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RichardB

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Can we narrow down the year ?

The photo shows that only one side of Vere Road beyond the ground has been completely developed with just a few houses built on the other side at the Penistone Road end.

The 1905 1:2500 scale OS map on old-maps.co.uk shows both sides completely built with a few houses extending along Penistone Road and Leppings Lane.

I would say the image dates from between the turn of the century when the ground was built and 1904/5.

HD

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"Last Sunday, I therefore went to have a look at Vere Road. It turns out that Vere Road, and the streets in that area (Bickerton Road, Farndale Road, Fielding Road, Leake Road; and the stretches of Leppings Lane and Penistone Road adjacent to them) are truly riddled with sanitary inspection covers inscribed "Dawson & Patchett".

All in all, some 280 houses; I assume that they were all built by Dawson & Patchett. The dates on the elevations range from 1899 to 1906.

Interestingly, one of the two 1899 dates is on the elevation of 220/222 Penistone Road: "TOYNTON - 1899 - COTTAGES". Toynton is the village in Lincolnshire where W.J. Patchett was born. It would seem that the first houses he ever got to build, he named them after his birthplace. How truly romantic!:)"

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23 Vere Road built 1905, number 38 1900, number 6 built 1902 "it" says ...

Big pinch of salt required there I think. The houses nearer to the ground are the odd numbers and were obviously built first according to the photo.

HD

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Indeed "it" may be incorrect. Maybe some bright spark might come up with some dates stones from street view or a journey down there.

Big pinch of salt required there I think. The houses nearer to the ground are the odd numbers and were obviously built first according to the photo.

HD

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Above No 9 Vere Road (Wednesday Ground side) is a stone plaque that has been cut down a bit but which says "Carlton Cottages 1900". (Google Maps is your friend).

I reckon that if the ground was built 1899 that the picture would be taken soon after as it looks like some sort of publicity item.

My money's on 1900. :)

HD

Postscript.

Just read the above post. Do I qualify as a bright spark. I used to be a "spark" and I do have some qualifications.

HD

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Right then, I think I've cracked it.

If you study the picture carefully you can see that the houses on the ground side of Vere Road (the ones with 1900 datestones) are complete.

The houses on the other side only extend a short way up from Penistone Road. One of these houses has a date stone which is not very clear but seems to say 1900. A bit further up the far side is a house with a plaque stating Boston Cottages 1901. This house has not been built when the old photo was built.

I think this proves fairly conclusively that the picture dates from around 1900.

HD

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I'd say it was around 1913 :)

Thr drawing looks like an artists /architects impression of the New South Stand opened in 1913 to replace the Olive Ground stand that had been moved brick by brick to Owlerton

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Thr drawing looks like an artists /architects impression of the New South Stand opened in 1913 to replace the Olive Ground stand that had been moved brick by brick to Owlerton

If thats the case then the photo has been altered by whatever the 1913 version of Photoshop was called to incorporate the new stand.

The area behind the ground is definately a photo and if it was really 1913 when it was taken the fields shown would be covered with terraced housing.

HD

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Is it all an artists impression ?

The area behind the ground is definately a photo ...

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I can't tell - it's not in any book I've got but if it is a photo it must be after 1913!

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I think all the evidence points to it being an original 1900 photograph of the ground which has been used as a basis for an alteration to show the new stand. The original must have been taken from a plane.

HD

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Is it all an artists impression ?

Both flags on the stadium are being blown out by the wind, yet the smoke from all the chimneys is rising vertical.

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Planes in 1900 ... ? Balloon more like it, or an impression of what it would look like ...

I think all the evidence points to it being an original 1900 photograph of the ground which has been used as a basis for an alteration to show the new stand. The original must have been taken from a plane.

HD

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Both flags on the stadium are being blown out by the wind, yet the smoke from all the chimneys is rising vertical.

Which fits in with my theory that the new stand is an artists impression based on an older photograph.

HD

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What is the thing, top left at the end of Vere Road and Leppings Lane ?

If you mean the curved thing I think it's the original turnstiles that were there until a few years ago.

You can also see the edge of the River Don.

HD

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This impression was completed for the Wednesday shareholders by the famous football architect Archibald Leitch in 1913.

It is reproduced in Simon Inglis' excellent book "Engineering Archie"

Both United & Wednesday are covered in the book - i can post more info if anyone would be interested?

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Most interested, Thank you Blacky.

This impression was completed for the Wednesday shareholders by the famous football architect Archibald Leitch in 1913.

It is reproduced in Simon Inglis' excellent book "Engineering Archie"

Both United & Wednesday are covered in the book - i can post more info if anyone would be interested?

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John Street Stand, Bramall Lane 1900-1901

His work for United was Archibald Leitchs first commission south of the border.

The old wooden stand on John Street had been badly damaged by fire and he contacted the club in the summer of 1900 offering to prepare a "plan of stand accomodation"

By March 1901 the first designs had been approved and Leitch also completed a six feet long scale model to impress the directors (according to Inglis' book none of the models made for United or other clubs have survived.)

The final cost to United at the turn of the century was around £5,000 but the club were doing well and the price was well within its means.

The new stand was opened in September 1901 and boasted the following:

covered seating for 3,800 and enclosure in front for 6,000 on 25 rows of terracing.

Roof top press box with 60 seats on four rows (this was badly damaged during the 1940 blitz)

Said to be the first stand to be lit by electric light

A 100 yard warm-up track was provided underneath the seating

Separate tunnels for the home and away teams - however this was changed to one central tunnel in 1923

The stand was finally demolished in 1996.

Hillsborough, 1913-1914

Wednesday were forced to move out of Olive Grove in 1899 and by 1913 the risk of moving to Hillsborough looked to have paid off. Crowds had increased and the Owls had won the league in 1903 & 1904 and the cup in 1907.

Leitchs brief was to design a new stand on the south, river side of the ground replacing the wooden pavilion Wednesday had brought with them from Olive Grove.

The stand he proposed appeared to be a standard two tier construction holding 5,600 seats on the upper deck and 11,000 standing infront. Leitch opted for reinforced concrete with a brick base with a steel framed roof capped by a pedimented gable.

structurally however he used a form of construction he had experimented with at Anfield - the seating deck was not formed by wooden boards on a concrete frame but by an angled slab of reinforced concrete, four inches thick with timber treads on top.

The cost to the club in 1913 was £17,884 - of this Archibald Leitch was paid £500.

Praise for the new stand came from all over and the director of Hearts in Edinburgh demanded a replica be built for themsleves.

After work on the South Stand was completed in 1996 very few external features of the original remain but the interior remains more or less intact including the original boardroom, both dressing rooms and the unusually wide service corridor.

However the replica gable at the front of the new stand is decorated with an exact copy of the old ironwork finial and in the centre of that is the original ball. Apparently for years fans joked that the ball was made of coal due to it being so blackened by pollution - in fact it is copper and when it was restored it was found to have the date 1866 inscribed upon it - this was thought to have been the year of the clubs formation but as we know this was 1867.

This single decorative feature is the only one of its kind still surviving and forms an apt token of the work of Archibald Leitch.

Most of the above taken from "Engineering Archie" by Simon Inglis runner up in the William Hill sports book of the year in 2005.

For anyone remotely interested in football it is a very interesting and thought provoking book with over 200 pages and hundreds of photographs of grounds past and present, active and sadly extinct.

utb!

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Fine work, Thank you for your effort in posting this.

John Street Stand, Bramall Lane 1900-1901

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Guest clivenicholson

I have come to this very late in the discussion. I am shocked that people think that this was from around the turn of the century. The MASSIVE stand is clearly an Archibald Leitch stand and therefore easily dateable. The Olive Grove stand that was originally there was only half the length of the pitch but possitioned centrally.

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