Former Yelloway Travel Bureau and office building in Smith Street, Rochdale – April 1989 (Photo by T.A. Slater) (TAS0489A)

April 1989 – A photograph taken for me by my late Father of the now closed Yelloway office building in Smith Street, Rochdale. During the 1970s Yelloway bought the former Kelsall and Kemp warehouse building which had for many years impeded its expansion plans. After purchase the top floor was removed and the building modernised and stone cleaned, it always having appeared black over the past years.

All the office functions were then moved from the various corners of the garage site into the new building. The Travel Bureau occupied prominent position at street level facing the town centre. The Chart Room, where all advance bookings were recorded, was located above it.

The Traffic Office was sited behind the Travel Bureau on the Ground Floor. The Accounts and General Office were located on the first floor. The second floor was used for storage.

The original Travel Bureau, housed in former cottages, was demolished as part of the project and had stood on the far right of the exterior stairway.

The stone wall bottom right is the start of the River Roch covering, a 2015 photograph taken from the opposite side may be seen here: www.ipernity.com/doc/davidslater-spoddendale/38815228/in/album/801926

The warehouse as it was in the mid-1960s stands in the background of this photograph:
www.ipernity.com/doc/davidslater-spoddendale/34056839

When the building was used as a warehouse the Manager there (George Durham) would handle the receiving of large cotton bales from flat bed lorries parked across the front door of the old Travel Bureau. He would stand at an open door on the top floor and operate a hoist to lift the bales to the required floor level for storage.

Yelloway used to make good use of the wall of the warehouse to display excursion boards which held in place by a heavy duty wire strewn the length of the wall fastened at each end. Now and again one of ends of the wire would give way and all the boards would end up face down on the footpath!

For a few years more the building was taken over by a firm of chartered accountants (BDO Binder Hamlyn) using the address as Lewis House, 12 Smith Street.