The peaceful green space which played host to The Battle of Holbeck Moor
This year marks the 90th anniversary of what became known as The Battle of Holbeck Moor on a large triangle of green space surrounded by factories and terraces of back-to-back houses a mile or so to the south of Leeds city centre.
On September 27, 1936, Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists planned a march through a densely populated working-class Jewish area of Leeds known as the Leylands at the bottom of today’s Harrogate Road.
The night before, its streets had been targeted with daubed swastikas and slogans, and some residents were attacked.
After being banned from marching on the Leylands, the 1,000 or so Fascists who had assembled changed their route to one which took them to Holbeck Moor, where they would be addressed by Mosley.
News of the switch in destination soon spread, and waiting for them were an estimated 30,000 anti-fascist demonstrators organised by the Leeds Communist Party.
A large turnout of police, many on horseback, tried keep the two sides apart but when Mosley climbed onto the roof of a van to begin speaking his words were drowned by a surge of demonstrators signing the anthem of the international labour movement The Red Flag.
The Fascists were pelted with stones and Mosley sustained a noticeable cut beneath one eye. It is said that 40 of the Blackshirts were injured, 14 of whom required hospital treatment.
The incident turned out to be a prelude to the notorious Battle of Cable Street in East London a week later, when around 5,000 of Mosley’s Blackshirts were met by more than 100,000 counter-demonstrators. A reported 150 people were arrested and 175 injured.
Today, Holbeck Moor is a peaceful green space with a children’s play area and skate park.
A blue plaque commemorating the battle faces the park from the south wall of St. Matthew’s Church.