It’s always a pleasure to see the colourful boxes of fruit and vegetables outside the greengrocer’s in North Lane, gleaming red, orange, white, green: a reminder that local people have been sampling and enjoying the fresh produce here for over 100 years, a wonderful example of continuity in this ever-changing environment.
Headingley 1851
As it has done for centuries, North Lane linked the road north from Leeds to Otley across to the lane south to Kirkstall. The western end had a long association, from the 17th century onwards, with trade rather than just farming. By the 19th century, it was still like a country lane, very narrow in places, with fields and gardens on both sides and a scatter of cottages all at odd angles, but also some small local businesses. There was a farm on the bend (by the present Rose Garden: it’s now Ivy Cottage on Cross Chapel Street), and further down the lane there was a tannery with a tall chimney, with the owner’s house and garden in front. Next to the tannery stood a malt kiln, used in the brewing process, with a house and a small cottage – this cottage was later to become the greengrocer’s shop, so its story goes back a long way.
The cottage dates back at least a couple of hundred years to the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. If you go up the narrow stairs at the back to the small rooms upstairs, with their thick walls, you can get a sense of its age. On one side it adjoins another building, a larger cottage which also still survives - the stone-built external wall they share can be seen at the back. These two cottages were originally connected with the old maltings business (for brewing beer) established around 1780 by a Headingley man, William Thompson, whose son and grandson continued to run the maltings business here until about 1840. When it closed, the kiln was knocked down and a small terrace of houses, Grove Place, built in its place.
Around 1860 the old North Lane tannery closed, like many small domestic enterprises no longer viable in comparison with new large-scale industrialised businesses. Its chimney was demolished, providing an exciting spectacle for local onlookers, and the site seems then to have remained undeveloped for many years, its buildings falling into ruins. However the owner’s house next door, Tannery House, a substantial five-bedroomed residence with stables and a coach house, gardens and an orchard along Ash Road, survived until 1931.
Greengrocer back wall
The larger cottage by the malt kiln, once called ‘Elmwood’, is now occupied on the ground floor by the Leeds OWLS, with a shop front on North Lane next to the Greengrocer’s. You can get a good view of the two interconnecting cottages, the gable end and the slanting roofline, from across the road, and if you make your way round into Derwentwater Terrace you will find the original ‘Elmwood’ frontage, with a small yard in front. This yard was once a garden overlooking the green wooded grounds of two mansions, Headingley House and Headingley Lodge, both long gone now. The following sale plan from 1899 catches the scene on the cusp of the transformation the new century was to bring.
Sale Plan 1899
The greengrocer’s shop had its beginnings about the turn of the 20th century. The man who took the bold step of setting up in business here was Suttill Hannam (his unusual name a mix of two family surnames), a farmer’s son from remote Blayshaw near Ramsgill in Nidderdale. He and his wife were in their thirties when they came to Leeds around the turn of the century – the city was booming and offered good prospects compared with the small town where they had had a shop before. They took on a fruit and fish business in the Kirkstall Road but must have been on the lookout for a promising opportunity. The old village of Headingley nearby was just then being transformed into a thriving suburb, with rows of new red-brick terrace houses spreading across former gardens and fields and old buildings being demolished or repurposed. North Lane in particular was on the up: the site of the old tannery had long been vacant and was ripe for redevelopment, and plans were afoot to widen the road, still a narrow country lane, clear away old buildings and make room for a tram track.
Directories at the time show the range of shops and services which were developing along North Lane: dressmakers, a tailor, bootmakers, a draper, a jeweller, several grocers, a fruiterer, a milk supplier, a coal merchant, a chimney sweep, laundresses, a carting agent. And in 1916 the old abandoned tannery yard was reborn as the site of the handsome new Lounge Cinema, a striking building of red brick and white faience.
Hannam Fruit & Fish 1931
Suttill Hannam saw the potential and took over a newly built corner shop (60 North Lane) and moved into a house in nearby Ash Road. He had a tough start – his wife died just after they arrived, not long after the loss of their baby, leaving him on his own. Two years later, in 1914, war was declared and he had to cope with the rigours and shortages of wartime. But he kept going, married again, and in 1923 moved his shop a little further up North Lane to no. 50 (where the shop is now), taking over and extending the old cottage there: the shop front was built on. He and his growing family moved house to Westfield Grove, just over the road (built in 1844, now 76-78 on the corner of St Michael’s Road). Over the next years he built up his business into a successful venture - his extended shop frontage with its smart awning and his name written large above are on show in photos of the time.
Greengrocer and Westfield Grove
Sadly Suttill died suddenly at 55 in 1930, just as North Lane was about to be transformed by the long-planned road widening and improvement scheme. Fortunately the two old cottages including his shop lay far enoug h back to be spared and so survived all the devastation. The old building in front on one side of the shop and the terrace of houses [Grove Place] on the other side were demolished, giving the shop a more prominent position right by the pavement.
Rose Garden 1963
Tannery House also fell victim in 1931/32 to this ambitious scheme to widen and improve North Lane, and it was demolished, along with several other buildings, leaving only a much-reduced garden area at the corner, used initially as allotments. This area, known now as the Rose Garden, has thankfully remained a public space (no others are left in the village), and is increasingly being used for community events. Now it is the location of the monthly Farmers Market (held every second Saturday). The handsome Lounge Cinema next-door had fortunately been built far enough back from the road to survive the destruction of the road-widening work and flourished for the remainder of the century, but in January 2005, after almost ninety years, it was finally (and abruptly) closed down.
The greengrocer business continued to thrive under the management of Suttill’s widow Martha and then his eldest son, John Hannam, through the thirties and the blackouts and shortages of WW2, right on until 1956 when John Hannam retired from the business. For almost half a century it had flourished under the Hannam name, weathering enormous changes: deliveries by bike and horse replaced by vans; trams and then buses thundering by; the threat of supermarket competition (the Arndale Centre was to open in 1966).
It’s not clear whether after his retirement the shop continued for a period under different management, but in 1976 it was advertised for sale. It was bought by Keith Harris who had a long family history in the trade, and the name ‘K R Harris & Sons, Fruiterers’, replaced the old Hannam name above the shop. Alongside this shop, the family ran a greengrocer’s shop in Cross Gates, with a branch in Pudsey market and a delivery service offered for restaurants and canteens. Their top-quality produce and friendly personal service helped them to flourish even in the face of increasing supermarket competition.
Keith & Denise Harris
Like the Hannams before them, the Harris family carried on in business here for over 40 years, well into the new century, joined in later years by the Headingley Farm Butcher, who took over a part of the shop (50a) which had sometimes been let off separately in the past. When Keith Harris retired, his cousin Ray took over the shop, so continuing the family ownership - sadly, Keith Harris himself died in 2021, aged 69, fondly remembered by his many customers.
The Headingley Greengrocer 2019
In 2018 this much-loved business was offered for sale to Headingley Development Trust, who made the decision to take it on and preserve this long-standing enterprise for the benefit of the Headingley community. The shop was reopened under the name ‘The Headingley Greengrocer’ and today continues the long tradition of personal, quality service begun well over a century ago. In 2024, HDT acquired the freehold to the building using funds raised from a community share offer. As a result they also became the landlord of the popular Headingley Farm Butcher's business adjoining the greengrocer. Then in 2026, following another community share offer, HDT was able to install solar panels on the pitched roof of the building, supplying both the greengrocer and butcher's shops with clean and cheap energy in a move designed to help secure the long term future of both of these much-loved North Lane businesses.
As noted, a hundred years ago there was a wide range of shops along North Lane. The range has changed over the last century: there are still shops, like the greengrocer and the Natural Food Store directly opposite, as well as a stationer, photo and charity shops; but now services dominate, especially hospitality, including pubs and bars, restaurants and take-aways, as well as salons, hairdressers and property agencies. So, it is remarkable that these two cottages have survived – like the greengrocer’s itself, they are reminders of Headingley’s past and the richness of its story.
The Headingley Greengrocer 2025
Eveleigh Bradford, February 2026
For more info, see Chapter 11 of Eveleigh Bradford, Headingley (2008); see also ‘Longstanding on North Lane’.
The Headingley Greengrocer
50 North Lane, Leeds LS6 3HU
https://theheadingleygreengrocer.co.uk/
