Robin Longbottom
Oakworth
Sunday, December 27, 2020 12:08 |
Friendly Societies Hall
Does anyone know where the Friendly Societies Hall was in Crosshills and does the building still exist? |
Howard Barrett
Silsden
Sunday, December 27, 2020 17:37 |
Robin,
It was on Hall Street. That's the one with the public toilets on the corner with Main Street.
Set back from the main road was the small wooden-hut fish and chip shop on the left hand side, about level with the recycle skips, then a short space at what is now the mouth of the car park, followed by the Hall, which probably went as far on the street to the start of what is now Hall Street Motors. I recall the ground floor level being dwelling places, possibly all having an upstairs. The top floor was a single space that spanned all the houses. If the Friendly Society was like other charitable organisations, like the Oddfellows' Hall's etc, the single space was a recreational place for all the residents. I have just realised why it it called Hall Street! There are people older than myself who can probably be more precise because the chippy was a calling place for Suttoners who had been to Charlies Picture House on a Saturday night! |
Maurice Atkinson
Keighley
Sunday, December 27, 2020 21:48 |
The space above the dwellings was a large hall with a stage at one end. Our band "The Flamingos" used to rehearse there.
(See elsewhere on this forum) We used to take the front panels off and store our equipment under the stage. It was safer in the 1960's! |
Maurice Atkinson
Keighley
Sunday, December 27, 2020 21:52 |
T'wooden 'ut was the chippy of choice in Crosshills! |
Robin Longbottom
Oakworth
Monday, December 28, 2020 07:34 |
Thanks very much for the info.
I'd forgotten all about the chippy and can't recall ever going in. We always legged it back to David Coleman's, at the back of the King's Arms, after leaving Charlie's. Wonder what health and safety would think of gas fired chip fryers in wooden huts these days? |
Maurice Atkinson
Keighley
Monday, December 28, 2020 12:03 |
Just an addition to my previous post..... the entrance to the hall was in the gable end of the row of dwellings. Inside were 3 flights of wide stone steps. Me, my brother Ray and the late Glyn Whiteoak once manhandled an old iron frame upright piano up all 3 flights to the hall!
|
Maurice Atkinson
Keighley
Monday, December 28, 2020 16:33 |
See also page 8 of "Cross Hills in my lifetime" by Robert W Laycock elsewhere on the Sutton website |
Alan Smith
Sutton
Monday, December 28, 2020 20:38 |
This hall had a sloping floor that made it interesting when I believe dances were held there. |
Alan Smith
Sutton
Tuesday, January 5, 2021 19:02 |
While on the village site I remember the 1st K&F scouts kept some equipment in the hall at that time as there was not enough space for it to all go in the scout-hut which they were in at the time. I remember there was an old piano in the hall which we scouts thought had been there since the days of the old silent movies as the hall was where the locals used to go to see them before Charlies was built,reading the account how it arrived there years later one learns something all the time.The sloping floor was due to the main use the hall was being available to accommodate. |
Maurice Atkinson
Keighley
Tuesday, January 5, 2021 22:26 |
Anyone on here remember a Michael Fassenfeld (sp?)? He lived in a house underneath the Friendly Societys Hall. Lived with his Grandma I believe. |
Terry Longbottom
Valley
Wednesday, January 6, 2021 10:10 |
My father Frank told me he used to attend a gym/ boxing club in the hall, he said he was a pretty fair boxer until he was called up in the early 1940's where he came up against the battalion champion and so ended his boxing career. |
