The date is a bit of a problem but I suspect the photo from which the image was taken dates from the early 1940s. I will tell you why, later.
The card is one of a number in my possession from the Excel Series, all printed to a very high standard. Before I look at the buildings could I ask you to examine the bus in the foreground, left of centre? I was fortunate to meet Alan Catlow, the expert so far as I am concerned on matters relating to the town's omnibuses, and he told me this bus (number 112 registration HG 3196) was a Leyland TD4C which was new in 1935, doing 18 years of service before it was disposed of to Used Units, a Burnley firm of motor dismantlers, in 1953. Alan told me the bus was one of a fleet of 32 bought to replace the trams which had previously run on the Nelson-to-Padiham main line. This dates the bus to the period after the merger of the transport undertakings which created BCN (Burnley, Colne and Nelson) which was formed in April, 1933.

I remember the Leyland TD4C buses because some of them were in service almost to my teenage years. Alan's book "Burnley, Colne & Nelson Joint Transport" confirms this and, of the 32 vehicles bought in 1935, five were on the BCN books until 1959. One of my earliest memories – I was probably only five or six – was of one of these buses hurtling down the hill at Lanehead. Thankfully, I was not on board. My grandparents lived in Briercliffe Road and we children had strayed towards the hill. Only a few days before, I had been told about the famous crash at the bottom of the hill and, seeing this bus flying by, I could understand just how such a thing could happen.

On the left of the postcard you can see the Savoy, which was Burnley's most elegant cinema. The building also had a lovely cafe/restaurant and what always seemed to me to be a superior cake shop. By the time the photo was taken, Oddie's had taken over these two latter businesses.
Then came Red Lion Street which was followed by the impressive Midland Bank building. Next was number 16, Manchester Road which was the Burnley home of the Singer Sewing Machine Co., a shop you can identify because of the "S" sign attached to its wall. It is this building which confirms the early 1940s as the date of this postcard. Singers were there in 1941 but absent in 1945.

At 18, there was Shee & Kennedy's shop, Burnley's most famous tailors, with the offices of the Northern Daily Telegraph and Creeke's solicitors next door. Number 24 was the home of the Cafe Royal and Restaurant and you should be able to make out its sign a little higher up on the row of properties, left. The larger buildings at the end of the row represent rebuilding of the original properties which were already very good buildings. The last building was Barclay's Bank and, over Grimshaw Street, you may be able to see the sign of Jay's the furnishers.

On the right of the postcard, you can see (at number 1) the corner of the Burton's building which replaced the Bull Hotel in 1933. Next door is the London Rubber Company's shop which sold waterproof garments but, after that, I get a bit confused about nomenclature. The problem is that commercial tenants are often not as keen about street numbers as are householders.

As we see in this photo, the building next door was occupied, as it still is, by a bank. At the time the photo was taken, Blackburn Savings Bank, an institution which prospered for over a century until it was absorbed into the Trustee's Savings Bank, carried out business there. I wondered, as a boy, why Burnley did not have its own Savings Bank to find out, later, that it did but Burnley Savings Bank, founded in the middle of last century, did not survive long.

You will not be able to read the name over the shop next door but it was Davies & Balmforth, a firm of costumiers. In the 1920s number 9 was occupied by Smith & Co. who were described in the Directories as "clothiers" though they were better known as shroud and trimmings manufacturers for the undertaking business. Today the shop next door, at the junction with Bull Street, is occupied by the Burnley Express but, in the 1940s the building was the home of Baileys (Drapers) Ltd who were ladies outfitters.

In the 1940s the Burnley Express, was situated entirely in Bull Street. Of course, there had been other newspapers in town, the most important being Burnley News in St James's Row, and the Burnley Gazette in Bridge Street, almost next door to the business (Webster's) which featured in last week's article.

The last row before Hargreaves Street started with the New Red Lion, the old name for what we now call the Big Window, but it also contained James Bulcock, the iron mongers. If you look carefully you will be able to see, after a double fronted shop, and at first-floor level, a large window which projects from the main building. This was Bulcock's and what a shop it was, but, as you will know, I have long since been something of a "sucker" for hardware shops. I would not be able to hazard why, at least with very much precision, but it must be something to do with intoxicating smell of all the things that can be found in such places.