FASCINATING photographs of Horsforth stretching back as far as 1880 can be seen in a YouTube video put together by a local filmmaker.

The footage gives an insight into how Town Street and the surrounding area used to look, in images stretching from 1880 to1910.

The old photographs and postcards are included in hours of footage uploaded by Mr Saville to the YouTube Channel - Around & About Yorkshire.

Mr Saville said Horsforth went through a period of great change in 1883.

He added: “The Bell chapel on The Green was about to be demolished, although St Margaret’s church had been built, they’d run out of money and it didn’t have the steeple built until 1901.”

Many of the buildings still exist, although cottages were demolished in the 1960s, to be replaced about a decade later by Morrisons, and by Tithe House.

Other compact yards have disappeared to make way for the post office - but some pubs have survived.

Mr Saville said: “Although the Black Bull and Old King’s Arms are the same – there were two more beerhouses on the Green. Beer houses were established under an Act of 1830 which simply allowed people to buy a licence and open up their homes just to sell beer – the Government hoped people would wean themselves off gin to beer.

“The other change was at the top of Town Street: The Mechanics’ Institute was built (1881). Night classes were held here, but even before WWI there was little interest in them and it was handed over to become a Library. It became the Library again in 2005.”

A Police Station was built in 1881 but was knocked down in the 20th century.

The Bell Chapel, or St Margaret’s Church as it was officially known, had been rebuilt on The Green in 1758. The houses surrounding The Green were rebuilt at the same time.

Mr Saville said: “The Rev W H B Stocker, became Vicar in 1837, but he had been Curate since 1833, as the previous Vicar from 1823, the Rev William Gordon, held the living although he lived in Oxford. The Rev Stocker being one of the three Curates that administered to the parish needs and would have been paid by the Rev Gordon.”

Describing life in the area around that time the son of the Rev Stocker, Nelson, said: “Living was somewhat primitive in those days; most of the time there was no public water supply, people had to depend on rain water and wells, superior drinking water being conveyed round in a barrel drawn by a donkey, and retailed at 1d a bucket. Of course, there was no drainage system. The manufacture of beef and mutton carried out in a very public manner, that of pork in the open street… The parsonage was practically a public dispensary”.

Mr Saville said: “This was the focus for Horsforth and Town Street developed as the shopping street off it.

“The other churches established included The Grove Wesleyan Methodist Chapel; a similar one at Woodside had first started life in a cottage by the Corn Mill and then moved to a cottage on Woodhouse Hill. This was about to change as a purpose-built chapel was about to be built further up the hill.

“A Baptist church had started in similar circumstances in a cottage at the top of Broadgate Lane in 1801 and a purpose-built chapel at Cragg Hill built in 1803 and in 1814 joined by a Sunday School.”

Films uploaded to the YouTube channel by Mr Saville include the tour of Town Street in 1883 using old photographs and postcards; film from the 1930s including the official opening of Hall Park in 1932, and a film of the Newlay area between the Leeds-Liverpool canal and Calverley Bridge.