the Underpass: History Research

The Colonels Walk Underpass was a pedestrian link from the Tanshelf community with the Pit Yard Colliery site of Prince of Wales.

The Community was built close to the colliery in order to house the people working in the colliery. A series of houses as well as small businesses, a theatre and a cinema, shops and small streets were developed inside this area which was a kind of a town within the greater town of Pontefract.

Most of the people (men) were working in the colliery. The approach to the colliery depending on where they needed to be was from a number of small pedestrian routes that were connecting the town of Pontefract with the Pit Yard. Colonels Walk was one of the most major roads of Tanshelf and the Colonels Walk Underpass one of the most used and important access points to the side of the Colliery. Its only use was from workers that would need to walk from their houses to work.

In the 1960’s, after the colliery was closed, the Tanshelf community had to be demolised as it mostly had small two-room houses in not the greatest state.

'..It was inevitable that the old terraced properties would have to be demolished, the houses were small and cramped, having mostly only two bedrooms, one small scullery, and one living room, with others a little larger having three bedrooms. There was no indoor bathroom and the toilet was situated in the back yard. Open coal fires provided a source of heat while the lighting was by gaslight and candles..'

Maurice Haigh from TANSHELF - A Bygone Community

People speak about the Tanshelf community with a sense of a great communal place, where people were feeling really close to their neighbours and their place. After a small telephone interview with mr. Peter Cookson (Pontefract Railway Society+Civic Society), I discovered myself this great sense that Tanshelf had and how people were feeling living in such a place.

'..Every street had a corner shop. At the bottom of our street was the fish and chip shop where Mrs Bessie Beaumont and Mrs Mabel Ellis worked. You always had a good laugh when you went in there. Opposite the fish shop was Tonks shop. Many a time we had been playing rounders in the street (men included) and somebody had sent the ball into Tonky’s shop and knocked the pop bottles over. Another game we played was skipping, with a clothes line the full width of the road.

Colonel’s Walk was all cobbles and every winter, after a fall of snow, it became the venue for sledging from top to bottom. It was like a sheet of glass until the council workmen came and salted it or one of our parents came out with shovels full of ashes and threw them all over the road..'

Maureen Holt (nee O’Hara) from FURTHER MEMORIES OF TANSHELF

You can read three very intresting stories from people that were part of the Tanshelf community taken from the Pontefract Digest publication. [story 01, story 02, story 03]