Trouble at the mill
PHILIP BROUGH began the huge task of putting together his ‘Barebones’ narrative of the Queen of the Moorlands. Here, abridged, is the final part...
1950
Boys High School preparatory department is closed. The Britannia Street school has 290 on the roll.
The Government inspector remarked unfavourably on the school’s cramped towncentre site and considers that the buildings are inadequate Westwood Hall girls’ High School preparatory school department is closed. Leek remains an industrial town concerned mainly with textiles, but new fibres, natural and man-made, become predominant. The Benevolent Burial Society has become a general insurance society known as the Leek Assurance Collecting Society, with an office in Russell Street.
1951
Population of Leek and Lowe is 19,356. The British Restaurant at Primitive Methodist Chapel in Fountain Street, having moved from the Ball Haye School in 1949, is closed. Jehovah’s Witnesses met in room in Barngate Street. Leek Mill holiday is taken on first Monday in October.
1954
The land on the west side of Ashbourne Road is closed and sold to Urban District Council for conversion into dwellings. The council built old people’s bungalows in garden. The East Street Primary School numbers continues to grow. St Luke’s church hall is hired to provide extra accommodation. Westwood Road junior mixed and infants’ council school changes its name and the word ‘Road’ gradually dropped from its title. The last burial at the Quaker meeting house take place.
1955
Barclays Bank moves to other premises in Derby Street. The School of Art Science and Technology is divided into the College of Further Education and the School of Art and Crafts, both housed at Nicholson Institute. Large council estates have been built at Haregate and Selborne
Road. The Leek and
District Agricultural and Horticultural Society show lapses. A further 557 houses and flats have been provided. They included 30 more in Novi Lane and Abbotts Road, 248 on Compton estate including 9 flats in adapted Compton House, 268 on Haregate estate. A site of 3½ acres has also been acquired in Westwood Heath Road. Leek County senior school (girls) school is renamed the Milner School after R.
S. Milner, the founder of a local educational charity
Leek remains centre of silk sewing thread trade in 1950s, although the number of firms is engaged in silk production is dwindling. Most of the streets are still lit by gas, and the council is planning systematic conversion to electricity.
1956
Jehovah’s Witnesses meet in a room in Ball Haye
Street. Messrs. Brough, Nicholson and Hall sells Bridge End dyeworks to Sir Thomas and Arthur Wardle Ltd. Having bought Brough Nicholson and Hall’s Bridge End dyeworks, Wardle’s established its subsidiary, Leek Chemicals Ltd. there. The side galleries removed at St Edward’s church.
1957
A separate infants’ school is opened in Whitfield Street. The canal abandoned under an Act of 1944 and the stretch north of the River Churnet aqueduct is bought by the Leek Urban District Council and later filled in. It is now the site part of Barnfields industrial estate. An ambulance station is opened in Haregate Road.
1958
Leek Amateur Dramatic Society’s gives its last production. Leekensian Amateur Operatic Society formed. Spiritualists cease meetings at Overton Bank. Most of cottages in Mill Street are demolished.
1959
There are 476 on roll at Milner school and the building is extended, with boys’ school renamed the Mountside school.
1960
Barclays Bank moves to other premises in Haywood Street. The cattle market transferred to a seven-acre site off Junction Road. The bus station and the shopping precinct are built on Haywood Street site. The May fair, having been held on the Haywood Street Smithfield, is also transferred to new Smithfield.
Moorlands Engineering Co Ltd closes its works by the canal wharf, leaves only one foundry in Leek, in Sneyd Street belonging to Sneyd Engineering Rail passenger services between Leek and Stoke and between Leek and Macclesfield cease.
The Leekensian Amateur Operatic Society performed in Grand Theatre.
1961
Population of Leek and Lowe is 19,182. The Magistrates Court moves to part of the Methodist Sunday school building in Regent Street.
An operatic society is established at All Saints’ church called the All Saints’ Amateur Operatic Society.
Slum clearance continues, 283 dwellings has been demolished out of 450 scheduled for demolition.
Majestic Cinema gutted by fire and destroyed.
1962
Work begins on the bus station and shopping centre on the site of the former cattle market in Haywood Street. Palace cinema, called the Regal, becomes a bingo hall. District Bank becomes subsidiary of National Provincial Bank Ltd.
Job White and Sons becomes public company.
Messrs. Brough, Nicholson and Hall begin a four-year modernisation programme, with activities concentrated in Cross Street and at Cheadle.
The knitting department is transferred to Job White and Sons Ltd of Compton Mills, which take over the London and York mills.
There are some small engineering works in Leek which are ancillary to textile trade.
Leek and District Agricultural and Horticultural Society show is revived, as an annual event at Birchall.
A Saturday general market introduced. East Street Primary School is deemed to be overcrowded.
There are fewer than 150 pupils at All Saints’ C.E. school. The managers are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the building to the required standards and parents are sending their children elsewhere.
1963
The Primitive Methodist chapel at Bethesda is closed again, and used for commercial purposes Several of larger textile firms have their own boxmaking departments, but there also six independent box manufacturers. A J. Worthington (Holdings) Ltd. consists of six companies.
At All Saints, a silver chalice and paten dated 1569, are given under will of Gilbert Tatton. The bus station is opened on the former cattle market in Haywood Street. Wallbridge Park begun. A junior training centre is established by the County Council in Springfield Road.
1964
The Mount Road reservoir is enlarged. The Moorlands Lodge Oddfellows Club closes. The Gas Works cease production. The new post office is opened further north in St. Edward Street.
Job White and Sons is one of largest manufacturers of knitted headwear in country, employing some 600 people, over half at Compton and rest at London and York mills, which it has acquired from Brough Nicholson and Hall, and at Hope Mill in Macclesfield Road.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses meetings cease.
The wrapper and box division of Adams Butter Ltd is opened in the former silk mill in Queen Street, and an office block built on the site adjoining the main factory.
The railway line north from Leek is closed for freight.
Compton Mills is burnt down. A class for children with special educational needs housed in part of Mount school, West Street. Martins Bank Ltd moves to former Savings Bank building on corner of Derby Street and Russell Street. Lloyds Bank is opened its branch in Smithfield Centre in Haywood Street.
1965
St. Luke’s Tennis Club closed. Leek Federation of Local Trades Unions achieved new importance when National Silk
Workers’ and Textile Trades Association merged with it. Comprehensive secondary education is introduced.
Passenger services between Leek and Uttoxeter cease.
Compton Mill is reopened. Westwood Hall
High School merges with the newly built St Edward’s C.E. (aided) secondary school in Westwood Park Avenue to form a mixed comprehensive Westwood County High School.
Leek and Moorlands Building Society merged with Westbourne Park Building Society, to become the sixth largest building society in the country. It is renamed Leek and Westbourne.
Britannia Street school closes. The pupils transferred to a secondary school built by the governors in Westwood Park Road and is opened that year as part of new comprehensive Westwood High School. The Britannia Street building and Milward Hall is sold.
The Boys High School in Westwood Road merges with the two secondary modern schools in Springfield Road, Milner and Mountside, to form a mixed comprehensive secondary school on two sites. The Westwood Road building becomes the new school’s Warrington Hall, named after T. C. Warrington, headmaster of High School 1900 to 1934.
All Saints’ C.E. school moves into new buildings further south in Cheadle Road. The Milner school + Mountside school schools becomes Milner Hall and Mountside Hall of mixed comprehensive Leek High School.
The completion of new
St. Edward’s C.E. (aided) secondary school in Westwood Park Avenue to replace parish church schools in Britannia Street coincides with the introduction of comprehensive secondary education in Leek. The planned school merges with the nearby Westwood Hall High School and is opened as St. Edward’s Hall of the comprehensive Westwood County High School.
Westwood County High School, Westwood Park, is opened as a mixed comprehensive High School on two sites, formed by merger of Westwood Hall High School and St Edward’s secondary school. Adams Butter Ltd goes public.
1966
The Leek branch of Samaritans is established and occupies a small room in Russell Street. Each of the eight almhouses in Condlyffe Road are divided into an upper and a lower selfcontained flat.
Springhill Hostel in Mount Road for adults with learning difficulties is opened.
Milward Hall in Salisbury Street is bought for the mortgage department of Leek and Moorlands Building Society.
Adams Butter company’s fleet of refrigerated vehicles is concentrated at a depot on an 11½ acre site at Barnfields. Petty France is cleared.
1967
At St Edward’s Church, the mechanism of the 1874 clock is retained for the quarter and hour chimes when it is replaced by an electric clock.
East Street Primary School is extended, by the addition of an assembly hall.
Wardle and Davenport are suffering heavy losses.
Leek Chemicals becomes a subsidiary of Courtaulds. Sir Thomas and Arthur Wardle Ltd. also becomes subsidiary of Courtaulds.
1968
Most buildings belonging to Brough, Nicholson and Hall, west of Cross Street, are demolished. Hubert Newton of Leek and Moorlands Building Society is knighted.
The telephone exchange is replaced by subscriber trunk dialling exchange on site of the former post office in St Edward Street.
The practise of having the Leek Mill Holiday on the first Monday in October lapses.
Hill Bros. (Leek) Ltd., publishers of the Leek Post & Times, move into the former workhouse building in Brook Street being used as dyeworks.
1969
Woodcroft County First School, Wallbridge Drive, is opened as a primary school, initially taking infants only.
Martins amalgamates with Barclays Bank Ltd. East Street Primary School, annexe at
St. Luke’s hall is closed with the opening of new schools in town. Haregate County Primary School, Churnet View opens. 1970
Harold Davies loses election
and is created life peer as Baron Davies of Leek. The Conservative, David Knox, gains the seat.
The National Provincial Bank becomes part of National Westminster Bank Ltd.
Wardle and Davenport goes into receivership.
The Leek and Moorlands Co-operative Society concentrates all trading on the Department Store in High Street.
Westminster Bank Ltd. branch is closed after formation of National Westminster Bank.
The railway line from Leek to Leekbrook is closed.
Job White and Sons are acquired by Wardle and Davenport Ltd, which went into liquidation later the same year.
Newton House is built on 27 acres on a landscaped site on the east side of Cheddleton road as Leek and Moorlands Building Society’s new headquarters.
There is only one firm still producing silk goods – Thomas Whittles Ltd., a family firm which operates at Wellington Mills in Strangman Street.
1971
The junior training centre becomes the Leek Day Special School and soon afterwards renamed the Springfield Special School.
Stockwell Street fire station is replaced by a new station in Springfield Road.
The youth centre is opened in 1971 in Milward Hall in Salisbury Street, formerly part of Leek parish church school. Population of Leek and Lowe is 19,452.
The new St. Paul’s church is built in Novi Lane. The Church Commissioners make a grant of £15,000 towards cost of building.
1972
The Congregational Church becomes the Leek United Reformed Church. Slum clearance in Mill Street is completed. The side of Church Street, including both the George and the Golden Lion are demolished for widening of Church Street.
Herbert Lisle is made OBE.
The Irish Dairy Board Co-operative Ltd., having acquired shares in Adams Butter in 1971, becomes the major shareholder and the company, with growing diversification of interests, is renamed Adams Foods Ltd.
The Leek Choral Society is founded under the direction of Keith Davis, choirmaster at
Brunswick Methodist church.
The Primitive Methodist chapel in Fountain Street demolished. Martins Bank Leek branch closes.
1973
The Leek Railway station is demolished. Belle Vue Mill is demolished, and a lingerie factory built on site. Most of the contents of the church library are sold.
1974
Brindley’s Mill is opened as working mill and museum.
The Urban District becomes a parish in the new district of Staffordshire Moorlands.
The nuns moves from King Street to a smaller house in Alsop Street. The Leek and Westbourne Building Society is merged with Ipswichbased Eastern Counties Building Society which results in a further change of name, to the Leek and Westbourne and Eastern Counties Building Society.
Land at at Oulton, in Rushton Spencer, purchased for charitable purposes, is sold.
1975
Bread is still being left in the porch of St Edward’s church for collection by poor (See 1822). Fish in Leek the Cheddleton stretch of Churnet, are wiped out in spillage.
The swimming pool is opened in Brough Park.
Adams Foods Ltd, the largest butter-selling organisation in United Kingdom, opens its with warehouse and cold storage plant on the Barnfields industrial estate.
Water supply to the Challinor fountain in Brough Park is cut off because the fountain is being vandalised.
The Maude Institute is altered and enlarged.
1976
Samaritans moves to Fountain Street.
A scheme defines the potential beneficiaries of the Milner Bequest as persons living in Leek or attending an educational establishment there.
The congregations of Mount Pleasant and Brunswick unite as the Central Methodist Church, continuing to use both chapels. The Brunswick chapel is closed.
The Britannia Building Society sells New Stockwell House to the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, a branch office having been opened in Derby Street.
The County Council’s offices which occupy much of site of Brough Nichlson and Hall, in Cross Street is opened.
1977
The Brunswick School in Regent Street is demolished.
The congregation of the united congregations of the Mount Pleasant and Brunswick chapels amalgamate with Leek United Reformed Church to form the Trinity Church, using United Reformed Church building in Derby Street.
A week of concerts and other entertainments is organised which lead to the establishment of the Leek Arts Festival.
1978
Leek Arts Festival begins. The Irish Dairy Board Cooperative becomes the owner of Adams Foods Ltd.
Two industrial estates are developed at Leekbrook and Barnfields.
1979
The old public baths demolished. The National Westminster Bank building becomes a community centre occupied by Citizens’ Advice Bureau and voluntary services.
The Mount Road reservoir is demolished as the water undertaking is now owned by Severn Trent Water Limited.
All Saints’ and St. Luke’s parishes becomes part of the new parish of Leek, with its vicar becoming a team vicar in a team ministry composed of the rector and two vicars.
1980
The nuns continue to teach at both Roman Catholic schools until they leave Leek during this year.
The Mount Pleasant chapel demolished, and sheltered flats opened on the site.
The Seventh Day Adventists start to hold services in a private house.
Numerous textile mills are closing.
Leek’s first housingassociation project, Westwood Court in North Street, is opened, providing sheltered accommodation for the elderly.
The scheme for the almshouses built at the corner of Broad Street and Compton restrict almswomen to residents of an area within five miles of Leek Market Place.
John Hilton sells the printing business in Getliffe Yard to Getliffe Design and Print.
The Britannia Building Society replace the branch office in Derby Street by a new building on the site of baths on corner of Derby Street and Bath Street.
1981
The Haregate County Primary School is closed and the building is taken over by new Churnet View Middle School and extended.
The Leek United Reformed Church is re-ordered internally, the organ being rebuilt with parts from an organ in Brunswick Methodist chapel, and space under gallery converted into vestibule.
Three-tier schooling introduced.
The Carr Trust formed by the amalgamation of the charities of Charles Carr and William Carr and and Elizabeth Flint Charles Carr (d. 1888) had left interest on £1,250 to be spent on the poor living in Leek town or within five miles.
East Street becomes a first school. The College of Further Education and school of art and crafts combined to form Leek College of Further Education and School of Art.
1982
Part of Wardle’s premises are taken over by Courtaulds Jersey.
The Seventh Day Adventists transfer their services to the Friends’ meeting house.
1983
The parish of Meerbrook is added to Leek, which becomes the parish of Leek and Meerbrook. Leek and District Manufacturers’ and Dyers’ Association, with its membership declining, is dissolved. The Cross Street Mill is taken over by Berisfords, a Congleton ribbon firm. West Street day school closes.
1984
Leek and District Historical Society is formed. A performing arts studio is opened in what has once been Westwood Hall’s banqueting room.
AJ Worthington (Holdings) Ltd. announces heavy losses, partly as a result of closure of its subsidiary.
Another large housing scheme is the Beth Johnson Housing Association’s sheltered housing, opened on a site off the Mount Pleasant Methodist chapel in Clerk Bank, and consisting of 31 single flats and eight doubles.
Leek and Moorlands Cooperative Society department store in High Street is replaced by superstore is opened by North Midland Co-operative Society Ltd. in Pickwood Road. Much of the area west of Pickwood Road is cleared for the North Midland Co-operative Society’s superstore.
1985
Plans for the redevelopment of the area on the east side of the market place is put in hand and the District Council invite proposals.
At the Almshouses, a separate building comprising four flats for additional almswomen is built in Compton on the south side of almshouses by Basil Bailey of Cheadle. The Grand Theatre closes.
1986
A Sports Hall is built in Brough Park. Turnover increases with the reemergence of White and Sons, and Worthingtons showed a profit again.
The Trustee Savings Bank is opened in Market Place.
The Co-operative Society store on the corner of High Street and Field Street is converted into a Court House for the Magistrates Court. The market cross is moved back to the Market Square.
Leek College of Further Education and School of
Art, technology block and business studies centre is opened in Union Street, also a subsidiary centre for further education at Biddulph.
1987
The former pastor of the Buxton Road Pentecostalist church establishes a separate congregation called Oasis Ministries in the former Methodist school in West Street.
The Regal Bingo Hall at the corner of High Street and Salisbury Street is closed, taken over by Jehovah’s Witnesses as their Kingdom Hall. East Street Primary School has 200 on the roll. Joshua Wardle Ltd is bought by major customer, William Baird plc.
The new Council Offices are opened.
1988
Fred Hill bookshop is closed.
Most of original buildings of the hospital on the west side of Ashbourne Road demolished.
Cross Street Mill is converted into an antiques showroom. A large-scale antiques trade develops with showrooms and warehouses occupying converted buildings such as Cross Street Mill and Compton school.
The Challinor fountain is moved to the forecourt of Moorlands House in Stockwell Street.
Bethesda chapel is demolished.
The present Leek Baptist church built on site of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Rosebank Street.
One of the mills formerly belonging to Brough Nicholson and Hall is turned into an antiques showroom.
The Town Hall is demolished and the town council’s offices are moved to 15 Stockwell Street.
A scheme for the east side of Market Place is finally adopted, with strong opposition.
Leonard Street Police station is replaced by one in Fountain Street.
Of 851 hectares in Leek civil parish, 732 hectares are grassland, 73 hectares are rough grazing, and 42 hectares are woodland.
There are 1,869 head of cattle, including calves, and 444 sheep, including
204 breeding ewes and 212 lambs.
Of the 35 holdings returned, there are 11 full-time farms, 10 of them entirely devoted to dairying and others mainly so. All are under 100 hectares in size, with only five of 50 hectares or more.
The Leek College of Further Education and School of
Art, one of smallest in North Staffordshire and serving Staffordshire Moorlands, has 260 full-time students, 848 part-time day students, 117 part-time day and evening students, 1,740 students taking evening classes.
1989
The Irish Dairy Board Cooperative (owners of Adams Foods Ltd) are taken over by another subsidiary of the Cooperative, Kerrygold Co. Ltd.
Members of Leek and District Historical Society are involved in the establishment of Leek and Moorlands Historical Trust, one of whose aims is the opening of a heritage centre in the town.
The railway lines from Leekbrook to Cauldon and to Stoke, serving Caldon
Low limestone quarries are closed.
Good fishing returns to the River Churnet between Leek the Cheddleton. National Rivers Authority, releases over 2,000 chub and dace and answers fears about their survival by stating that the dyeworks effluent was harmless and that the only danger from the Leekbrook sewage works.
1990
A floor is inserted in the tower of St Edward’s church to create a meeting room which extends under the west gallery and over parlour.
The Beth Johnson association completes the first phase of 40 pensioners’ flats in Pickwood Close.
After being refurbished and extended, the Moorlands Hospital is opened as a community hospital.