Putting Burley on the map - Literally!

One of the less well known aspects of the Burley Champions project has been to create a 'channel' on the international local history website, Historypin.

In partnership with Leodis, which is Leeds City Council's photographic archive, our  volunteers have uploaded an extensive selection of old photographs of old Burley. The Historypin site allows users to 'pin' old photograph to a detailed 'Google' map of the area together with a short description.

The site is open to the general public and enables the project to share information with a global community of people interested in sharing their local 'histories'.

You can browse the Burley Champion's Historypinhttp://www.historypin.com/channels/view/id/16490120/
channel here:

Champion film project - It's official!

The project has been successful in attracting news coverage - witness this recent article in the Yorkshire Evening Post. Reporter Alison Bellamy's write up has done the project proud. We love the catchy headline!

Burley - now and then

Many of the oral interviewees have commented on how Burley's shops have changed to reflect the influx of new residents from all over the world, as well as new local businesses and increased numbers of University students. One of the most recent additions to Burley is the Lahore cafe, on the corner with Burley Road - project staff and volunteers confess to eating there quite a lot!!

Obaid and Naveed - two of Lahore's very friendly staff. The busy cafe and takeaway employs  around 30 people!

 Compare the photo above with the one below - taken just a few streets away - around 100 years ago!

Wyatt's hairdressers at no 7 Burley Road, c.1913. (Copyright,  Leeds Library and Information Service)

Film screening - Dates for your diary!

Thanks to our fabulous partners at the historic Hyde Park Picture House, we can now announce that, in addition to a launch event for the school, families and guests, there will also be a free public screening of the project film, All About Burley, at 2pm Sunday 9th June. Do come along and watch!

Hyde Park staff member, Andy Moore, and workshop leader, Meena Jeewa, get together to plan the launch event! 

Old Burley - how times have changed!

One of the resources available to community heritage projects in Leeds is the amazing Leodis web site www.leodis.net which contains thousands of historic photos of houses, shops, factories and people - and much more. The person responsible for this remarkable archive is Rose Gibson and she has been incredibly helpful in pinning down the copyright permission to use the images, many of which will appear in the film.

One of the lovely photos we have found of old Burley is an old postcard which shows what it was like in the early 1900s when its village origins were still clear!

Copyright: John Wray - Courtesy of Leeds Library and Information Services

Excitement mounts!

An enthusiastic group of parents, volunteers and young Burley Champions turned out during the Easter holidays to work on key aspects of the film.  With guidance from project filmmaker, Simon Collins, the children have been doing voice overs for the film!

They have also been drawing their own images to animate in the film. As you can see, it is time consuming and requires huge concentration to get it right! Plans are now in hand for a launch event in June at the historic Hyde Park Picture House - there will also be a free public screening. We will post up full details on the blog as soon as we have them.

All aboard the bus!!

On Saturday 16th March a hardy group of the young Burley Champions and their parents set off  on a tour of historic places of interest in and around Burley. Despite the cold (and at least it didn't snow!) they enthusiastically took photographs of landmark buildings old and new.

One surprise was that the bus company provided a double decker bus - which provided great views all the way.

Meena, the workshop leader, had her map reading skills put to the test.....

The children were able to show off their knowledge of  old Burley, and demonstrate their new found camera skills.  And yes, we loved those hats too!!