Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Places to explore
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markstansfield
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by markstansfield »

HI,

I spent my childhood - 1968 ( 10 years old ) till 1975 playing in all these areas. I lived on Manor Road. There are loads and loads of tunnels and very large chambers. We found and took loads of Treasure!!! We really had no idea of fear or privacy. We broke through old wooden boards and used ropes to access all types of passages. Two of these tunnels go under the river and came out into a factory basement.

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buffaloskinner
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by buffaloskinner »

markstansfield wrote: I spent my childhood - 1968 ( 10 years old ) till 1975 playing in all these areas. I lived on Manor Road. There are loads and loads of tunnels and very large chambers. We found and took loads of Treasure!!! We really had no idea of fear or privacy. We broke through old wooden boards and used ropes to access all types of passages. Two of these tunnels go under the river and came out into a factory basement.

Intriguing, please tell us more about your adventures.
Is this the end of the story ...or the beginning of a legend?

markstansfield
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by markstansfield »

It was just a comment really but thinking about it and other places started to activate dormant brain cells.
I can remember lots of vivid details and others are hazy. I remember the way we needed to enter a tunnel was by climbing over a steel rail drop down beneath some large cast iron riveted beams. Then crawl under and there was a wooden door/ panel. Once we broke through that we entered a passageway that led in three directions. One took us underneath the queens Hotel, one took us across the road to the other side of the arch then eventually up to a public house. The third went under the river to a factory. The one under the river was very dirty and damp. It was covered in old bottles - all empty all types. The one to the queens hotel had various rooms that had been bricked up from the hotel side. We could hear people on the other side and think it was the kitchens and service areas? We found bottle of wine and other drinks. These were covered in dust / silt dirt and general rubbish. We took these home and I gave mine to my dad saying I had found them. He never asked why / where and he took them into work or somewhere? Never asked or told. !!! We went back lots and lots of times and explored. We took bottles on lots of occasions. Near the hotel we worked away into a room via a small horizontal shaft and found some white ( covered in paper and in boxes) silk shirt and loads of clothes patterns. Again we took these home. The shirts were too good a quality for my dad to wear -!!!! He gave them away to a POSH relative!
The passage to the pub was empty but we liked the distance and the thoughts of being in a PUB at 11years old!!!
The passage under the river was quite scary and we used to only go when we felt brave. We used to look around the factory and the tools and we used to find ( but never dare take away ) girly mags and the like! The second tunnel came to an abrupt end with a large steel door we could not get past.
Really it was just one of the many place we entered in and around Holbeck and Hunslet. There was a dye works still with bottles of chemicals and colours. Another place was a scrap years where we found old german war helmets and other war stuff. Machinery of all types and offices just strewn with papers etc etc.
I suppose it could be considered not the best of childhoods? but I went on to live a respectable life and never had any trouble with the law. Nowadays - I suppose we would be classed as criminals

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buffaloskinner
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by buffaloskinner »

Keep the memories flowing Mark Stansfield
Sounds like a great childhood to me. In the 50's when I was young we used to raid the back of the Wykebeck Arms and the Dog and Gun. They always seemed to throw away old crisps which we scavenged and ate, must have been okay food cos we were never ill.
Is this the end of the story ...or the beginning of a legend?

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Leodian
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by Leodian »

Hi Mark :).

That's fascinating stuff. You state "I suppose it could be considered not the best of childhoods? but I went on to live a respectable life and never had any trouble with the law. Nowadays - I suppose we would be classed as criminals". They are the sort of things most (if not all) of us would have explored around when we were younger if we had come across them! Nothing as exciting as that (as far as was aware) where I grew up in Osmondthorpe. Getting into Neville Hill Sidings train sheds to get onto train engines (particularly Streakers and Blinkers) was probably the most 'exploring' that I did in the very early 1950s.
A rainbow is a ribbon that Nature puts on when she washes her hair.

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buffaloskinner
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by buffaloskinner »

Hi Leo I grew up on Wykebeck Avenue in the 50's and also spent many hours exploring Neville Hill, we even slept in a train carriage one night. I also recall there being an Air Raid shelter close to Neville Hill at the righthand side just before the road bridge.
Is this the end of the story ...or the beginning of a legend?

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Leodian
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by Leodian »

buffaloskinner wrote:Hi Leo I grew up on Wykebeck Avenue in the 50's and also spent many hours exploring Neville Hill, we even slept in a train carriage one night. I also recall there being an Air Raid shelter close to Neville Hill at the righthand side just before the road bridge.
Hiya buffaloskinner :).

I don't recall the air raid shelter so me and the lads that I played with must have missed that! Finding an empty bomb case (well we assumed it was empty!) in a garden next to the start of East End Park nearish Ings Road when chumping (it would have been in the very early 1950s) was about the most 'exciting' thing we ever came across! We left it, so I wonder what ever happened to it (probably still there but buried in the soil)? The trains though were always the most looked-forward to things.
A rainbow is a ribbon that Nature puts on when she washes her hair.

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Happy Valley
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Re: Leeds Railway Station's 'Lost World'

Post by Happy Valley »

Leodian wrote:"But for all that good times Leodian." Very true tilly. The childhood anticipation of a day trip by train to such as Scarborough, Blackpool, Belle Vue zoo and fun park, etc was always great. Oh, and one particular recollection of Blackpool was its vast network of rail tracks where there is mostly just space nowadays not far from the Pleasure Beach (well there was when I was last in Blackpool in 2006).
The old Blackpool railway tracks that you remember near to the Pleasure Beach, will be what is now the big car and coach parks near the Police Station and the football ground area off Yeadon Way.

Blackpool Central was the biggest railway station in Blackpool, a 14 platform station just over the road from where Coral Island is today until the end of 1964. Coral Island was the site of the old booking office and has a blue plaque for the railway station.

This was the busiest railway station in the world in 1911.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool ... ay_station

On a hot sunny day this must have been quite a cool railway station to arrive at so close to the tower and the beach on a steam train. The very busy station escaped the axe with Dr Beeching, but Blackpool Corporation had other ideas for the large amount of prime railway land and talked British Railways into closing Blackpool Central instead of Dr Beeching’s recommended Blackpool North closure.

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bl ... ndex.shtml

The track bed was filled in with ballast between the platforms to turn it into a car park. Last time I was in Blackpool (2011) I seem to remember some resurfacing work going on around that area of the car park, so they might be gone now, the old platforms can still be made out on Google Earth though.

The red brick car park wall near Coral Island is all that remains of the old station building today and a stone boundary wall behind the Sea life Centre. The old toilet block had a blue plaque fitted but this was demolished and replaced around 5 or 6 years ago.

Yeadon Way, the new road (built in the early 90s) out of Blackpool from the car parks to the M55 roundabout, is an old railway line from Central station which branched off right at Great Plumpton just after the junction on the motorway. The first couple of miles or so of the motorway out of Blackpool was built on the old track bed.

A Sepecat Jaguar from Warton test landed on the M55 during construction to test the new road surface out for makeshift landings during wartime, and some of the back fill for the motorway came from the old runways at Inskip.

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