Stories from our archives (From Wharfedale Observer)

Stories from our archives

1:30pm Thursday 10th June 2010

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1885

At the Otley Police Court, on Tuesday morning, William Stead, a pauper, was charged with absconding from the Otley Workhouse on Sunday morning, and taking with him some clothing and a violin. Mr Meller, the Workhouse master, proved the case, and said the man was of weak intellect, and he did not suppose he had any felonious intention in taking away the violin and clothing. Prisoner did not understand music, it was simply a hobby he had. William who was apprehended at Charlestown, Baildon, scraping the violin, said he would not run away again, and taking this into consideration, the Bench ordered him to be imprisoned until the rising of the court, and then sent back to the workhouse.

lOn Wednesday morning a fire broke out at the Manor Mills, Yeadon, in the willeying house, occupied and worked by Mr Constantine Waterhouse. It appears that a piece of iron had in some manner or other worked itself into the teazer and coming into contact with the teeth, struck fire. The cotton, which was going through the machine at the time, immediately ignited and was soon in a blaze. An alarm was at once raised, and very soon a crowd of willing hands was on the spot, and some patent fire-extinguishers being close at hand, the fire was soon put out, before any serious damage was done.

1910

What is nothing short of a scandal was disclosed at the meeting of the Otley Burial Council on Friday last. An utter disregard of reverence for the dead has been shown, and of feeling for the bereaved. The silken ribbons from the floral emblems left as as last tribute to the departed, which can be worth no more than a few shillings, have proven too great an enticement to the greedy and covetous eye of some person or persons. This is not an isolated case, however, and receptacles for flowers, together with wreaths, have been removed from grave to grave.

lConsiderable inconvenience is being suffered in the upper parts of the township of Yeadon on account of the scarcity of the water supply. The Waterworks Company, we have been told, has cut off some of the mills entirely with the object of improving matters, and by next week they hope to be able to give a much better supply to household consumers, through effecting a junction with the newly laid mains with the old one near the railway bridge at Guiseley Greenbottom.

1935

A frightened cow, by the name of Mary, provided some excitement in Otley on Monday when for half-an-hour it defied the efforts of police officers and drivers to remove it from a bedroom into which it had wandered. Mary, a buxom red and white beast, belonged to Mr C Lupton, of East Keswick, and along with a bull and a number of other beasts was being walked by two drovers from Stainburn to the Wharfedale Farmers’ Auction Mart. In Gay Lane an approaching motor car caused Mary to turn and become separated from the remainder of the herd. She ran down several back streets in the vicinity of Otley Gas Works. She wandered into a an open house door, walked into the scullery, then painfully climbed a dozen or so steep steps into the bedroom. Twenty minutes' hard work was required before Mary could be turned in the narrow bedroom and hauled head first down the steep staircase.

By an overwhelming majority, a largely attended meeting of Bramhope ratepayers in the Craven Institute on Wednesday voted against the Parish Council considering any scheme of street lighting for the village. Conditions were changing quite rapidly, said the chairman and it was obvious that Bramhope was becoming quite an urban district. In addition there were several street crossings where lighting would be an advantage.

1960

There was mention of an epidemic of street lamp breaking in Aireborough in a case before Otley Magistrates’ Court on Friday, when a youth from Yeadon pleaded guilty to damaging five street lamps be firing at them with an airgun. Chief Inspector Glasspool said there had been an epidemic of street-lamp breaking in the Aireborough Urban District and the police had received many complaints. He added: “Apart from the malicious and wilful damage to street lamps there is the considerable danger to life and limb, and particularly to the eyes of people with lead pellets flying about the streets.” The defendant was ordered to pay 13s 10d compensation to Aireborough Council.

lLate on Whit-Tuesday night – the day after the Yeadon air display –a report was received that what appeared to be an unexploded bomb about 14 inches long had been seen in the grass on the south side of the airfield. Police bomb disposal experts reported that it was, a practise anti-tank bomb, and was harmless. It was removed.

1985

Because proposed changes to the Green Belt are causing concern in Menston, particularly the prospects of development of land off Derry Hill, the village’s Community Association is calling a meeting of local residents at Kirklands on Monday, June 17, to formulate a policy. The Community Association reports that the war memorial was finally re-sited in April, and the possibility of holding a rededication service is being explored.

Plastic igloos will be springing up outside newsagents throughout Leeds next week for another new SWAP venture. The igloos, to be used for the first time in Britain, are a new system of collecting old newspapers and magazines for recycling. The first 20 came into use yesterday following the formal opening by the Lord Mayor of Leeds Councillor Sydney Symmonds at Street Lane Post Office.

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