Amazing aerial photos of Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough from 100 years ago

Amazing photos taken above Harrogate district skies during the first half of the 20th century have been published by Historic England.

The public body this week opened up an archive of over 400,000 shots capturing Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon during a bygone era.

The photos were taken by a company called Aerofilms, which was a pioneering firm of commercial aerial photographers formed in 1919. It combined the fledgling technologies of flight and photography.

We’ve included some of the best photos below but if you visit Historic England’s website and type in a location you will be able to view more from its archive.

The photographers also captured villages such as Pannal during the 1940s when it looked much smaller than the present day.

How has Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough changed since these photos were taken?

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The present-day Prince of Wales roundabout, 1921

West Park Stray, 1921

Knaresborough Road, Granby Road, Skipton Road, 1921

Queen Ethelburga’s school, Pennypot Lane, Harrogate, 1926

Knaresborough Castle and the town centre, 1926

Ripley, 1926

Valley Gardens and the Pinewoods, 1928

Goldsborough, 1928

Knaresborough, 1926

Ripon, Williamson varnish and enamel works, 1932


Knaresborough, 1946

Pannal, 1949

Octavious Atkinson, Starbeck 1952

Partially sighted Harrogate man says it’s ‘shameful’ that many crossings don’t beep

A partially sighted Harrogate man has said it’s ‘shameful’ that many pedestrian crossings in Harrogate town centre do not make a beeping noise to let blind or visually impaired people know it is safe to cross.

John Raho, 80, relies on the noise to help him cross the road safely when vehicles stop and the green man appears.

But from the top of Cheltenham Parade up Station Parade and to the Victoria Avenue junction, 9 out of 10 crossings did not make any noise at all when the Stray Ferret tested them yesterday.

Similarly, the crossing by the Odeon cinema does not make a beeping noise.

Mr Raho said:

“I rely on the beep as a reassurance but I noticed that so many of them are not working.

“They are an essential bit of kit. It’s not big science.”

This crossing on Station Parade does not currently make a beeping noise.

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North Yorkshire County Council, which is in charge of highways in the district, is not legally obliged to add beeping noises to pedestrian crossings.

To avoid confusion, it might not have two machines beeping that are close together.

Some crossings may also have a small plastic or metal cone that can be touched. It turns when the green man lights up to indicate it is safe to cross.

This pelican crossing is the only one that beeps on Station Parade.

‘A reassurance’

However, Mr Raho said the beeping noise should be essential to improve town centre access for visually impaired people.

He said:

“It’s a reassurance for me, for others with worse eyesight it’s absolutely essential. You have to be careful.”

Mr Raho said he can just about make out a blurry green man on the other side of the road, but without a sound to guide him, he tries to take his cue from other people.

“It’s alright if other people are crossing, but people do rush across the road. 

“If someone gets knocked down, then it is bad news.”

A North Yorkshire County Council spokesperson asked Mr Raho to report any machines that are not working correctly via its website. They added that until he did so it was unable to comment.

Otley Road in Harrogate to face six weeks of roadworks

Two-way traffic lights will be installed on Otley Road, between Harrogate and Beckwithshaw, from Monday until Friday May 6.

North Yorkshire County Council will put the lights next to Persimmon Homes’ Harlow Hill Grange development whilst roadworks take place.

According to the council’s website, works include installing new street lights and signs, connecting gullies to a ditch and building a new footpath.

Motorists using the section of Otley Road closer to Harrogate have faced over a year of disruption due to the construction of the Otley Road cycle path. Phase two is set to start later this year.

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Transport assessment for 181 homes at Kingsley Drive ‘fundamentally flawed’

A transport assessment that suggests Persimmon Homes’ 181-home development on Kingsley Drive will not significantly increase traffic in the area has been called ‘fundamentally flawed’ by a Harrogate building surveyor.

The housebuilder submitted its latest proposal for the site this month after a larger development for 217 homes was rejected by councillors last year.

Persimmon commissioned transport consultant Bryan G Hall to undertake a transport assessment to assess how the homes would impact nearby roads.

At over 500 pages long, his report includes measurements, surveys and conclusions about traffic in the area.

It found the impact of the extra homes on local roads would not be ‘severe’.

The report concluded:

“The residual cumulative impact of the proposed residential development on the road network cannot be considered to be ‘severe’ and there are therefore no traffic or highways related reasons why planning permission should not be granted for this site.”

Visuals of the Persimmon Home plan for homes on Kingsley Drive.

Visuals of the Persimmon Homes plan for Kingsley Drive.

However, Steve Marshall, owner of surveyors Airedale Surveys and a member of Kingsley Ward Action Group, spent five days reviewing the document, which he called on the council to reject.

Mr Marshall said this was because one of the traffic surveys took place when part of Kingsley Drive was closed due to roadworks.

He also said the report ignored how the extra homes will impact the nearby Empress roundabout.

Disputed surveys

Mr Marshall disputed a claim in the report that Rydal Road, Birstwith Road and Leyland Road, which all have junctions with Kingsley Drive and Knaresborough Road, were not being used as ‘rat runs’.

North Yorkshire County Council, which is in charge of roads in the district, had specifically asked Persimmon to look at the rat run issue in the transport assessment, as well as how fast vehicles were travelling on the three roads.

Persimmon undertook traffic surveys on the roads from July 31 to August 6 2020 but Mr Marshall said this took place when part of Kingsley Drive was closed.

“The bottom half of Kingsley Drive was shut due to road works during the whole period of the survey. This means no one had access to the three surveyed roads along the rat run route.”

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Mr Marshall criticised the report for not taking into account trips generated at two nearby housing developments of 165 homes.

He also said the surveys did not factor in how the homes would impact the Empress roundabout and the Granby Road/Skipton Road junction during rush hour.

Mr Marshall wrote:

“This roundabout causes massive queues at rush hour despite Harrogate Borough Council’s Transport Background Paper of August 2018 saying it is not a problem junction.

“There cannot be any justification for allowing this development as it stands if one of the key assessments and the subject uppermost in the minds of local residents, ie the traffic assessment, is fundamentally flawed.”

Persimmon’s response

In February, representatives from Persimmon, as well as highways consultant Geoff Bowman from Bryan G Hall, fielded questions from residents in Starbeck about the plans, which included the transport assessment.

Residents queried Mr Bowman about the traffic surveys and suggested they did not give an accurate picture of how many cars use the area.

Mr Bowman said:

“There has been very extensive surveys of traffic in the area. There is a perception that we are nasty developers and it’s dead easy to get through planning, but the highways authority are rigorous.”

The Stray Ferret asked Persimmon Homes for a response but we had not received one by the time of publication.

Harrogate council to repeat Stray rewilding experiment

Harrogate Borough Council will again leave sections of the Stray uncut this year to improve biodiversity.

In 2021, the council’s parks team left grass verges close to the roadside on West Park Stray uncut until late autumn.

The new look was welcomed by many who saw it as a sign that the council, which manages parks and green spaces, is serious about improving biodiversity and attracting bees, birds and insects.

But those who cherish Harrogate’s long reputation for organised and elegant planting said it made the town look untidy.

Others suggested the move was down to cost-saving reasons, which the council denied.

A council spokeswoman said this morning:

“We will be repeating what we did last year and will leave the bulb areas on the Stray uncut until September/October time.”

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Conversion of former Harrogate Arms moves step closer

Building work to convert the former Harrogate Arms pub on Crag Lane into a cafe has moved a step closer.

The horticultural charity RHS bought the building in 2014 and received planning permission in 2019 to create a ground floor cafe and kitchen facilities to serve visitors of neighbouring RHS Harlow Carr.

It has now submitted a construction management plan to Harrogate Borough Council that gives details about how contractors will go about the conversion.

It says work will include the demolition of extensions, partitions, a boundary wall and low wall.

It will also involve the erection of three single-storey extensions and a boundary wall; reduction of floor levels; widening of entrance; removal of fire escape; installation of replacement doors, windows and fanlights; alterations to fenestration; formation and restoration of hard and soft landscaping.

Work on site will take place from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and from 8am to 1pm on Saturday. There will be no work on Sundays or Bank Holidays.

The council will now consider the plan.

Hotel, nightclub, restaurant and pub

The Harlow Car Hotel and Bath House was built in 1844 by two businessmen following the discovery of an ‘especially efficacious’ sulphur spring in the area.

The hotel was sold to Harrogate Corporation in 1915 and has gone through a number of incarnations since then, as a nightclub, restaurant and latterly a pub.

The building in 1930. Credit – Archant

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Sustainable menu

When the cafe opens in 2023, hospitality students from Harrogate College will devise the menu.

The students have been asked to use their culinary and creative skills to come up with a concept for a sustainable menu.

Fresh produce grown at the RHS gardens will feature prominently in the dishes.

Government gives Harrogate district private school £8m a year to educate army children

A Harrogate district private school receives over £8m a year from the government to pay the school fees of children whose parents serve in the British Army.

Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate is an independent boarding school for boys and girls at Thorpe Underwood, close to Little Ouseburn.

The school has a capacity of 1,600 pupils and around 400 are children of people serving in the armed forces. It’s situated about 30 miles from ITC Catterick and 17 miles from Harrogate’s Army Foundation College.

Members of the military are entitled to use the Continuity of Education Allowance grant, which is a state payment that covers 90% of the cost to send a child to private boarding school.

The grant is paid so children do not have their education disrupted when their parents’ army jobs require them to move around the world.

However, it can also be used by troops serving in the UK and many of the families using it are well-paid officers.

One critic of the CEA grant told the Stray Ferret the payments to Queen Ethelburga’s were effectively a “state subsidy of a very large private school” and an obstacle to social mobility.

Long-standing relationship

The Stray Ferret sent a freedom of information request to the Ministry of Defence to ask which private schools in the district have been in receipt of the CEA grant over the past three years.

Other private schools, such as Harrogate’s Ashville College, also receive the grant but not on the scale of QE, whose relationship with the armed forces goes back over 100 years.

The figures show that in 2020/21, QE had 427 children receiving the grant, worth a total of £8.5m.

Over the last three years, Ashville College has received around £300,000 a year for between 18 and 20 children. Ripon Grammar School and Harrogate Ladies’ College also received the grant for a small number of children.

‘State subsidy’

Robert Verkaik is a journalist and author who wrote a book on the public school system called Posh Boys. He is also the former home affairs editor at the Independent newspaper.

Mr Verkaik told the Stray Ferret he was troubled by the amount of money received by QE, which he called “morally and economically wrong”.

Social mobility charity the Sutton Trust has said people at the top of the armed forces were seven times more likely to go to private schools — a situation that Mr Verkaik believes is reinforced by the CEA grant.

Robert Verkaik

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The journalist submitted an FOI request of his own to the MOD in 2015 that revealed, across the UK, the majority of troops using the grant are ranked officer or above.

These include lieutenant colonels, colonels, brigadiers and generals, who are paid between £75,000 and £123,000.

Mr Verkaik said:

“Taxpayers’ money should not be used to fund privileged and wealthy families.

“The grant is an obstacle to social mobility. What happens with the CEA is that officer families receive the bulk of the subsidy. So all you’re doing is promoting the education of already very privileged children”.

State boarding schools

Whilst the CEA grant covers most of the cost for children to attend private boarding schools like Queen Ethelburga’s, 10% of the fees are expected to be paid for by the family.

But with boarding fees of between £11,214 and £14,012 per term at QE, Mr Verkaik says a lance corporal earning under £30,000 would not be able to afford the 10% termly contribution, which still equates to thousands of pounds a year for one child.

He believes children of people serving in the forces should go to state boarding schools instead and save the taxpayer millions.

“The children of non-officer ranks don’t benefit to the same extent. It’s exacerbating the hold a narrow group of families have over the education of children.”

QE response

Queen Ethelburga’s said the college provided a “secure and supportive home from home for students whose parents may need to travel or live abroad for work”.

The school did not respond to our questions that asked what rank the armed forces personnel who send their children to the school hold, and how many are based in the UK.

Dan Machin, Queen Ethelburga’s principal said:

“Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate (QE) has a long-standing relationship with the British forces, welcoming students from forces military families for over 100 years.  QE is CEA-accredited, which means that forces families can use the Continuity of Education Allowance offered by the Ministry of Defence to assist with the funding of a boarding place for their child, at any school of their choice. The aim of the grant is to provide continuity of education for forces children.

“Across the collegiate there is an understanding of the importance of providing a secure and supportive home from home for students whose parents may need to travel or live abroad for work. Staff strive to create the right learning and living environment in which every one of the students at QE can thrive.  QE also has two specialist forces liaison officers, a keeping in touch club for students, and support clinics.

“In these sessions, staff help students to contact parents who may be deployed abroad, chat about issues that are important to them and anything else that they might need help and support with. Our forces children contribute significantly to our QE community with their approach to their education, boarding and activities. They are a valuable part of our QE family.

“In addition to being CEA-accredited, QE is signed up to the Armed Forces Covenant to further our commitment to families, particularly by offering the possibility of employment opportunities to veterans from all branches of the armed forces, to whom we all owe a great debt.  QE also has its own Combined Cadet Force, bringing together an army section (Yorkshire Regiment) and an RAF section. The CCF offers students the chance to develop real life skills that will help them achieve success in life and in the workplace.

“This holistic approach to supporting forces families makes QE a very popular choice.”

Dan Machin

A British Army spokesman said:

“The Ministry of Defence provides support to eligible service personnel with school age children in order to help them provide the continuity in their child’s education that can be difficult to achieve within the state education system, due to the inherent mobility of service life.”

“Continuity of Education Allowance is one of a range of measures for service personnel of all ranks and their families to allow greater parental choice in providing a stable education for their children.”

 

Plans for housing at Harlow Nurseries emerge

Two potential plans for housing at Harlow Nurseries in Harrogate have emerged.

The site next to the Pinewoods is owned by Harrogate Borough Council and sells plants, pots and compost to the public.

However, the council’s Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-35, which outlines where development can take place, says 40 homes can be built there. The nursery will relocate if a development goes ahead.

Two options for how it could look were displayed at Pinewoods Conservation Group‘s annual general meeting on Monday by the charity’s chair Neil Hind. Both contain more than 40 homes.

The plans were drawn up by consultants on behalf of the council.

The first option includes 57 homes that are a mix of family homes and apartments.

The second option includes 62 homes and apartments and has less garden space than option one.

Both options include 30% ‘affordable’ homes. The two plans also say the development could achieve net-zero emissions, but don’t give further details on how this might be achieved.

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In September 2020, the council appointed three external consultants to draw up plans for the nurseries, as well as for two other brownfield sites in Harrogate.

The consultants will be paid with funding secured by the council in 2018.

The council received £200,000 from the Leeds City Region Business Rates Pool and £36,000 from the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Impact on Pinewoods

The plans could still change before the final report is published in May.

It would need to be rubber-stamped by councillors before moving to the next stage, which could involve the sale of the site to a developer.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr Hind said:

“My view is there is no point objecting, it’s in the Local Plan, it’s a brownfield site and it’s going to happen. Our role is to ensure it has as little impact on the Pinewoods as it can have.”

Pinewoods Conservation Group’s AGM on Monday evening.

Harrogate Spring Water

The AGM was attended by around 25 people. Also on the agenda was Harrogate Spring Water’s hopes to expand its bottling plant on Harlow Moor Road.

The Stray Ferret reported this week that Harrogate Borough Council has said it would consider selling Rotary Wood to the company, which is preparing to submit a new planning application.

Mr Hind told the meeting that Pinewoods Conservation Group had lawyers on hand to ensure due process on any sale was followed.

Starbeck shows support for Ukraine with giant painted flag

A group of Prince of Wales pub regulars have shown their support for Ukraine by painting the country’s flag on the side of a derelict supermarket in Starbeck.

The idea came from Starbeck Community Group’s Lucky Hubbard and pub landlady Alyson Griffiths. They wanted to show Starbeck is behind the war-torn country whilst at the same time tidying up the former McColl’s supermarket that was ravaged by fire in 2018.

Within hours, a group of drinkers at The Prince of Wales had volunteered their time and they have been there from 5am to 7am for the last few mornings painting the blue and yellow flag before they go to work.

The group of painters included John Kean, David Stead, Colin Shiel, Nick Mills and John Read.

It still has doves of peace and sunflowers that will be added next week as well as six new planters and hanging baskets donated by Starbeck Post Office.

Farball Coatings donated £500 worth of paint and Jewson donated the timber.

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Ms Hubbard said:

“The difference is unbelievable. It looks a lot cleaner and tidier.”

Andrew Hart, who set up Starbeck Community Group and owns the post office, said he has been in contact with the landlord of the building who was very supportive of the flag being painted.

He added:

“We wanted to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people during this terrible situation.”

A Starbeck knitting group has decorated this post box with the Ukraine flag.

Harrogate businesses fundraise for boy’s life-saving treatment

Two Harrogate businesses have raised over £1,000 for a six-year-old Bilton boy with a rare bone marrow disorder— and the cheque was presented to his family by Marvel superhero Iron Man.

Doors Direct and The Red Box post office in Bilton have been raising money over the last year for Archie Flintoft, a five-year-old boy who has Diamond-Blackfan anemia.

The condition means his bone marrow doesn’t create the red blood cells he needs to survive.

Only 1,000 people worldwide have the condition and Archie needs to go to Leeds General Infirmary for blood transfusions every three weeks just to stay alive. He also has to travel to London for a special check-up two or three times a year.

Two years ago mum Vicky set up a Facebook group called Archie’s Army, where followers can keep up with what Archie’s doing and support fundraising projects that pay for his specialist care. But since covid, it’s been difficult to raise money.

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Sean Clarke, managing director of Doors Direct, dressed as Iron Man to pay tribute to Archie’s bravery and hand over the cheque. Alongside was Andrew Hart from the post office.

Archie was also given an Iron Man costume of his own to wear.

Iron Man with Archie.

Archie’s Army thanked the two businesses on Facebook:

“Doors Direct and Andrew and the team at The Red Box have worked so hard this past year fundraising and supporting Archie’s Army and their latest raffle fundraiser raised a further £1,044 for us.

“We can’t thank them enough for everything they have done from fundraising, raising the profile of Archie’s Army (particularly after being quiet over covid) and the amazing care and support they’ve shown for the whole family, we are very blessed. Thank you all!”.