What Is/was - This Place ?

[vox]

Noticed work going on there for a while now.

I've not seen it from close up, but from the road, it looks as though its built of wood.

The house next door is number 534

Today

Google Streetview - before the work started

[SteveHB]

Noticed work going on there for a while now.

I've not seen it from close up, but from the road, it looks as though its built of wood.

The house next door is number 534

Today

Google Streetview - before the work started

Gatefield Social Club?

last time I walked past there was a sign & some steps hidden in the undergrowth.

Edit: please ignore me, I was thinking of another building.

[Guest plain talker]

yes that's the site of the former Gatefield Club.

[Stuart0742]

yes that's the site of the former Gatefield Club.

Yes I agree it was the former Gatefield Club.

Was that the only entrance onto Abbeydale Road, just had a look on Google SV, I thought there was an entrance on Sandford Grove Road

[vox]

Yes I agree it was the former Gatefield Club.

Was that the only entrance onto Abbeydale Road, just had a look on Google SV, I thought there was an entrance on Sandford Grove Road

If that was the only entrance it must have been shut for a long time. The "bricking up" looks decades old.

[Guest plain talker]

If that was the only entrance it must have been shut for a long time. The "bricking up" looks decades old.

The club's been shut down for about ten years, easily. vox.

[Guest nigel1963]

Yes I agree it was the former Gatefield Club.

Was that the only entrance onto Abbeydale Road, just had a look on Google SV, I thought there was an entrance on Sandford Grove Road

The entrance to the club was on gatefield road,between the houses.

What became of the old house which was the entrance to the club?

[Guest johnbaz]

If i recall correctly- they used to have strippers performing there

Not that i ever frequented the place though (i've never been in the place!)

John :)

[RichardB]

Never knew it existed ...

[Stuart0742]

If i recall correctly- they used to have strippers performing there

Not that i ever frequented the place though (i've never been in the place!)

John

Didn't all WMC's have strippers at some part of the week

This is just heresay as I have never frequented WMC's

[DaveH]

Didn't all WMC's have strippers at some part of the week

This is just heresay as I have never frequented WMC's

No I don't think all WMC's had strippers.

Doesn't WMC stand for "Women Must Clothe"

Most WMC's admitted women (members wives) anyway.

I can't see my dad taking my mum down to the Park & Arbourthorne to see a stripper!

[Stuart0742]

No I don't think all WMC's had strippers.

Doesn't WMC stand for "Women Must Clothe"

Most WMC's admitted women (members wives) anyway.

I can't see my dad taking my mum down to the Park & Arbourthorne to see a stripper!

I did not mean all the time, I don't really know, it was just something I had heard/assumed, perhaps I was wrong or its something from years back.

[vox]

I can confirm, having played at lots of clubs years ago, that some clubs had strippers.

Usually Sunday dinnertimes I if I remember rightly.

(which occasionally I do - I think )

[SteveHB]

The entrance to the club was on gatefield road,between the houses.

What became of the old house which was the entrance to the club?

Thanks Nigel,

that entrance can bee seen on the 1950's OS map,

and the aerial shot,

the date on the aerial view (2009) that shows the house

is deceptive as it could have been taken at an earlier date (2006/2008)

Don't know what year the house & club were demolished.

link to OS map #262

link to Flash Earth

[vox]

Planning Documents for the new build.

Application

Hope you have more luck than I did. Some of the pages take ages to load (if at all).

[DaveH]

I can confirm, having played at lots of clubs years ago, that some clubs had strippers.

Usually Sunday dinnertimes I if I remember rightly.

(which occasionally I do - I think )

Yes that's right vox

I remember many clubs having strippers on for Sunday dinnertime.

This was a "men only" time as most wives would be at home preparing a Sunday meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pud. and a load of fresh vegetables for when the old man staggered back home from the WMC.

Heaven only knows what the church and the Lords Day Observance Society would have thought of having strippers on on a Sunday

I also remember as a student in Hull in the mid 70's that the WMC's also had strippers. Students couldn't get in as they were, as a rule, not members or affiliates but we got to see these "ladies" waiting outside having a fag before going in to get changed for their act.

I almost felt sorry for some of them.

They were not super attractive celebrity type women, - just ordinary women from the area.

To them stripping wasn't a sexy or glamourous occupation, they didn't enjoy it or want to do it - it was just a job, - it paid them money.

They went in, did the act, got paid, got dressed and came out.

At the time (1974) a Government had been brought down and replaced by one on a minority vote, there were strikes and shortages every other month, there were 3,000,000 unemployed. Many were still working a 3 day week. Economic times were tight.

Some of these women relied on the small income they got from stripping, perhaps they were only one step short of prostitution.

It seemed as though these women were so destitute they had actually been brought down to the level of being a stripper just to make ends meet.

[ukelele lady]

I can confirm, having played at lots of clubs years ago, that some clubs had strippers.

Usually Sunday dinnertimes I if I remember rightly.

(which occasionally I do - I think )

I'm told the La Plarta [ is that how it's spelt ? ] in Hillsborough was the place for strippers on a Sunday dinner time.

I was told about one stripper who used to have a tassle on each boob and could make one swing one way at the

same time as she swung one the other way . How did she do that??? I can't do it. :P

[Guest Gramps]

I wonder what the early occupants of Gatefield would have thought of what it later became ??

From - History of the Parish of St. Peter, Abbeydale, by Mary Walton and Gerald R. Mettam

"Gatefield House in Abbeydale Road was part of the Younge estate. It was built on the Gatefield between 1833 and 1837 by Samuel Younge, the solicitor, who left his house in East Parade and lived in it until his father's death in 1850, when he moved to Edge End and let it first to James Sorby and then to Thomas Bagshaw Cockayne, who eventually bought it. He was then described as draper and general merchant, but his business developed into the very large department store which still includes the site of the original shop in Angel Street. The family lived at Gatefield House until Mrs. Cockayne died, a widow, in 1890. They were followed by Alfred Creswick, of private means, until 1925 and his widow until 1934. After standing empty for a while, the house was bought as premises for the Social Club which is still there."

[DaveH]

I'm told the La Plarta [ is that how it's spelt ? ] in Hillsborough was the place for strippers on a Sunday dinner time.

I was told about one stripper who used to have a tassle on each boob and could make one swing one way at the

same time as she swung one the other way . How did she do that??? I can't do it.

I don't know how its done either ukelele lady

I have seen this act performed live by a woman who could get them both clockwise, both anticlockwise or even in opposite directions with the tassles passing either upwards or downwards past her cleavage.

Whats more she could make them change between any of these 4 combinations at will

Now the remarkable bit!

When I saw this act live I wasn't in a strip club.

At the time (1969) I was 13 years old and was with my 8 year old brother and both my parents at a "family club" on a holiday camp site at Great Yarmouth

Amazingly this act wasn't considered "unsuitable for children" and no one on holiday seemed to object.

To be fair the lady was wearing bikini bottoms and the tassles were fitted in such a way that they covered her nipples so although "scantily clad" she was not actually nude or revealing any more than bathers on the beach, although I think she did strip down to this state of clothing before starting her "tassle dancing" act.

So this show was suitable for kids.

A room full of cigarette smoke was suitable for kids

But if we had attempted to walk up to the bar where they were actually selling beer, - now that was going too far! :huh:

[Stuart0742]

I don't know how its done either ukelele lady

I have seen this act performed live by a woman who could get them both clockwise, both anticlockwise or even in opposite directions with the tassles passing either upwards or downwards past her cleavage.

Whats more she could make them change between any of these 4 combinations at will

Now the remarkable bit!

When I saw this act live I wasn't in a strip club.

At the time (1969) I was 13 years old and was with my 8 year old brother and both my parents at a "family club" on a holiday camp site at Great Yarmouth

Amazingly this act wasn't considered "unsuitable for children" and no one on holiday seemed to object.

To be fair the lady was wearing bikini bottoms and the tassles were fitted in such a way that they covered her nipples so although "scantily clad" she was not actually nude or revealing any more than bathers on the beach, although I think she did strip down to this state of clothing before starting her "tassle dancing" act.

So this show was suitable for kids.

A room full of cigarette smoke was suitable for kids

But if we had attempted to walk up to the bar where they were actually selling beer, - now that was going too far!

and theres me thinking it was a turn in the Foxwood

[DaveH]

and theres me thinking it was a turn in the Foxwood

No, - never seen that act in the Foxwood, or even in the Embassy.

Although by the look of some of those women who come out of the Embassy through the Foxwood to the car park i wouldn't be so sure.

Anyway the Foxwood is much better anyway.

1

No kids

2

No silly semi stripped tassle dancers

3

No smoking, so the air is clean

and.....

4

They are so desperate to sell beer these days that the barman remembers your order for weeks on and end and starts pulling it for you as soon as you walk into the bar.

[Guest Danny]

I used to live round here when younger (Empire Rd)

I remember looking up from Abbeydale Rd and seeing the club on the hillside. I have been past there recently and hadnt noticed the overgrowth obscuring the clueb, neither had i noticed any work going on of recent.

Its amazing what you dont see when you go past places all the time!

[SteveHB]

The entrance to the club was on gatefield road,between the houses.

What became of the old house which was the entrance to the club?

This was the entrance to Gatefield club.

A few more photos taken from Abbeydale Road.

[markg]

I saw a stripper at the Gatefield in the 80's. I used to work with a bloke at the town hall who had an evening job there. He organised an evening at the Gatefield for some town hall lads which I think was billed as a "Pie and Pea" evening! Anyway this stripper appeared. She did not go in for the apparently skilled art of the tassels. I remember she did something nasty with one blokes pint and it just got worse after that. I seem to recall the pie and peas was ok.

I also remember the Landsdowne (not sure if this is the right spelling) - a pub at the bottom of London Road had Sunday lunchtime strippers. I never went as I was only about 12 at the time but the adverts outside fascinated me when I went past on the bus!

[SteveHB]

Gatefield House