Harrogate historian Malcolm Neesam has called on North Yorkshire County Council to explore making West Park and Parliament Street open to traffic from both directions.

The two adjoining roads have been one-way for 50 years since the layout changed in 1970.

Mr Neesam, who has written several books on the town, believes returning the roads to how they used to be could be a solution to the town’s congestion problems.

Station Gateway

Traffic flow in Harrogate has been under the spotlight in recent months due to the £7.9m Station Gateway proposals, which could reduce Station Parade to one lane and pedestrianise part of James Street under plans yet to be decided

Some fear that it would have implications for the rest of Harrogate town centre and would exacerbate tailbacks on Station Parade, Cheltenham Parade, King’s Road and back to Parliament Street and West Park.

Mr Neesam believes that changing the road layout would “free up” traffic to flow more easily through town.

He also said it could benefit delegates visiting Harrogate Convention Centre, who would have better access to the town centre.

He said North Yorkshire County Council had long opposed reintroducing two-way traffic but called on the highways authority to reconsider.

He said:

“I’m very much in favour of making the roads two-way. It already works on Leeds Road and Ripon Road.

“They were built as a two-way system in the 18th century.

“It’s quite logical and would free up Station Parade and Cheltenham Parade.”

Read more:

• Is there any consensus on Harrogate’s £7.9m Station Gateway project?
• Harrogate cycle groups back one-lane Station Parade plan

In response, Don Mackenzie, the county council’s executive member for access and the Conservative councillor for Harrogate Saltergate, said he “wouldn’t rule it out forever” but was lukewarm on the idea.

He said:

“Many people will recall that in the 50s and 60s there was two-way traffic on West Park and Parliament Street. But this was when vehicle numbers were far less than today.

“Look at West Park and Parliament Street today — it’s difficult to imagine it being two-way with the amount of traffic the two lanes get.”

Cllr Mackenzie also rejected suggestions the Station Gateway proposals would significantly increase congestion in the town. He said:

“It’s likely to happen to a small extent, but the numbers suggested are very small.”

A radical history

Plans to make West Park and Parliament Street one-way were first drawn up in the 1960s by the former West Riding and Harrogate councils.

It was intended to be the first of a five-phase plan to radically alter the road network and would have involved the creation of dual carriageways and flyovers in Harrogate town centre.

However, the rest of the plan was scrapped following massive public opposition.

Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. See below for details on how to contribute.

Malcolm’s history walks are a real treat

How fortunate we are to have local historian, Malcolm Neesam, who is so interested in the history of Harrogate that we can all enjoy two virtual walks with his knowledge of the town.

The walks are beautifully set up on the best website I have seen with maps, photos and information clearly displayed. A real treat!

Thank you, Malcolm!

Audrey Culling, Nidderdale 

Recycling rules don’t make recycling easy

We are lucky to have birdsong – do your bit to keep it going

Read more: 

• Local historian creates audio walks celebrating Harrogate’s glorious past
• Fears of fly-tipping in Harrogate district as recycling centres close

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

This history is written for The Stray Ferret by celebrated Harrogate historian, Malcolm Neesam. 

Do you remember the Cone Heads? The street entertainers who a few years ago appeared in the town at the invitation of Harrogate International Festivals? Their sudden appearance was part of a centuries-old tradition of such entertainment, which has included musicians, street theatre, Punch and Judy shows and the travelling waits.

Punch and Judy

To the best of my knowledge, the first known appearance of Punch and Judy in Harrogate was in June 1865, when Professor Bailey was said to have replaced an earlier but unknown Punch and Judy showman. Professor Bailey’s “pitch” appears to have been somewhere at the foot of Montpellier Hill, on the Stray outside the White Hart, and he worked with a young man named Candler, who succeeded Bailey, who was eventually decorated by King Edward VII.

Professor Candler [1869-1922] became one of Victorian Harrogate’s most well-known entertainers, and celebrated as a leading practitioner of his art, so much so that he was chosen to make the Punch and Judy show that accompanied the Prince of Wales’ tour of India. He was also called up to London to perform before George V when the king attended a private party given by Lady Stoner at her South Audsley Street mansion.

Edmund Candler’s Punch and Judy, Swan Hotel, 1910

Professor Candler may also have performed at Pier Head, which was a favourite pitch used by Otto Schwarz and his German Band. I suspect – and if any reader can contradict me, please do so – that Professor Candler was succeeded by Professor Valvo, who had begun his career in Bradford. Professor Valvo was often called to perform before royalty, and had command performances at the London Palladium, and in 1919 he gave a special performance at Crystal Palace for the royal children.

Like Professor Candler, Professor Valvo made his base in Harrogate and appeared several times in the Opera House [today, the Theatre] as part of variety shows. On one occasion, he gave a Punch and Judy show in the Winter Gardens before 600 children, including the sons of the Princess Royal and Lord Lascelles. In 1936, Professor Valvo was described by the Harrogate Herald as “an ex-serviceman, he has been a Punch and Judy man for twelve years, and for forty years previously was a theatre ventriloquist…”

I do not know whether Professor Valvo had any children who kept his act alive, but Professor Candler had two sons. Described by the press on July 13 1957 as “a wonderful showman, yet of a kindly, quiet nature, and his skill with the Punch voice, and the Pandean pipes was that of an expert”. He gained the affection of generations of children and the esteem of adults, including Princess Victoria, who, when in Harrogate, would sometimes stop to listen to the old, old story…

A Noisy Street Scene

The Punch and Judy men were only a small part of the many entertainers who swarmed through Harrogate during those long ago seasons. There were the black-faced minstrels, which were popular at the time, the earliest of which seem to have been Walter Mapping’s, who put on song and dance routines in Valley Gardens. The “Major’s Group” also provided a lively street entertainment show, the “Major” getting his name from his theme song “My friend the Major”. The chair stage prop used by the Major was said to be required because of the Major’s fondness for “the flowing bowl”.

I must not forget to mention the “Black Star Minstrels” who contained several performers who “blacked-up” in such hostelries as the Ship Inn, the Victoria Inn, or the “Borough Vaults” – now the Drum and Monkey. One of them, Joe Morrison, specialised in laughing songs, which could reduce a crowd to hysteria, and who was consequently disliked by more sober shop-keepers. There was Albert Freer, who specialised in sentimental songs about happy slaves on the “old plantations”, and a rival group called the “Mysterious Musicians”, who set up their portable stage near the Royal Pump Room, sometimes in direct competition with other performers. The resulting racket caused great annoyance to the hotels and lodging housekeepers.

Many acts were of course solos, such as The African who performed at Pier Head before the lavatories were built. The African’s ingenious act was to swallow a red hot poker. According to the Herald: “to show that there was no deception a poker was heated in front of the wondering throng, who were even more surprised at the way he used to relish a concoction that he cooked in his own fashion, and transferred to his capacious mouth with a fork whilst it was blazing.”

Contemporary criticism of many of these acts judged that some of the best shows on the Stray before the Great War were those of Adler and Sutton. Max Adler and his companions performed on the Victoria Avenue bandstand, opposite Baptist Church, during mild summer’s evenings. Their comedian was Olly Oakley, who did imitations, and whose saucy songs sometimes upset the local magistrates. Other “Stray” performers included the “Jubilee Singers”, who in the language of the time were described as “a group of real negroes”.  There was also Mr. I. C. Rich, who specialised in Jewish “deliniations”, who shared the bill with another comedian, whose name escapes me, and whose catch-phrase was “My hair’s down again”.

One of Harrogate’s rarer evening acts, who may have performed in Crescent Gardens, were the “Brothers Egerton”, who specialised in songs about drunks and drinking, which were known by the name of “Corney Grain” songs. Eventually, they left Harrogate for St Kilda’s Beach, Melbourne.

The Ongars

I do not have space to describe the many operators of the street piano, who played their raucous jangling instruments outside Hale’s Bar, and – to the intense annoyance of Alderman Fortune – along the rows of decorous hotels and lodging houses on Prospect Place and West Park, grinding out such tunes as “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”;  “He had to get out and get under”, “The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo” and “My old Dutch”.

Town ‘mascots’

I must not leave the subject of the Stray entertainers without mentioning the “Mascots”, who first appeared in 1902, who drew enormous crowds for their acts, which were often held on the Stray near the junction of Beech Grove and Victoria Avenue. Their numbers included Karr and Kooney, who later became famous pantominists, and Tom Johnstone, a singer of chorus songs who later returned to Harrogate to play in the Empire Theatre.

The last known Stray Troupe before the Great War was the “Sparks”, whose boss, Will Driscoll, rode around Harrogate in a high-wheeled dog cart before the show. The Library Gardens, then known as the Town Hall site, was a further venue for street entertainment, where groups of “dancing minstrels” entertained the public. Harlow Hill, too, had its regular street acts, but I will try the editor’s patience if I go on any more.

Much of Harrogate’s street entertainment vanished during the Great War, although Tom Coleman and his Pierrots (featured main image) did sterling service entertaining wounded soldiers in the four military hospitals set up by that wonderful lady the Grand Duchess George of Russia.

My thanks to Geoff Felix and Janet Nijholt [nee Candler] for information about, and photographs of, Professor Candler.

Did you know? 

The Stray Ferret and the Harrogate Business Improvement District (BID) have worked with Malcolm Neesam to produce two fantastic history audio tours of Harrogate.  Both last about an hour and are easy to do. The first will take you back to the golden age of Harrogate’s Victorian Spa days, the second will take you through the heart of the shopping district, stopping to learn about historic buildings as you go.  To take a look click here. 

Richard Ellis inserted several covenants into the deed of gift when he presented the statue to the town, requiring that if any attempt were made to move it, the land should be offered back to the Ellis family.

The best way forward for any society that has come through a dark time is to offer a vision of hope and recovery – and more importantly, a straight line to it.

After the terrible years of the Great War of 1914-1918, the authorities in Harrogate asked the best people qualified to come up with answers on how the town should recover – the people themselves.

Of the several local organisations to respond, none had better knowledge than the Harrogate Medical Society, which after discussions with other groups, such as hoteliers, traders, residents and local societies, published a list of suggestions to aid recovery and promote the attractiveness of the town.

At the same time, the council asked mineral well expert Professor Smithells to select essential aspects of his wartime study of the town’s mineral waters, to assist the initial recovery process of the town’s main business – the spa.

Within weeks of the November 1918 armistice, the recommendations were ready, and their essential points were that Harrogate must be made more attractive to visitors to ensure the economy not only survived, but prospered.

Post-1918 blueprint

Chief among these recommendations were:

[1] Shopping should be made more agreeable by protecting shoppers from sometimes severe climatic conditions, such as excess rain or sunshine, and that the ‘colonnading’ or erection of glazed pavement canopies along Royal Parade, Montpellier Parade, both sides of Parliament Street, both sides of James Street and Crescent Road would not only achieve this, but would add greatly to the town’s beauty as well as the comfort and convenience of visitors, and benefit of shopkeepers.

[2] Landscape improvements to Crescent Gardens; Station Square, where recent building development had been of a tawdry nature; the circular garden in front of the Prospect Hotel which could receive a permanent war memorial; the gardens in Victoria Avenue. Every one of these improvements had been implemented within 10 years.

[3] Better use to be made of the The Royal Hall’s gardens. Here, several hard court tennis courts were constructed, that allowed the Davis Cup matches to be held there.

[4] More regular music recitals in the gardens of the Royal Hall and Crescent Gardens. Again, this was implemented, especially after the 1933 completion of the Sun Pavilion.

[5] Improved lavatory accommodation, particularly on Harlow Moor, in Low Harrogate and Station Square. Again implemented, with about six new sets of conveniences being provided across the town.

Other recommendations included: tighter regulation of cab and taxi fares, better control of the dust nuisance, a continuance of the excellent standard of advertising the town, improving regularity of Pullman service, and the erection of a new Pump Room to the right of the entrance to Valley Gardens – this last, perhaps fortunately, was eventually abandoned.

Bottling mineral water

In 1920, a school for training staff at the Spa was opened, which brought considerable positive publicity to the town, and which succeeded so well that other spas were soon sending their staff to Harrogate for training.

In the past, the bottling of Harrogate’s mineral waters had been an often contentious matter, with opponents arguing that if people could buy Harrogate Water in Aberdeen, Bristol or Manchester, they would not need to visit the town and would thus deprive the economy of significant income.

But supporters argued that bottling would open up a large market by making the waters available to those who would never be able to travel to Harrogate, and that in addition, bottling was a wonderful opportunity to publicise the town’s name. But in 1919, the corporation changed tack, and resolved on 21st January 1919 to establish a table water industry.

Although some of these recommendations were never achieved, many were, and this gave people a sense of vision and hope for the future, much positive publicity being provided by the national press, for which Harrogate had become ‘the Nation’s Spa’.

Post-1945 blueprint

At the end of the Second World War, Harrogate faced completely new problems, most of which arose from the acute shortages of materials necessary to aid reconstruction, and the decline of the British spa industry that came after the introduction on July 5 1948 of the new National Health Service.

Despite these barriers, Harrogate’s council investigated several proposals to secure the spa economy, and encourage the growth of new industry, including office and retail development, and above all to create an atmosphere of hope.

As all of the town’s hotels had been requisitioned during the war, the council decided on August 13 1945 to petition the Minister of Works to start the de-requisitioning process, so that the town’s accommodation business could be revived. On June 3 1946, the council decided to spend £100 on erecting a fountain, to emphasise the importance of water to Harrogate.

October 1946 saw the council encouraging the formation of a ‘Friends of Harrogate’, which would strive to enhance and promote the town. In July 1947, Harrogate’s brilliant publicity and entertainments manager advised the council that during the previous six months, 33 conferences had brought between eight to 10,000 visitors to the town, and that this was the way forward.

Then, in 1949, the public learned that Harrogate was set to become the national centre for the study of arthritis and rheumatism, with visits from the Minister of Health planned. At the same time, the fringes of the Stray were planted with bulbs and fairy lights hung in its trees, to add to the beauty of the area.

More attractions were planned, and on June 27 1949 the council resolved to start a scheme to convert the Royal Pump Room into a museum to attract visitors. These were but a few of the steps taken by the council to revive the town’s economy and give people a sense of optimism.

Tinkering with one-way systems

Now, we have talk about tinkering with further one-way systems for traffic, which is inherited from the council’s foolish 1970 one-way experiment that interrupted the two-way flow between Spacey Houses and New Park with one-way flow between West Park and Parliament Street, an action which forced through traffic into King’s Road, Cheltenham Parade, Station Parade, and York Place. This is why they are still trying to make something of Station Parade. This was why all the trees have vanished from King’s Road to Cheltenham Crescent to Station Parade (see photo).

Cheltenham Parade copyright Walker-Neesam Archive

The plan for this new Harrogate ‘Gateway’ talks about the Station Square area being a gateway, something it always was, until the council allowed the railway station to be destroyed in 1964, as my accompanying photo shows.

Station Square copyright Walker-Neesam Archive

Afterwards, when architect David Cullearn designed a public event arena outside the Victoria Centre with a fountain (see photo) it was the council that weakly allowed a new owner to infill the arena, destroy the fountains, and use the new arid forecourt to display cars or host fast food stalls with their backs to the main exit of Harrogate Railway Station.

Victoria Centre copyright Walker-Neesam Archive

The latest drawings of the proposed gateway also show the Victoria Centre with a canopy around it, a beautiful original feature (see photo) which was destroyed with the council’s authorisation when they allowed the then-owner to extend the ground floor retail space, which wrecked architect Cullearn’s useful covered walkway.

Victoria Centre copyright Walker-Neesam Archive

Where’s the vision now?

Today, as we see signs that the terrible pandemic is diminishing, Harrogate is crying out for a vision, for a sense that the town’s leadership has a solid and achievable vision for our future, and a vision based on the interest of the whole community, rather than narrow party political lines. Does this vision exist, and if it does, is it being communicated to the entire population?

In my capacity as a historian, I hear from many Harrogate people, and know after long experience that there are many in our town who neither know nor care about the difference between the district and the county council, and are unfamiliar with the work of local government, other perhaps than that they have to support it financially. These – I suggest – are the people the vision needs to reach. And the vision should give inspiration and hope for the future of our much-loved locality.

Malcolm Neesam,
[Illustrations copyright Walker-Neesam Archive].

This History is written for the Stray Ferret by Harrogate historian Malcolm Neesam:

It was with great sadness that I learned of the pending closure of Debenham’s Parliament Street store, which I recall visiting as a small boy in the early 1950s when it still retained the name of its original founder, William Buckley.

From the middle of the 19th century, the site at the northern junction of Parliament and Chapel (now Oxford) Streets had been occupied by a photographer’s studio, the property’s address being 22 Parliament Street, which was occupied by a draper named Charles York.

Buckley’s first shop on Parliament Street, c1901. Copyright: Walker-Neesam Archive.

On his retirement in 1900, Mr York sold his business to a young draper from Nantwich, William James Buckley, who was attracted to Harrogate by the business potential offered by the fashionable and expanding borough. A later observer noted that William Buckley had been apprenticed to the drapery business from an early age, where he had learned that honesty and fair dealings were the basis for successful business.

The shop at 22 Parliament Street was well placed to catch the eyes of visitors to the Royal Baths, as the Wintergardens were located on the opposite side of the road, and thanks to some shrewd buying and displaying by Mrs Buckley, the display windows were filled with the latest fashions in jackets, mantles and costumes.

By 1909, the business was doing so well that Mr Buckley was able to extend his premises by adding a number of ancient and dilapidated properties in Oxford Street, including several highly picturesque buildings ranged round a courtyard and reached through an archway. These were demolished, and a new wing added, built of red brick, and featuring some handsome leaded windows of stained glass of an arts and crafts design. The only other brick buildings in central Harrogate were the 1862 Central Railway Station, the Hotel Majestic and the Grand Opera House, both of 1900, and the 1902 Beulah Street head-building of the central arcade, all of which have survived to this day, although only a small fragment of the Railway Station has survived the wreckers.

Buckley’s Parliament Street frontage was given a handsome pavement canopy of glass and iron, which was not only an invaluable means of encouraging pedestrians on a wet day, but which was also an embellishment to the street scene. In 1910 Mr Buckley bought 24 Parliament Street, where for many years Messrs Phillipson Ltd carried on a musical instrument dealers. There will still be piano stools scattered around Harrogate that contain music scores supplied by Messrs Phillipson Ltd.

After the Great War, Mr Buckley decided to rebuild the Parliament Street section of his business, and in1919, transferred the entire undertaking into the Royal Arcade at number 32, which he had leased in 1914-15, for the period of construction. After moving back into his rebuilt premises, Mr Buckley sold the Royal Arcade to Charles Walker and Son Ltd, who, after adding a handsome scalloped glass canopy over the entrance, installed Harrogate’s finest furniture store in the premises.

The new Parliament Street section of the store matched the 1909 wing, being of red brick with stone finishings around the windows. In those days, all the windows admitted light to the store, causing the delightful stained glass panels to reveal their colouring, an effect lost in the 1980s when Debenham’s blacked out all their windows, giving the interior a gloomily funereal atmosphere.

The rebuilt Buckley’s store was fitted throughout with a marvellous system of aerial wires that criss-crossed each floor carrying canisters containing money and receipts. They seemed to have been powered by a trigger mechanism that sent them whizzing round at high speed, and which were a most efficient means of dispensing change. Mr Buckley undertook a further extension in 1927 when he purchased the premises at 28 Parliament Street, then occupied by a popular cafe “The Lounge”, which had been much frequented by the town’s business people.

By the end of the decade, Buckley’s employed 130 staff, a considerable increase on the five employed back in 1900. The successful business caught the eye of Gordon Selfridge, who, in 1934 purchased it on behalf of Selfridge Provincial Stores Ltd, and when Mr Selfridge visited Buckley’s on January 25, 1934, he thanked the staff for their loyalty and advised them that Mr Buckley had been invited to join the Board of Directors, to ensure the preservation of such an important link. Two years later, in 1936, the company acquired the premises of fishmonger  JW Bentley at 36 Oxford Street, which meant that Buckley’s store now filled the entire corner site between Parliament Street and Union Street. Part of the Union Street property included the original St Peter’s School, which was used as a staff restaurant and joiners’ workshop.

Selfridge Provincial Stores was acquired by the John Lewis partnership in 1939, who in 1940 decided to enlarge the store by adding the premises at 30 Parliament Street, formerly occupied by Miss Edith Ingram’s Needlework business. At midnight on Saturday, December 27 1941, a fire broke out in the Parliament Street section of the store formerly occupied by “The Lounge” cafe, and because of the national emergency, it remained in a burnt-out state until the end of the war.

Busby’s on Parliament Street. Copyright: Walker-Neesam Archive.

In September 1953, Buckleys was acquired by Messrs Busby of Bradford in September 1953, who changed the store’s name to Busby’s – this was seven years after the death of WJ Buckley. 1958 saw Busbys pass into the hands of Debenhams Ltd, who planned a major rebuilding of the Parliament Street properties between the 1919 section and the premises of Charles Walker in what is now the Westminster Arcade. Work began in October 1960, and the new store was officially opened by Mayor G Morrell on Wednesday, November 21, 1962. Architect Victor Syborn showed his respect for the arts and crafts style of the pre-war store by providing a dull facade of pre-fabricated blue and cream rectangular panels, and by replacing the ornate glass-roofed Victorian canopy with a gloomy solid-roofed cantilevered canopy that darkened both the pavement and the shop windows.

At one time, all of Harrogate’s top businesses advertised their prestige by erecting beautiful iron and glass canopies over their frontages, which encouraged pedestrians to examine their window displays – examples being Bettys, Fattorini’s, Hoopers, Jespers, Ogdens and Wood. Buckley’s/Busby’s was another example, until it was ruined, so it would be a real embellishment to Parliament Street if whoever buys the building could restore the lovely original canopy, and open up the stained glass windows.

Malcolm Neesam was born in Harrogate and graduated from the University of Leeds as a professional archivist and librarian. He subsequently worked in Hereford, Leeds, London and York where, for twenty-five years, he was North Yorkshire’s County Music and Audiovisual Librarian. Malcolm is a much-published author. In 1996, Harrogate Borough Council awarded Malcolm the Freedom of the Borough for his services as the town’s historian.