Last December I met a friend in the Chemic in Woodhouse. We started talking about the snippets of history we knew about the area.
She has a print of the entry to Royal Park Gardens, a pleasure gardens that stretched down from Hyde Park Road between Royal Park Road and Brudenell Road.
Hyde Park once hosted a massive Suffragette rally.
She had a chart from the 17th century that shows the stone stepped mounting block beside the A660 in Hyde Park. That means that if you stand there, despite the huge view, it is the oldest structure you can see.
I chipped in - George Orwell stayed in Estcourt Avenue whilst researching Road To Wigan Pier. Henry Rollins lived in the Harolds. The air raid shelter under Hyde Park still has paint on the walls saying which side is for men and which for women. The pub we were sat in took its name from the chemical works that used to stand beside it.
We were really enthused and thought we should research things more with a view to doing a pamphlet. A history of Hyde Park (the district not just the park, though the park should be seen as a sort of spiritual centre of the area) and it should have something of a radical slant.
Well, it's six months later and there's no real work been done.
But I thought if I start this blog, I can just tip my notes and findings on to it so things are useful immediately without waiting for a publication to be finished. Also, it means others can leave comments and fill in gaps or correct errors.
So, it's not meant to be definitive or authoritative, but a way of putting down what I've found so far and what the questions niggling me are.
I'll stray further away from the park if what I've found is interesting enough or undocumented enough. It's arbitrary. I'll go as far as Estcourt Avenue for George Orwell, but not all the way up to Far Headingley for Alan Bennett.
3 comments:
My old man has a beer label for when the Chemic was briefly a brewery. I'm going to frame it and take it down for them.
Ben, I had no idea that ever happened. When was it? What's the beer label look like?
I'd love it if you could sned me a scan and I'll post it on the blog.
I'm an American, and was one of the first American exchange students to attend the University of Leeds in 1973-4. I lived in Hyde Park on Chestnut Avenue, and I love this blog! Please don't stop!
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