of the street, the photo I posted, shows half parapet wall and half railings.
I don't know which came first, I suspect the wall was first, because when I left in 1954,I think the old railings were there.