Molineux after Archibald Leitch had finished transforming it between 1925 and 1935
In order for Leitch to get to work on the main stand, situated on Waterloo Road, that side was cleared and the terrace cover was relocated onto the opposite Molineux street side. However, during the building of the new Waterloo Road grandstand, the "new" Molineux Street cover was blown down and destroyed.
The new main stand was completed for £15,000, a two tier Grandstand, cranked in the middle to allow the seats at the ends of the stand to face more towards the pitch (an idea which up until now the club has persevered with). The top tier housed 2,748 seats including the director's box, with the bottom tier a properly terraced paddock for up to 4,000. It was opened in 1925.
The Waterloo Road Grandstand. Completed 1925, Condemned 1985, Demolished 1992.
The North side of the ground was the next to benefit from the work of Leitch. The old "Cow Shed" cover came down (this end of the ground is still referred to as the Cow Shed by some), to be replaced by the North Bank. This was always the traditional "home" end, and was covered with a full width pitched roof over concrete terracing at the front and wooden terracing at the back. Also at this time the South Bank terrace was laid, 50 yards deep, behind the opposite goal.
The North Bank survived until the 1990's, although it was condemned in 1985, along with the Waterloo Road stand.
Another promotion followed, back to Division One in 1932 and to celebrate a new stand was commissioned for the East side of the ground. However, this side of the ground was always problematic. Not only was there a steep slope running upwards from North to South, Molineux street did not run parallel with the touchline, varying from being 25 yards away at the south end of Molineux Street, down to only 8 yards at the north. In order to cover this irregular area, a multi span pitched roof design was chosen with gold painted gable ends. These types of roof were already in use at other grounds, but were rare due to maintenance costs. Indeed, the Molineux Street stand was the last to survive by some margin, making the ground instantly recognisable for decades when shown on T.V. This stand cost £20,000 and originally had seats for 3,450 at the back with terracing for up to 4,500 in the front paddock.
The Molineux Street stand.
Finally in 1935, the South Bank got it's own pitched roof and was extended even further back to 63 yards. However, due to the terrace's sheer size the roof, though much larger than it's counterpart over the North Bank, could only offer cover to the very back of this now enormous, 30,000 capacity end terrace. At the same time, the Waterloo road frontage got a makeover. It was extended on the ground floor and two brick towers complete with round windows and flag poles were added to either side of a central stairway, leading up to the "posh" seats.
The Waterloo Road frontage.
At the end of this phased development, lasting less than ten years, Molineux Stadium had gone from one of the most under developed grounds in England to one of the finest. Apart form the addition of floodlight pylons in the 1950's and the seating of the Molineux street stand paddock in the early 1960's the ground would hardly change over the next 45 years.
Molineux Stadium hardly changed from 1935 until 1979. This picture actually dates from the late '50's, the givaway being the addition of floodlight pylons.
Please allow my indulgence to post here pictures of my work.. Molineux Stadium circa 1950-1970!
Compare and contrast with the above picture!!!
(Next project photobombing in the background!)
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You can see that it is based on the OS map in the first picture!
The model is only a prototype, I will go back and completely redo this with detail, now that I have got the basic design right..