The article I publish today, as you can see, is illustrated by three pictures of one of my favourite "Old Burnley" streets. I have published picture one before but have chosen to do so again to give context to the remaining photos and because it will help with the resolution of a little problem I have been trying to sort out for some time.

You will notice the photos are separated by a number of years. The first shows Bridge Street, Burnley, as it was in Edwardian times. Look at the property on the left of the street. In 1914 the buildings shown here housed James Hudson's leather shop at number 2, the Sun Inn at number 4, Thomas O'Riley's hairdresser's shop at number 6 and James Thomas Mercer's clogger's shop at number 8. These buildings can be identified easily though Mr Hudson's shop only just makes it onto the picture, extreme left, and notice the gap between number 2 and number 4. I will return to this later.

Now turn to the later pictures. Superficially, they look as if they might have been taken on the same day but a brief examination of them will reveal Hudson's made changes to some of the adverts that appeared on the wall which, as you will know, faced busy St James' Street.
Picture number 2 has the words "domestic hardware" either side of the upper window, being replaced by "tools" and "cutlery" on the third picture. This illustration also gives a view of the shop front which is excluded from the first image we examined. The gap between the two buildings is not so clear here but, if you look carefully and just beyond the four young ladies in the picture, you will see a change in the height of the pavement confirms the gap is still there.

The Sun Inn dated from 1793 – the date stone (shown in the picture at first floor level and just beyond the first window) still survives at Towneley Hall. The inn was the oldest structure in this part of Bridge Street and the gap was, in fact, a narrow passage which gave access to the rear of the building and probably performed the same function for properties in Fleet Street which ran between Bridge Street and Market Street.

The passage reminds us of the haphazard way in which this part of Burnley was built and the second picture confirms this. It is not easy to give a date for this photo. The presence of the car would indicate the picture dates from before the Second World War but I am not being prescriptive about that. What interests me is the gap between the property in St James' Street and number 2 Bridge Street as it gives us the chance to see behind the facades of the well-known shops of this part of town.

The building in St James' Street was number 53 and some of you might remember it when it was occupied by Crossley's, the fish dealers who had disappeared, along with the number, by 1945. I am sure that when I was a boy there was a vacant plot at this location but, in picture 2, it is clear there is some sort of building standing. I wonder if it is an altered number 55?

All of the row, of which 53 was a part, was not demolished and the wall on the extreme right does not look old. What can be said is that old maps of this part of town show that behind the St James' Street property there was a small piece of land before the first property (number 2) in Bridge Street. I feel sure picture 2 shows that land after number 53 had been demolished giving us an insight into the poor quality of the property behind the well-known shop fronts of this part of Burnley centre.

Notice the variety of materials used; brick, on what appears to be a chimney (right) and on a sizeable extension to an older building (above, centre); a wooden extension at first and second floor level of premises in St James' Street and an even older extension behind. Look at the upper windows on this rendered brick building: they are protected by iron bars.

Of course, many of you will remember Hudson's outside display area which is shown in pictures 2 and 3. I thought it odd when I saw it on my visits to Bridge Street. The "Golden Padlock" and Collinge's had nothing like that and, remarkably, though there may have been a number of years between pictures 2 and 3 being taken, little on display seems to have changed.

As I say, I cannot be prescriptive about the date of the second picture but about the third I can tell you it was taken and intended for a calendar to be published in 1986. Whoever undertook this work commented about Hudson's and their "distinctive gable". To me, and for some reason for which I cannot account, the memory of this gable is indelible.