This afternoon I ventured west to Morley, the market town on the south west periphery of Leeds, West Yorkshire.
It’s town hall, a grade 1 listed building constructed in 1885, apparently bears a strong resemblance to Bolton Town Hall. Knowledge I’ve recently acquired thanks to a rather random Wikipedia snippet I read a few minutes ago.
I’m unsure why the author of Morley Town Hall’s Wiki page felt the need to mention the building’s aesthetic likeness to it’s architecture cousin in Bolton. However, I was disappointed the entry for the town itself didn’t build on this ‘fascinating’ coincidence. Particularly, not using the opportunity to enlighten it’s readers of other Morley sights mirroring similar spectacles in Lancashire towns.
For instance, Does Morrison’s supermarket in the town centre have an identical aisle layout to Rochdale’s store of the same name? Is the Wetherspoon’s pub on the high street a clone of the ‘cheap & cheerful’ boozer owned by the same franchise in Burnley? Does the statue of late entertainer Ernie Wise (who was brought up close to Morley) bear a resemblance to that honouring his double act sidekick in Morecambe?
I don’t definitively know the answer to the questions in the previous paragraph, however I’d guess at ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ respectively.
The Wikipedia author of the Bolton Town Hall (BTH) page omitted to reference the similarity between the two mayoral buildings. Indicating to me he obviously bore far less interest in the apparent likenesses of the structures than his compatriot east of the Pennines…… Yes, I was banal enough to research the BTH page!
I know quite a few residents of this West Yorkshire market town; predominantly acquainted from my time working at a financial institution in Leeds. Morleyites who may or may not realise the exciting news about their town hall’s aesthetic parallels to Bolton’s version of the building.
Presumably they don’t, though, as I can’t believe they’d not shared such ‘exciting’ information with me had they been aware.
If truth be told, I’ve never heard any of them make a fuss over the Ernie Wise statue either. Although that maybe a consequence of the late short, fat, hairy legged comedian hailing from East Ardsley village a few miles east of their town – Meaning potentially they may not class him as a Morleyite.
Around 15-20 years ago I used to visit Morley regularly, when I spent Saturday mornings playing five-a-side football at the town’s leisure centre. I’ve no idea if our pitch resembled any at Lancashire’s recreation establishments, but if it did I’d guess at Preston’s football court.
I loved those Saturday’s back in the mid/late 1990’s, a good run around with a football, followed by fish and chips with my cousin from the chippy at the bottom of Ackroyd Street. Once we’d hastily troughed the fodder at my cousin’s Morley home, we’d drive to the foot of Churwell Hill. Here we’d park up, prior to embarking on a shortish walk to Elland Road where we’d take in the Leeds United (LUFC) game.
If LUFC were playing an away game, we’d take our time eating the fish lunch, followed by embarking on a belching competition fueled by dandelion & burdock pop. The perpetrator of the most raucous burp, in a best of three series, adorning the crown of king belcher that week.
Despite being great fun, when my cousin and me pitched the idea to a Sky Sports representative as a viable addition to their under strain broadcasting schedules, he declined the idea…… Actually that’s not strictly true, the Sky rep didn’t specifically decline the idea. His response was to take a sip of his can of coke, burp violently, before pointing at the door and requested we leave his office.
