125 years ago

The choir of St Margaret's Church, Ilkley, had their annual trip, the locality selected this year being Dacre Banks and Brimham Rocks. When an excessive charge of one shilling per head was demanded to allow the sightseers to look around at Brimham Rocks it was decided to abandon the inspection altogether and the party returned to Dacre Banks and were soon seated in front of a substantial dinner at the Royal Oak Hotel.

Addingham Feast was celebrated in much the same manner as in former years, the principal attractions being cricket, shows and shooting galleries. The Main Street was lively on Sunday. On Tuesday the Midland Railway ran a trip to Liverpool and the Weslyans had a drive to Malham on the same day.

At a meeting of the Ilkley Local Board, Doctor Little said he would like to know if there was not a place in the river where bathing could be indulged in without the bathers being hunted out by policemen, or outraging the decency of the neighbourhood. It was a serious thing for a watering place like Ilkley to be without a place where the young might learn to swim, and men practice swimming.

100 years ago

Charles Butterill, a carter employed by William Rushworth, Addingham, residing in Wellington Road, Ilkley, met with an accident on Saturday morning. He was leading stone from the Hangingstones Quarry and in coming down the quarry road had hold of the brake handle when a stone weighing about 2cwts, fell off the cart and struck him on the right hip causing a nasty bruise. He was taken home in the horse ambulance.

A number of Ilkley Grammar School boys were returning through Addingham on Saturday night in a wagonette drawn by two horses when they had a narrow escape. A trace came lose, the horse became restive, one of the boys was thrown on the footpath and the wagonette collided with a wall.

On Thursday afternoon 28 Leeds children came to the holiday home, succeeding the 28 Bradford children, who returned home on Wednesday morning after spending three weeks at the home. The special treat was given by Mr and Mrs Hutchinson.

The Leeds Corporation's Bill, which amongst other things includes powers for the construction of a tramway from the present terminus of the Leeds tramways at Horsforth forward to Guiseley, on Wednesday passed the third reading in the House of Lords. The Bill has now gone through both Houses of Parliament and only now requires the Royal Assent to enable it to become law. This assent will probably be given before Parliament adjourns for the autumn session.

The clerk at a meeting of Wharfedale Rural District Council reported upon the Local Government Board inquiry held into the application by the Wharfedale Rural District Council for power to borrow £2,500 for the erection of the sewerage and sewage disposal works at Middleton. At the close of the inquiry the Local Government Board inspector went down to the outfall site. From the way in which the inquiry went, the clerk thought he was entitled to gather that they would have practically no difficulty in getting the scheme through.

A striking commentary on the increase of lunacy is provided by the report of the committee of the Wharfedale Board of Guardians, who recently visited Menston Asylum. There are no less than 106 pauper lunatics in the asylum at the present time from the Wharfedale Poor Law Union area, and of these 29 have been admitted since 1905. Mr Lund, commenting on the report, said lunacy was on the increase; he remembered the time when they had not so many inmates at the asylum from that union. The ratepayers are mulcted in the cost of about £3,000 a year for the maintenance of these poor unfortunate people.

75 years ago

The draft proposals of the Special Review Committee for the re-planning of the West Riding were issued this week. If carried out, the effect locally will be extremely drastic. Some of the more important proposals are: Wharfedale Rural District area is extinguished. Parts of it will be added to Otley Urban District, Ilkley Urban District, Pateley Bridge Rural District, and small portions to Leeds and Bradford County Boroughs. Burley and Menston added to Ilkley. Addingham, which was expected to be brought under one of the Wharfedale authorities, is left as a portion of Skipton Rural Area. Observations of the councils concerned are invited within the next fortnight.

The prompt action of two men in in putting out a fire which they had discovered at The Arches, Bolling Road, on Monday afternoon prevented what might have been a very serious outbreak, and certainly resulted in saving the life of a Sealyham dog. Mr Arthur Emmott and Mr Donald Roe, employed by Messrs Hartley's, Regent Café, Ilkley were passing along Bolling Road in the motor van at about 3.30 when Mr Roe noticed smoke coming from one of the windows of the house. Mr and Mrs Gallagher, who reside there, were away from home. Mr Emmott and Mr Roe discovered that a large cupboard in the kitchen was well ablaze. The room was full of smoke, and had it not been for the pitiful whining of the dog they would have immediately got in touch with the fire brigade and left the outbreak to them. As it was, Mr Emmott broke the window and jumped inside and handed the dog to Mr Roe, who remained outside.

Accounts of the treatment to which Jews have been subjected throughout the ages and the atrocities inflicted upon them by the Nazis in Germany were given to a sympathetic audience in the parlour of the Ilkley Wells Road Methodist Church on Tuesday by Pastor B Lipschutz of the Hebrew Christian Missionary in Manchester. Mr W S Robertson, of Ben Rhydding, who presided, said the reports of what was going on in Germany were an attack on our common humanity.

50 years ago

Arriving by special trains, motor coaches, motor cars, cycles, and even on foot, hundreds of ramblers met beside the Cow and Calf Rocks on Ilkley Moor on Sunday afternoon, and unanimously passed a resolution expressing grave concern at the refusal of West Riding County Council to negotiate access to agreements enabling the public to walk freely on uncultivated moorlands. They called upon the Minister of Housing to insist upon the implementation of the National Parks Act to moorlands in the West Riding.

Following the two-days public inquiry at Ilkley in July of last year the Minister of Housing and Local Government has refused to permit sand and gravel working on the Denton Park Estate and to erect a Bailey bridge there, and whilst granting permission for such work to be carried out in land at the other side of the river, has limited the period to four years.

Two speakers introduced a discussion on the scientific and religious and moral aspects of the Hydrogen bomb at a special meeting arranged by the Ilkley branch of the United Nations Association, in the Wells Road Assembly Hall last week. Dr L Strickland, a scientist at Leeds University, dealt with the effects of nuclear tests and described the effects on animals and human beings of radioactive strontium and caesium.

25 years ago

Approval has been given by Bradford Metropolitan Council's planning sub-committee for the next stage of housing development in the grounds of Heber's Mount, Grove Road, Ilkley. Heber's Mount has itself already been converted into six flats and about 14 houses are to be built in the grounds.

The biggest of five new schemes costing nearly £2m which were approved by the Policy and Resources Committee of the Yorkshire Water Authority on Wednesday is for Ilkley. It was agreed that £805,000 should be spent on expanding and improving the Ilkley sewage treatment works.

A call for more litter bins in Ilkley was made at a meeting of the town's parish council on Monday. Coun Peter A Williams, vice chairman of the council, said: "We need litter bins and have been asking for them for two years. We have got sponsors but cannot get planning permission for them where we want them."

2:04pm Thursday 3rd July 2008

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