SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

This was my closest park and I also went to school through it to Cross Flatts Park Junior School. The park had good facilities as indeed do many of Leeds Parks. They was a decent sized playground with a full complement of swings, longboat, slides and roundabouts, 8 well maintained Tennis Courts with pavilion. 2 Bowling Greens with pavilion, very well laid out flower beds and extensive open parkland and games pitches stretching all the way down to Dewsbury Road. I have spent many happy days within the environs of that green area

Maybe SL does not have many Beestonians among its number. Can't understand how this message was never followed up. Anyway....Resurrecting it now in view of the 'Stone Blocks on Armley Park' thread. In addition to the features mentioned above, CFP had a couple (at least) of stone blocks back in the late fifties and sixties. They were in the bottom half of the park which was given over to games and open space rather than the pathways and flower beds which were mainstays of the top half - Beeston Road end.Never gave a thought in those days as to what their purpose might have been. But they sound just like the ones described at Armley, a stone cube with each dimension measuring approximately two feet.Inbetween the two discrete halves of the park area was the playground, tennis courts and an enormous greenhouse where the colours and variety on display during springtime and summer was wonderful to see - even for a prepubescent schoolboy more interested in sport.The park was also a decent place for sledging. From the Preston Parade entrance there was a bit of a slope and on a good day you could get some speed up and make it down as far as level with Theodore Street.What is missing in the account above but what has been covered elsewhere on SL is the air-raid shelter in the bottom half of the park. Just like the stones, we never gave this raised patch of land a second thought either.Another feature not mentioned is the concrete cricket strip adjacent to the air-raid shelter. That would be a definite no-no in today's H&S conscious world.No idea whether the stone blocks, or indeed the concrete pitch remain to be seen in CFP these days. I know the greenhouse is long gone.Maybe if Mike Gatting had gone to CF Junior School, he wouldn't have copped that one on the nose in the West Indies.    

Forgot to mention a couple of things, although I am sure both feature elsewhere on SL. I am talking about the Park Shop and the 'bogs' at the Dewsbury Road end of the park. Only one of these still stands as far as I know. Even for those who have no idea it would not be difficult to guess which. And the one that is still with us doesn't sell sweets anymore. There - a clue. Something else I remember which had to do with CFP is the bus services which travelled up Dewsbury Road from the city centre. I am sure I remember some buses terminating at Cross Flatts Park and can only imagine that was to bring people there especially. It will have been the number 2. I can remember buses displaying CROSS FLATTS PARK on the destination board.Maybe Blakey or one of his gang on here can throw some more light on this timetable idiosynchrasy. Or maybe it's all in my imagination.

I remember going in that little shop for sweets n pop back in the 60's and early 70's. A while after it closed it turned into a part worn tyre shop but I think it's a Polish food stores now. I also remember the "Gents" it was a popular stopping point for the bus drivers / conductors who needed to spend a penny. Another memory is of a garden (small gauge") railway that was in one of the first gardens on the right as you entered the park at the little shop, it was in the garden of a house that sided on to the park, stood and looked at the track many times wishing to see a train running on it but never did.

salt 'n pepper wrote: Maybe SL does not have many Beestonians among its number. Can't understand how this message was never followed up. Anyway....Resurrecting it now in view of the 'Stone Blocks on Armley Park' thread. In addition to the features mentioned above, CFP had a couple (at least) of stone blocks back in the late fifties and sixties. They were in the bottom half of the park which was given over to games and open space rather than the pathways and flower beds which were mainstays of the top half - Beeston Road end.Never gave a thought in those days as to what their purpose might have been. But they sound just like the ones described at Armley, a stone cube with each dimension measuring approximately two feet.Inbetween the two discrete halves of the park area was the playground, tennis courts and an enormous greenhouse where the colours and variety on display during springtime and summer was wonderful to see - even for a prepubescent schoolboy more interested in sport.The park was also a decent place for sledging. From the Preston Parade entrance there was a bit of a slope and on a good day you could get some speed up and make it down as far as level with Theodore Street.What is missing in the account above but what has been covered elsewhere on SL is the air-raid shelter in the bottom half of the park. Just like the stones, we never gave this raised patch of land a second thought either.Another feature not mentioned is the concrete cricket strip adjacent to the air-raid shelter. That would be a definite no-no in today's H&S conscious world.No idea whether the stone blocks, or indeed the concrete pitch remain to be seen in CFP these days. I know the greenhouse is long gone.Maybe if Mike Gatting had gone to CF Junior School, he wouldn't have copped that one on the nose in the West Indies.     There was mining nearby and old shafts in the park hence the club nearby......Klondyke....theodore st.    ? used by the local miners.

Map of Cross Flatts Park, circa 1905. PS My great uncle Albert was a member of the Klondyke, but he wasn't a miner. I've tried finding the club on Google and Leodis without success.        

This 1942 Leodis picture taken in the park, shows the construction of a static water tank.I wonder if the stones which were in the park had anything to do with this?

Si wrote: Map of Cross Flatts Park, circa 1905. PS My great uncle was a member of the Klondyke, but he wasn't a miner. I've tried finding the club on Google and Leodis without success.     1921 map showing club on Theodore Street. Google Street View http://g.co/maps/jyvbx

Thanks Michael. It's interesting comparing the two maps. Even though the street layout is marked on the 1905 map, there hasn't been as much construction as you'd have thought in the intervening sixteen years. Also, Barkly Terrace seems to have moved!    

Si wrote: Map of Cross Flatts Park, circa 1905. PS My great uncle was a member of the Klondyke, but he wasn't a miner. I've tried finding the club on Google and Leodis without success.     Klondyke is how the club is known locally.It is actually Cross Flatts Recreation Club and the entrance is on Barkly Parade.