Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Noreen Whitehouse
Institution Street
LS6 is a well known and popular area spanning Woodhouse, Burley, Headingley, and Hyde Park. Today, it is mainly a student area, but 80 years ago it was home to many families.
Noreen Whitehouse was a nine year old who lived at 5 Institution Street in Woodhouse. Institution Street is today known as Holborn Approach, although the Mechanics Institute that gave its name is still standing and used as Holborn Church.
Noreen’s life would have been firmly rooted in the local area. Her father, Sidney, had grown up in the are and her parents had got married at the local church. It is likely that Noreen attended school just a couple of streets away from her house and spent time playing on nearby Woodhouse Moor.
On the night of the Leeds raid, Noreen went to bed wearing green pyjamas. She must have been woken during the raid, as she put on a pair of red slippers and a blue cardigan before taking shelter. However, wherever Noreen and her parents were, it was not enough to protect them when their home was destroyed in a direct hit from a high explosive bomb. Rescue workers pulled Noreen’s body from the rubble early on the 15 March. It took them four days to reach her mother’s body.
The Whitehouse family were buried together in Woodhouse Cemetery (now part of the Leeds University campus). The site of their house can be seen on later photographs of Institution Street.
Woodhouse Moor
The war transformed people’s relationships with their local areas. One such example is a demonstration that happened on Woodhouse Moor, an important green space in the LS6 area. In April 1938, a rehearsal air raid was held at the park, when Noreen would have been just over 6 years old. The exercise was designed to prepare for the eventuality that Leeds may be struck by German bombs, and demonstrate how prepared the city was.
The demonstration was one of the biggest of its kind and was reported on in the national press. The Times stated that the Woodhouse Moor demonstration was ‘more impressive’ than an earlier one held at Holbeck Moor on the same day (The Times, 1938).
‘The object of the mock raids was to give the public an opportunity of appreciating the efficiency of the defence measures’ – The Times, April 1938
A large crowd – of between 60 and 100,000 people – were reported to have attended the event, which saw RAF planes simulate a bombing raid on a life-sized model house. The model was set on fire to allow firefighters and civil defence personnel to test their response (The Times, 1938). Less than three years later, they were doing it for real.
The images below show Woodhouse Moor as Noreen would have known it, and as it is today. It remains an important hub for the community of LS6, and is often home to protests and demonstrations, as well as a place in the summer that students enjoy going to for relaxation.
