Some may have also been hand coloured in the traditional style, bringing an old scene back to life with even more realism. rights and wrongs of this are. The Firefly was without doubt a local pub with a somewhat acquired taste. Life in the town My old man and all his brothers worked on the railway. It had other names too, some I remember are Sinatras, the short lived Hermans, which quickly changed to Macbeths, and it also became one The Cookie Club franchised venues. Far Cotton Fourth stanza: That's pretty much what happened to Northampton. Two went on to become editors: Lou Warwick of the Northampton Town and County Independent, John Marquis of the Packet Newspapers group in Cornwall and The Tribune (a morning newspaper) in the Bahamas. I would go most Friday and Saturday nights to dance to the Stone Roses, Housemartins, and do the dying fly, like Bluto Blutarskys famous gator scene from National Lampoons Animal House. But Mr Dickie added that while planners "looked down and saw this beautiful plan, they did not think about the people who had to live there". Take a look at these captivating images from 1970s Massachusetts. The book is a history and directory of Northampton Pubs and Inns trading before 1945. I have put on a few bands at The Garibaldi over the years and have played records there on occasion too. But happy memories. Flickr/Wally Gobetz. There have always been talk that the property was haunted, some say by Harry Franklin who committed suicide there. I wasnt old enough to drink. Its interesting, see the story below, that the public toilets on Wood Hill had thought sufficient for customers until 1938, when they finally installed customer toilets for the first time and replaced the existing spiral stair case. The Shipmans sits opposite The Drum on Drum Lane and also had an entrance on the Drapery. Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to Northampton Chronicle and Echo, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you. 2023 BBC. In a terraced house on Merthyr Road. Last updated: 9 April 2020. What they are missing is the vibe of the city during the early days of it becoming an entertainment hotspot in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was published daily from Monday-Saturday until 26 May 2012 at a price of 0.48. Cite This Collection. Northampton. Whilst I was doing this project my mate Richard told me about a book he had purchased by a local author which was all about lost pubs in Northampton. Many people have forgotten the venues full correct title and it is often remembered simply as the Fanciers. National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Great nights. obscured the contributions of others. By 1832 The White Hart Wine Vaults had appeared. I used to DJ here on a Saturday night with my mate Dixy, Uncle Seltzers Kosmik Surgery spun plastic discs of joy for many lock-ins. Copy Citation. The FireFly was, without doubt, a local pub with a somewhat acquired taste. Amazing really, the old CB thing, 10-year-old kids talking to lorry drivers all night in their bedrooms?! He came over with a can of beer in one hand and a fag in the other, Er let me have a go! he said. Note that this map awards the name "River Nene" to the northern tributary coming down through Kingsthorpe. The pub looked shut from the outside, it was always pretty early and the first stop on the Sunday Lunchtime sesh. The Duke Of York had been a pub since the end of the 1800s. In One Head & Out the Other - Pete Heyworth, Matthew Felce, Greg Bull, Mark Davess Lumbertubs was started in 1970, with Moulton Park and Round Spinney following in the east of the town. 2-inch map Credit to the Image Owners Featured DJing support for Bonnie Dobson was also pretty special. So my happy memories of the Overstone Arms was much more short lived than I remembered and most of my dating must have been done in The Lamplighter, as Dave Knibb says it changed names in 1988. Photo: Bob Ramshaw. Best, on a mission to prove his detractors wrong, chipped. My Nan, Violet Hall, worked behind the bar in The Welcome, and my Uncle Dick used to drink there. I have tried to find images of The FireFly but I cant find any decent ones. Opened in 1982 by John and Patricia Riley, who now own Gabriel Books on Market Street, it was bought by Mark Brumberg who ran it until 1997. Blue Note Guitars Nestled in a basement just down the street from the Iron Horse, this shop got plenty of traffic from touring musicians. Smith College - Alumnae House Northampton, MA . change that drove the material machine that put corks in wine bottles. Like many pubs, The Drum, unfortuately, looks like it may have closed its doors for the last time. The stairs going up to that top bar were a bloody nightmare, and I saw people fall down them more than once. (A construction firm I worked for as a This page is not available in other languages. [7] This was demolished in the late 1970s to make way for a shopping development. During a career running from the 1920s to the 1970s, Roland took more than 80,000 photographs and attended 28,000 assignments. The Northampton Chronicle & Echo (known locally as "The Chron") is a local newspaper serving Northampton, England, and the surrounding towns and villages. It then began to publish one edition per week each Thursday for 1.00 (2014: 1.20) (2015: 1.30) (2016: 1.40) (2017: 1.45) (2018: 1.50) (2019: 1.60). I remember the pool table was on the left as you look at the illustration, in the 1960s it was a gated area but by the 1980s it had been extended to hold the pool room and the toilets. Unfortunately in 2016 The Victoria Inn definitely closed its doors for the very last time. topology. It was part of Bill Davisons Purplehaus empire, which consisted of the Roadmenders, The End in Far Cotton, and the wonderful and but short lived Black Cat Jazz Bar, have a look a couple of posts down for more info on The Black Cat. I remember being taken there as a kid and the garden being really long, much longer than it looks now on maps. Fifty years on, the BBC looks back at how the announcement changed the town. The Regent also had a karaoke in the upstairs bar which wasnt very big. When I first starting drinking I liked going into the Overstone Arms, especially if I was on a date the booths were perfect for a liaison and quiet cosy. All rights reserved (About Us). Street map I moved to Semilong in my late teens and lived on Stanley Street, then Semilong Road, and then St Pauls Road. 10 talking about this. How many people saw their first Fellini or Bergman film there? Closed on holidays. I remember the pool table was on the left as you look at the illustration, in the 1960s it was a gated area but by the 1980s it had been extended to hold the pool room and the toilets. The building footprints, their use (commercial, residential, educational, etc. You could make a case, in fact, that the people changed before the town did, and that it was the human Copyright Paul Hillery 2021 All Rights Reserved, The Theme may use cookies to enhance your experience while using my website. Women of color and working class women were centrally involved in this struggle against sexual Take a look back at amazing photos of a thriving Northampton town centre in the 1960s and 1970s. Starting in the Fox & Hounds (before the refit, I loved this old pub as it was, with the skittle spit and sawdust bar at the front and the carpeted saloon in the back, we would then hit the Old Five Bells, The Snooker Club (this was the only place I could get served as a 17 year old, an old babysitter of mine worked behind the bar and thought I was a year older! The really dramatic changes took place mostly in the 1970s, though, when I was living elsewhere. I remember this place having a stream at the bottom of the car park where me and my cousins would mess around after jumping the wall at the bottom of the car park. I have the vaguest of memories of being in there one Saturday when a big bar room brawl happened. A castle where parliament would sit. (Lankester & Wells was a bottling company.) It was in 1767 that the new landlord changed its name to The White Hart. Read about our approach to external linking. At least one member of my extended family can be found in here most Saturday afternoons. "We used to look out from London Road at green fields, now you have to go three or four miles to get to them. South Hadley. 1970. Resident Bob Ramshaw has kindly shared photos he has found of the town from 60 years ago. Dancing to Motown round and round in a circle ? It was also when niche bookstores like Beyond Words could thrive. Because other articles have covered bygone bars and restaurants already, they are being are excluded from this list. 1785 the pub was selling rums, brandies and wines. Another of the pubs that I frequented as an adult. Old buildings were demolished and new ones built; grand malls and parking garages replaced familiar streets; huge road-building projects altered the town's topology. and cheese. A chair was definitely smashed over someones head, and Im sure me and my cousin Scott, hid under the pool table, but that might be my imagination getting the better of me. The FireFly in Dallington (also known as the Red Earl). Michael Green's novel Don't Print My Name Upside Down was based largely on his experiences at the Chronicle & Echo. Among the Chronicle & Echo's most notable journalists were author Michael Green, who wrote The Art of Coarse Rugby, scriptwriter Alistair Foot, the Guardian's readers' editor Ian Mayes, chairman of the Sportswriters Association Barry Newcombe, former Boxing Board of Control general secretary John Morris, theatre historian Lou Warwick, and author and editor John Marquis (formerly of Reuters and Thomson Newspapers), whose books about the Sir Harry Oakes murder case and the Haitian tyrant Papa Doc have found an international audience. We still talk about the supper spread Lionel would make us when we sat in the saloon bar, on the Salisbury Road side, a silver platter with roast potatoes, pork pie (I hadnt gone vegetarian yet), scratchings (I loved them!) Its still opening now but a lot more trendy than back then. All this before going to Top Of The Town, hopefully getting off with a girl, and then hitting Up All Night for food and if money allowed we would cross the road to the taxi rank or walking the 3 miles home. Whalen's Office Supply Before the digital age took over everything, people needed paper, pens, ink, folders and the like. The Duke Of York went through a renovation at some point after I stopped going, and became an open plan bar, I preferred the old style pub with the separate rooms. I operated a He threw me the keys and I got in the car and before I knew it I was rolling down the hill and straight over the St. Andrews Road, mounting the pavement opposite, missing all the traffic. Gradually the name changed to Northampton. Valentine Low, a journalist on the Times, columnists Yvonne Roberts and Matthew Engel also worked on what is known locally as "The Chron". The paper is owned by JPIMedia. I was born in Northampton, at the Barratt Maternity Home, which opened in 1936 when the footwear entrepreneur William Barratt gave the hospital a generous donation. The website also use content and scripts from third parties that may use tracking technologies. A council house in Sunnyside, I am not sure if the post office use the Sunnyside as a district name anymore but it is still the name of the local pub. It had a disco at the weekends, Tim an older lad who lived near me was the DJ. I grew up there in a council house during the 1970s. The Virtual Attic I have lovely memories of this place. Then we would 10 4 for a copy and talk to strange lorry drivers on my cousins CB radio, which would be connected to a car battery and sat on a tin tray. He said: "Within four hours of coming to Northampton we had a house and a job.". https://FamilySearch.org : 18 July 2022. recall, didn't do much business. I seem to recall once chairs and tables were turned the right way up everything carried on as though nothing had happened. The Duke Of York had been a pub since the end of the 1800s. Northampton Brilliant old photos of Northampton's Market Square and Newlands date back to 70s Do you remember when Northampton looked like this? It was called Hamm tun, which means the village by the well-watered meadow. It was newly build when the old club which I think had been in Earl Street was demolished. Billing is a civil parish in eastern Northampton in England, covering the Great Billing, Little Billing, Ecton Brook and Bellinge areas. That fine old 5. It looked like a blummin spaceship had landed in the centre of tayn. I used to enjoy popping into this pub in my youth as it was a really old unique pub. The season covers the period from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. I remember the shoe factory my Nan used to work in was nearby and my Uncle Richard, or Dick as he was known, lived on Thomas Street, just up from the Vocal. NRA 45028 Johnson family, carpenters and joiners of Clay Coton and Welford. But in its time, it was a great, quaint venue that almost everyone frequented. HISTORIC NORTHAMPTON. Until 2015, the Chron issued a free version of the weekly Northampton Mercury with a circulation of 44,000 to compete with its rival.[8]. Boots new department store on corner of Gold Street and Drapery, Northampton town centre, September 12, 1959. Old The Shipman family continued to run the pub until the early part of 1900s. We used the working mens large room facilities for weddings and birthdays. I asked my parents and they said it probably did happen. There was a room to the left of the bar that was out of bounds to children and women! There have always been talk that the property was haunted, some say by Harry Franklin who committed suicide there. Anyway I was asked to play on Sunday afternoons, while people ate wonderful Sunday dinners. Originating about 1100 as a walled town with a castle on the River Nene, Northampton was granted its first charter in 1189. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. The main road was Sheep Street and the trams went up there, it wasnt until they widened Broad Street and pulled down surrounding buildings and pubs that things changed to what we have now. It was also known as The Regent, I had my first taste of hearing acid house at this venue. my way around. The pub had two bars the front which was very spit and sawdust and had a skittles table and darts. A blue plaque marks the spot where the Daily Echo was published for almost a century. Wednesday - Sunday. On this page you will find places from my childhood and youth. FamilySearch. The Emporium Arcade Five College meeting of women teachers at Mount Holyoke College. I was born in Northampton, at the Barratt Maternity Home, which opened in 1936 when the footwear entrepreneur William Barratt gave the hospital a generous donation. The map carries no date. The store's selection is now housed at the Forbes Library. Another memory is being taken to the County Tavern by me Dad. What they are missing is the vibe of. We seemed to spend the whole of our summers sat on the steps outside our front doors while the mum took turns to make the pot of tea and pass around the biscuit tin (Auntie Rose always had the best biscuits). Another thing about the Club on a weekend was the Fish Man. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? Green, Foot, Marquis and Warwick were all at different times editor of the Chronicle's long-running daily 'chat' page, called Town Talk and County Gossip by Hamtune. Which saw the wonderful Emporium Arcade demolished along with many more buildings and old Northampton pubs. My friend Lionel, one of Northamptons great characters, was the landlord at The Sportmans for a while, he also went on to manage the Duke Of York in Semilong for a bit, and the infamous Winchester Private Members Club in Grafton Street, a short lived place but etched into my brain for life. He will take us into the 1970s with photographs to show the dramatic changes to our county town in that decade. I have divided the map into six sections for viewing. I have the vaguest of memories of being in there one Saturday when a big barroom brawl happened. Is climate change killing Australian wine? Northamptonians A few hours of sleep would mean we had the energy to go to the Working Mens Club later that evening. These instructions will show you how to find historical maps online. If you lived in Northampton during this period you know that they ripped the heart and soul out of this old market tayn. The boys' school This is a street map that belonged to my father. The building footprints, their use (commercial, residential, educational, etc. It became another of Northamptons old pubs that have been purchased by the dreaded property developers and is now a block of flats. In fact, diverse group of people worked in the 1970s and early 1980s to raise awareness about sexual harassment and to create legal remedies. Places Hazey memories of lots of levels in this pub. I first remember this building from the bus stop outside, what I mean is the number 36 bus from Kingsthorpe, on a Saturday morning to go and meet my Nan in Lawrences on St. Giles Street for a Towcester Cheesecake, before going to the market and Fish Market before coming back home. Plus the neighbors on our terraced avenue would become more Aunties and Uncles, as was the way back then when the front doors were still unlocked and the road you lived on became an extended family. type a type Betjeman detested. We had loads of lockins or harrys (harry afters) on Monday nights. Gold Street is home to some beautiful buildings, Weve had a look through our archives to bring these great photos of Gold Street over the decades. The pub also had a music quiz but I cant remember the night it was on, but would go there with a mate of the ol man after a few beers in the Queens Park Working Mens Club. This list is not exhaustive, of course, and we welcome you to add your missed places below in the comments section. My old man, Henry, or air Billy, had a big family and they all lived in Northampton. Sat beside the Bus Station was the Grosvenor Centre. 1971. Among those encouraged to come to the new town were former servicemen and Mr Lang had been a Navy man. Its been through many modernisations in the past 10 years. We also visited the Spencer Working Mens Club which was not far from here. Another of the company's characters was the photographer Roland Holloway, who worked on the Chronicle, Mercury and Independent for half a century. NRA 30228 Kerr family, Marquesses of Lothian: family and estate papers. Not many people my age would venture in but being as I would also use the Drum me and my mate Cama would drop in for a bottle of beer. The place has special connotations This place had previously been a nightclub called Fantasia. I didnt know how to drive at the time!!! Along with League Two, the club also competed in the FA Cup, the EFL Cup and the EFL Trophy. It remained empty for a few years and then became a boxing club and is currently (November 2019) a Romanian restaurant called the Moldova. ), the number of floors and the height of the building, as well as construction materials (and thus risk of burning) and special fire hazards (chemicals, kilns, ovens) were documented in order to estimate premiums. . It was situated on the corner of St Andrews Road and Salisbury Street, in Semilong. Dave Knibbs book tells me it has been a pub since 1858, and I havent been in there for years although I have been in since it was modernised, I liked it how it was, but I prefer the old style public houses that most people wouldnt be seen dead in. There used to be a sweet shop on the Kings Heath arcade where you could buy the biggest brick of honeycomb you could ever imagine and all for about 5p. Very fond memories of putting on the band Torn Sail, they brought a Hammond organ and their own PA and it sounded fantastic, which for The Lamplighter made a real change. The Ordnance Survey disagrees, giving the name only to the river flowing west-east from the Daventry heights (see Get Started Places Such a shame it just didnt stay open for longer. date the transformation from the 1960 demolition of the Peacock Hotel, an old (17th century) coaching inn on the east He was found in the cellar after cutting his own throat. It was also known as The Regent, I had my first taste of hearing acid house at this venue. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, Banana artwork in Seoul museum eaten by visitor, NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, Ding becomes China's first male world chess champion, Indian 'killer' elephant relocated to tiger reserve, Explosion derails train in Russian border region, Trevelyan relative 'would consider' famine payment. It is situated in Bailiff Street, opposite the Vocal, behind the Mounts and used to be frequented by undercover policemen as it was behind Campbell Square. It was already derelict in 1978, and was pulled down soon after. Three went on to become authors and the fourth (Foot) a playwright. The Sportsman Arms in Bath Street. According to my every trusty resource, Dave Knibbs Last Orders I have found out it was granted its first licence in 1877. We still talk about the supper spread Lionel would make us when we sat in the saloon bar, on the Salisbury Road side, a silver platter with roast potatoes, pork pie (I hadnt gone vegetarian yet), scratchings (I loved them!) But for more than two decades, it was a haven for folks looking for high-quality, reasonably priced outdoor clothing and shoes. Established in 1968, NDC spent 205m building vast new housing estates. The back bar had soft furnishing and led out to the garden. The Mountain Goat This wound is still a little raw, as this Main Street destination shop just closed in 2013. The Drum has a pretty unique clientele full of old Northampton faces, and is still a place where you can hear the old Northampton accent. Northampton began to morph into the place we have now. The Chron's main competitor is the weekly Northampton Herald & Post (circulation 45,582)[4] which is free and delivered throughout the town and surrounding areas but in comparison is lighter on news and heavy on advertising. That part of the club was eventually closed off, as the Fire Department said it was a hazard and didnt have a working fire escape. . We also went to The Kingsley Park Working Mens Club. Have a look down memory lane and see how many of these street scenes you remember. This successful marketing ploy was all part of NDC's plans to persuade people to move from overcrowded areas in London and Birmingham to the open spaces of Northampton. Read about our approach to external linking. It's not hard to understand the demise of that sort of animal in today's world. A chair was definitely smashed over someones head, and Im sure me and my cousin Scott, hid under the pool table, but that might be my imagination getting the better of me. 2. Later this venue was to become a night club called Top Of The Town. Narrow your search with advanced settings, such as Years (from/to), Fulltext, Publisher, Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Copyright 2023 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria her British journeys, Milton Keynes Museum: Archaeological Treasurers on the Doorstep, Tour of the Parish Church of St Lawrence, Towcester. The town of Northampton I grew up in 1945-1963 was completely transformed in the 1960s and 1970s. Sage Hall, Smith College Northampton, MA . It was called Roland Holloway's Northamptonshire, Fifty Years of Photographs 19241974, published by Northamptonshire Libraries. It was a very local establishment, but as a kid drinking in Kingsthorpe it would be part of the pub run we would do. I was also in there with my mate Cama, when I somehow wound someone chap up in the queue and a fight started, I spent most of the fight trying to retrieve Cams glasses that had been knocked off, when things settled down I emerged from under a table holding his unbroken glasses. Museum Hours. One of the company's most notable figures was L W Dickens, long-serving editor of The Mercury and Herald, in its heyday the 'bible' of Northamptonshire farmers. The Rifle Drum, known simply to us as the Drum, has been around since the 17th Century, and according to Dave Knibbs book it had a name change to the Crown for a while. I think it had a long single-story building and a larger more house like one at one end. The Fox & Hounds was probably the closest pub to my house, that or the Sunnyside. The Globe Bookstore Situated where Newbury Comix now does business, the Globe was a treasure trove of great books. Richard Deacon returns as a follow up to his fascinating talk in 2017. VideoThe secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, LGBT troops take love for Eurovision to front line. But as a grew older and met more people, I realised that my family did things a little bit different from most. The maternal side of the family, or though smaller, was also an interesting bunch. Northampton It had a circulation of 17,483 in the first half of 2010, a year on year decline of 7.8%,[6] and the decline continued into 2012. He said: "The important lesson is planning should involve the people who live here.". I think it went all the way back to Kingsthorpe Rec. In 1971, Northampton was home to 130,000 people. External. Over the years I have put a few bands on at The Lamplighter and had some great nights playing records with Dixy, and joining Big Gary and Jon for their Broken Shackle. The staples of Northamptonshire's industry at the beginning of the 19th century were wool, lace, silk and shoemaking. Northampton views through the ages! Green's book The Art of Coarse Acting was based on his experiences as an amateur actor at Northampton's amateur drama group the Masque Theatre. Some starting with Permaquip and then for British Rail, and later some for Lionverge. I was also in there with my mate Cama, when I somehow wound someone chap up in the queue and a fight started, I spent most of the fight trying to retrieve Cams glasses that had been knocked off, when things settled down I emerged from under a table holding his unbroken glasses. Listing of "Courses On or About Women Offered in the Five Colleges" by VWC. I had two older siblings, loads of cousins, and dozens of Aunties and Uncles. Main Street Northampton, MA . The FireFly in Dallington (also known as the Red Earl). I will hopefully remember more as time goes by and before my memory, like those pubs, goes for good. It had other names too, some I remember are Sinatras, the short lived Hermans, which quickly changed to Macbeths, and it also became one The Cookie Club franchised venues. I have happy but it seems slightly misguided memories of this pub. So with this photo and the others Id found I was able to piece a illustration together. Yale Photogrammar/Carl Mydan. Fond memories of the power cuts and everyone ending up in one house with the candles on the go and all playing games like the blitz without the bombs. Despite struggling against their lowly rivals for the first 20 minutes of the game played on 7 February 1970, United ran out 8-2 winners. He said people arriving from "crowded inner city areas" such as the East End of London and Birmingham to "an attractive green field site" had benefitted greatly from the expansion process. Hyett, William 1813 1813-1816 1:31 680 Stony Stratford Those demolitions and "redevelopments" made a lot of people angry at the time. Mayes has also published compilations of his 'corrections and clarifications' columns in The Guardian. A total of 15,655 new homes were built between 1970 and 1985, including on the Thorplands estate, The Barclaycard building on Marefair was vacated in the late 1990s and replaced by Sol Central in 2002, Bellinge Ponds, part of the 1974 Bellinge development, is part of five hectares of woodland, New estates like The Arbours were built using 205m on development corporation money, People moved from London and Birmingham to new homes on estates like Bellinge, Brackmills was built as a distribution centre, partly to counter the decline of the shoe trade in Northampton, These homes at Weston Favell were among 7,000 to be built by private developers, Weston Favell's Emmanuel inter-denominational church is built on three floors in the same design as the south Bank theatres in London, Briar Hill was one of the areas promoted by NDCs cult hit "60 miles by road or rail", The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. To learn more, I thought my childhood was pretty ordinary. . A glossy monthly, the Northampton Town and County Independent, edited by Bernard Holloway and the local author-editor Lou Warwick, was also published by the same company, which was once part of the United Newspapers group headed by Lord Barnetson. Referring again to Dave Knibbs wonderful book Last Orders I found out that The Victoria Inn, situated on the corner of Poole Street and Military Road, opened in 1875. Okay, so the Overstone Arms was located on the Overstone Road near the town centre and was surrounded by shoe factories in a previous life. Bastard brag is a variation of 3 card brag, 3 cards are dealt into the middle, 2 up and 1 is face down, the name is from the frustration players would feel when another player picks the card you wanted, and you bastard might be muttered or shouted depending on your mood and how inebriated you are. The two teams stood on either side of the river and the losers were declared when one of the teams ended up being pulled into the Nene.