Perfect delivering weather today! Its great to see people outside making the most of the weather and enjoying the parks that call Headingley & Hyde Park home!
Lockdown has shown us the importance of protecting green areas across our community – something Brandon strongly believes in. Safe green parks are vital in making healthy communities.
Protecting our local heritage is key to preserving the history of our local community. Today Brandon visited Rose Court, in Headingley, which is a historically important building that urgently needs protecting. As a Grade 2 listed building, the owners are legally required to protect it and yet it remains untouched and left to ruin.
The Labour councillors have failed to protect buildings like Rose Court. Our community deserves better!
Voting for Brandon on 6 May will ensure our local heritage is protected and buildings like Rose Court are saved from ruin.
Penny and Brandon have been out and about around the ward. It is great news that the Hyde Park Picture House restoration is shortly due to begin following the Covid-19 pause, having also secured additional funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Culture Recovery Fund!
We’re looking forward to seeing the finished product, which will no doubt provide countless opportunities for the local community to enjoy great films and an improved community space.
Improving our local community hubs helps to keep the heart of our local community beating!
Have you ever noticed this little garden in front of St. Michael’s Parish Hall? It’s actually the last surviving fragment of Headingley village green. This green was originally common land, but after many years of encroachment it was eventually enclosed as private land in 1834.
The Parish Hall itself has its origins in a Town School, built on the green in the 1780s when it was still common land. The building we see today dates from the 1840s, when the original school was rebuilt to accommodate local population growth. It became a Parish Hall when St. Michael’s School moved to Wood Lane in the 1970s – now of course known as Shire Oak School after merging with the old Bennett Road school.
You can read more about our area’s history in Eveleigh Bradford’s book, Headingley: this pleasant rural village.
Until May 1941, a gnarled old oak tree stood in the middle of Headingley. It can be seen on the left in this photograph from 1897:
Headingley, Yorkshire: St Michael’s Church and the Shire Oak. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Photograph by F. Frith, 1897.
Sadly, it is long gone now, but this plaque records what happened to it, and the story of its original function:
In case you can’t read the plaque, which is a little eroded now, the text runs as follows:
In front of this tablet there existed the SHIRE OAK which collapsed from old age on the 26th of May 1941. This it is believed was the place of meeting where the Head of the Saxon Wapentake, the Local Government Unit, foregathered with his chief men. Leeds was in the Wapentake of Skyrack or Shire Oak.
The connection between this oak tree and the Skyrack wapentake was first suggested by the local antiquarian Ralph Thoresby in the early 18th century, and not everyone has accepted the theory. But it has certainly had an influence on the local topography, lending its name to the nearby Shire Oak Road, Skyrack pub and Original Oak pub.
In 1956, a replacement tree was planted near to the plaque, just outside the Original Oak’s beer garden:
If the old tree was the Original Oak, then I suppose we have to think of this one as the Unoriginal Oak. 😉
Penny Goodman and the local Liberal Democrat team are asking Wetherspoons, the new owners of the Elinor Lupton Centre, to clean up the building.
This grade 2 listing building is covered in graffiti and is currently an eyesore rather than a landmark Headingley residents can be proud of.
The local Liberal Democrat team has supported proposals by Leeds Music Hub to use the building as a music and arts space and has expressed concern at it being turned into a pub.
Mention Headingley to anyone from outside Leeds, and their response is usually, “Oh yes – where the cricket stadium is.” But did you know that one of the most famous players ever to grace the stadium was also born locally?
Hedley Verity (1905-1943) was born in Welton Grove, and went on to play for Yorkshire and then England, storming the wickets with his left-arm bowling technique. Today, a blue plaque marks the house where he was born.
Sadly, Verity died at the age of only 38 from injuries sustained while fighting in Sicily during the Second World War. He is buried in Italy.
A few weeks ago, local campaigner Penny Goodman wrote to Wetherspoons, asking them to clean up the Elinor Lupton Building on Headingley Lane. Their Acquisitions & Estates Manager responded quickly, saying that he would instruct contractors to undertake the work. But all that’s happened since is that the hedge in front of the building has been cut down, and some of the rubbish cleared away.
This isn’t really what we had in mind when we called for a clean-up! If anything, the building looks worse now, because the graffiti affecting the front is more visible.
Penny Goodman therefore wrote back to the Wetherspoons Acquisitions & Estates Manager to ask when the graffiti would be cleaned away. But this time his reply was that Wetherspoons would not be removing the graffiti until they go in to develop the building.
Planning permission for Wetherspoons to convert this building into a pub has not been granted yet, and development cannot start until it is. Given the scale of local opposition to the plans, that could take a very long time! But Wetherspoons already own the building, so its condition is their responsibility.
We think that if they want to show their willingness to make a positive contribution to the local community in Headingley, they should clean up the building properly now – regardless of the outcome of the planning process.
The Grade II listed Elinor Lupton Building on Headingley Lane used to be part of Leeds Girls High School. But in 2010 the school moved to new premises, and the building was put on the market. Then in 2014, local residents were dismayed to learn that the school had sold the building to Wetherspoons, who hope to turn it into a huge pub with a capacity of around 1000 patrons. Meanwhile, after five years standing empty, the building has fallen into a sorry state, covered in graffiti and fly-posters, and surrounded by rubbish.
 
Local Headingley campaigner Penny Goodman has written to the CEO of Wetherspoons, John Hutson, asking the company to take their responsibility for the building which they now own seriously, and clean it up. Here is the text of her letter:
Dear Mr. Hutson,
I am a local campaigner in Headingley, Leeds, and I am writing in relation the Elinor Lupton Centre on Headingley Lane: a local building which formerly belonged to The Grammar School at Leeds and was recently purchased by Wetherspoons.
As I’m sure you are aware, planning permission to convert this building into a Wetherspoons pub is currently being sought from Leeds City Council. Over 70 local residents and residents’ groups have objected to the application, citing concerns about the noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour likely to be generated by the numbers of customers anticipated in the plans, and the fact that an additional licensed premises in this area would contravene the Cumulative Impact Policy already in place for Headingley.
In the meantime, the building itself is increasingly becoming a target for graffiti, litter and fly-posting, turning it into an eye-sore rather than the distinctive landmark feature it once was. Since it is such a large building, and faces directly onto the main road through Headingley, the effect is to make the entire local neighbourhood appear run-down and neglected.
My view is that as the new owners of the Elinor Lupton Centre, Wetherspoons have a responsibility to ensure that it is kept clean and in good repair. Taking measures to clean up the graffiti, litter and posters currently disfiguring the site would also demonstrate your company’s commitment to the character of the local neighbourhood.
I am therefore writing to ask you to take measures to clean up the external parts of this building now, as a way of demonstrating Wetherpoons’ goodwill towards the local community in Headingley.
Yours sincerely,
Penny Goodman
Did you know that Headingley has its own air-raid shelter? A vent for it can be seen in the pavement immediately outside Boots on the corner of Bennett Road.
Some people have suggested that the ‘Headingley Hole’, discovered by workmen digging in the mouth of Bennett Road in 2010, might be part of the shelter itself.