Map of the Week: Toads and Chapels

February 15, 2018Bradford Libraries 2 Comments

In the 170 years since Bradford became a borough, in 1847, its centre has changed almost beyond recognition. New buildings have been erected and old ones demolished. The Bradford Beck has progressively vanished underground into culverts. New roads have been created (Sunbridge Road being a good example), while others have been repositioned, lengthened, or have disappeared entirely. Change has been a continuous process but it was accelerated in the 1960s when there was a wholesale city centre redevelopment associated with the name of SG Wardley, the City surveyor and engineer. I should like to recount something of this story by describing the events that befell a thoroughfare called Chapel Lane.

Image 1

I thought I had made a good start with the this first plan, which is widely reproduced and purports to date from 1800. Here it is easy to see the acute angle made by the Turls (Tyrrel Street) and Chapel Lane/Toad Lane. Toad Lane is an odd name but it is not unique; there are, or were, Toad Lanes in Bingley, Newark and Rochdale. Possibly the name is a corruption of ‘t’owld’ lane: certainly in Bradford the lane is drawn, but not named, on a map as early as c1722. On the above plan building (3) is the Unitarian Chapel which was certainly in existence at this time. An existing town hall is numbered (35) on the map but there is a small puzzle here. The Act of Parliament that appointed commissioners for levying rates, and improving Bradford roads and lighting, was only passed in 1805 and no town hall was to be built for decades. I am very obliged to local historian Kieran Wilkinson who explained this apparent anomaly by telling me that the map of 1800 is not contemporary but was a creation of the late nineteenth century, and marked places both where important local buildings were in 1800, and would be in the future. Let us instead look at a detail from a map that is believed to be contemporary, that of 1802, which is available in the Local Studies Library.

Image 2

I do not think that there is much doubt that the second plan was the origin of the first, but there are some difficulties here too. Firstly Toad Lane is not mentioned. Kieran tells me that the shortening of Toad Lane, to that unnamed portion that leaves Chapel Lane at a right angle to join Bowling Green, happened in August 1804. The town’s board of commissioners changed both it and the names of a number of other roads in the town (Bank Street, Bridge Street, Market Street and Well Street being introduced as names then). Secondly although there is a Chapel Lane there is no obvious chapel. In his Pen & Pencil Pictures of Old Bradford William Scruton gives a full account of this building, originally constructed in 1717. Much of its material came from Howley Hall, Batley and the land on which it stood was donated by the Sharp family of Horton Hall. The names was originally the Toad Lane Presbyterian Chapel. The old chapel lasted about 150 years and for much of this time was located ‘amid green fields’. The chapel was replaced by a larger more modern structure in 1869, and finally demolished a century later. The most notable figure to be connected with the institution was Rev. Joseph Dawson who is closely associated with the exploitation of the mineral wealth of Low Moor. One possible explanation of the difference between the two maps is that the 1800 marks the position of the 1869 rebuild whereas in 1802 the chapel formed part of the block drawn immediately south of the first section of Chapel Lane. Unfortunately this simple explanation cannot be correct. A chapel, but with no denomination provided, is mapped here c1722, which is in accordance with Scruton’s statement, and the following detail from a map of 1825, surveyed by L Atkinson, clearly illustrates the same building. Here the building numbered (8) is identified on the map rubric as the Unitarian Chapel.

Image 3

I have already mention the Bradford commissioners. This early embryo town council are said to have originally met at the Bull’s Head Inn, Westgate. At the first meeting according to historian Horace Hird, Lord Mayor (1951-52), the commissioners drew up that list of Bradford roads. The same commissioners moved to the ‘Station House’ in Swaine Street after it was erected in 1838. They did not change landlord since the Bull’s Head and the Station House were both built on land leased from Rev. Godfrey Wright who regularly features in this articles. The final building I want to mention is the Bowling Green Hotel, which completes what I shall call ‘the central triangle’. This hotel was located at the end of Bridge Street. Cudworth mentions that in the 1830s its owner was a Mrs Susannah Ward, widow of Joseph Ward. William Scruton pushes the Bowling Green’s existence still further back into the seventeenth century. He regarded it as ‘the best inn of the town’. It was used by the Royal Mail and the open space in front of the inn, which presumably was once a bowling green, came to be employed for political meetings. The road names remain unchanged until the mid-nineteenth century, which is represented by the next map from the Local Studies Library reserve collection.

Image 4

It is perfectly clear that there has been extensive construction in the central triangle. The Bradford Observer (1844) observed that the premises of DH Smith at the corner of Toad Lane were ‘striking and elegant’. Elsewhere a ‘Smith’s Tavern and Beer-house’ is noted which I assume was the same building. Other developments were evidently far from elegant. In 1847 the Poor Law Commissioners considered Chapel Lane a possible site for a ‘vagrants yard’, and in 1855 a ton and a half of ‘vile bones’ were removed from the premises of John Boyd. The Lund’s 1856 Directory of Bradford lists John Boyd as a ‘rag dealer’. The same source gives Rev. JH Ryland as the non-resident minister at the chapel. There is also an architects’ partnership (Stott & Illingworth) and a painter (John Edwards), but otherwise the Chapel Lane residents are all tradesmen: plumbers, hair dressers, bootmakers, saddlers, pawnbrokers and so forth. Was the ‘Old Foundry’ (Cliff’s Foundry) drawn on the second map still functioning in the town centre? According to Hird it was.

The new unnamed cut-through joining Chapel Lane and Tyrrel Street is Bower Gate. Toad Lane makes an acute angle with Norfolk Street. Kieran Wilkinson tells me that Toad Lane was ‘stopped up’ in 1869 to assist with the subsequent Town Hall development. The Bradford Daily Telegraph of 10 September 1873 recalled that Toad Lane was a ‘narrow passage… immediately behind Garth’s warehouse’. According to the Bradford Observer of 17 March 1869, the width of Toad Lane was only three and a half yards. The next development, which I have already hinted at, represented a huge change. Bradford Borough Council decided that a purpose built Town Hall was required to support the rapidly growing urban area. A number of sites were considered but Chapel Lane or the Bowling Green were the front runners. Finally a competition was launched to design a hall to be built on the Chapel Lane site. The winning design was opened by the Mayor, Matthew Thompson, in 1873. The architects were the famous partnership of Lockwood & Mawson who had already designed the Wool Exchange (1867). The contractor was John Ives of Shipley. In his book Bradford in History Horace Hird described the whole process and provided illustrations of the runners-up. It seems that all the considered designs were for Gothic buildings including a tower. The stone for the winning design came from Cliff Wood quarries but at present I do not have sources for the glass, metal work and ornamental marbles, nor the million bricks incorporated into the structure. The Unitarian Chapel and Chapel Lane itself were left alone during this development, but Bradford became a city in 1897 and the increase in council business required an extension to the Town Hall, opened in 1909. This provided more committee rooms and a banqueting hall. The designer was Richard Norman Shaw. As you can see from the map below only a stub of Chapel Lane remained after the completion of this extension, and the chapel is now south of Town Hall Square. A further extension was constructed in 1914 but this does not seem to have affected the plan of the building which is essentially the same in the 1930 OS map with Chapel Lane now opening off Norfolk Street. The nearby Alhambra Theatre was to be built at the same time.

Image 5

Understandably these events drastically reduced the number of occupants of Chapel Lane. Even before the extension was built the PO 1898 Directory indicates that, besides the city’s conditioning house, health office and water testing department, there were just five textile related premises, and a produce merchant. Chapel Lane and the Unitarian chapel survived until the reorganisations of the late 1960s when wholesale clearances took place. These must have been required to create the space that became Centenary Square, the Magistrates Court and Coroner’s Office building, the Norfolk Gardens and the Hall Ings extension. The court building, which was opened in 1972, retains ‘The Tyrls’ as its address. What remained of Chapel Lane ultimately gave way for Norfolk Gardens. However Kieran feels that it is arguable that some of Chapel Lane remains within the Town Hall as there is an outside area between the original Town Hall and the extension which was part of this lane.

Derek Barker, Local Studies Library Volunteer

Map of the week: Leeds Road and Market Street

October 18, 2016Bradford Libraries 1 Comment

This current example of a map from the Local Studies Library’s reserve collection is taken from a sepia plan which shows the eastern part of Bradford some years before it became a borough. Firstly it would help if we could establish a date. It is far earlier than the first OS map of 1849. The ‘new road’, running diagonally across the centre of the map, later became known as Leeds Road. This dates the map to later than c.1825-30 during which years this new turnpike to Leeds was constructed by the Leeds & Halifax Turnpike Trust. The pattern created by the other ‘new roads’ portrayed also exists on the Bradford plan of 1830, so we are probably looking at a map from the late 1820s.

A coal staithe is a place adjacent to a highway from which merchants can collect a supply for subsequent delivery to their customers. The staithe here is marked J.S. & Co. Clearly this represents John Sturges (or Sturgess) & Co. which was the company that operated Bowling Iron Works. There were two original partners of this name, father and son, but they were presumably dead by the time this map was created. The ‘new rail road’ drawn is in fact a mineral carrying tramway bringing coal in trucks to the Eastbrook staithe, by rope haulage, from the iron works. Bowling Iron Company owned and operated many collieries and ironstone mines. The trucks may have been returned filled with limestone, needed for iron smelting, which would have arrived at the nearby canal basin from the quarries at Skipton. The tramway was closed in 1846 and the area is marked as an ‘old staithe’ in the first OS map of the area.

Let us look at some other roads. Wakefield Road, Bridge Street, and Hall Ings are in their present positions. ‘Dead Lane’ has subsequently been renamed Vicar Lane. Leeds Old Road is now Barkerend Road. As far as I can tell the numbered areas represent fields. Trees are growing west of the first section of Leeds Road and a rather larger wood is mapped there in the 1800 Bradford plan. There is second coal staithe (or stay) at the junction of Well Street and Hall Ings. This is evidently operated by J.J. & Co. whom I cannot identify. At the opposite end of Wells Street is another ‘new street’ which had been in existence for some years and has evolved into Market Street. Behind this is a rather sketchily drawn Bradford Beck. The surveyor of the map was evidently interested in the owners of property between Market Street and the beck and has added some names. You probably won’t be able to read these names, and in fact they are not easily legible even on the original map. As far as I can make out, reading from top to bottom, the names are: Green, Cowling or Crossley, Bradford, Wilkinson, Bank, Armytage, L Lumb, and Hustler.

There are directories listing Bradford business in 1822 and 1834. Plausible identification of most of these names in Market Street can be made from these directories although it is impossible to be sure.

Thomas Green, grocer and tea dealer 1834
David Crossley, attorney 1834
Bradford – uncertain
James Wilkinson, cabinet maker 1822
Thomas Jowett Wilkinson, cabinet maker 1834
Bradford Commercial Bank Co. 1834
Samuel Armitage, plumber & glazier 1834
John Lumb, straw hat maker 1822
Ann Lumb, pawn broker 1822
Thomas Lumb, pawn broker 1834

The name Hustler is more difficult. The famous Quaker wool-stapler and canal promoter, John Hustler, had died 1790. I believe he left two daughters. The fact that Market Street boasted two wool-stapler partnerships carrying his surname cannot, surely, be a coincidence. The two partnerships were Hustler & Blackburn and Hustler & Seebohm and I have confirmed the existence of both in other sources. I know that the Seebohms were another Bradford Quaker family. Can anyone fill me in on the exact relationships?

Derek Barker, Local Studies Library Volunteer

Map of the week: a century of Bradford Hailstones

August 30, 2016August 30, 2016Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

As I work on the reserve map collection the same local land-owners appear regularly. Examples are: Rev. Godfrey Wright, Mrs Giles and Miss Dawson. Godfrey Wright owned a great deal of property around Bradford, but seemingly lived near Doncaster. ‘Mrs Giles’ was clearly a member of a family who owned much of Horton, and she sold the land on which the Bradford workhouse (later St Luke’s Hospital) was built. ‘Miss Dawson’ was probably Eliza Dawson, grand-daughter of Joseph Dawson, partner in the Low Moor Iron Company. The name of Samuel Hailstone also occurs regularly. His importance to Bradford, and his fame as a Yorkshire naturalist, will ensure that his memory stays green.

Samuel Hailstone (1768-1851) was that rare combination, a lawyer and a botanist. His brother John Hailstone MA FRS took holy orders and became a professor of geology at Cambridge. Samuel himself was born in Hoxton, London but his family soon moved to York. In time he became articled to John Hardy, a Bradford solicitor, and Hardy & Hailstone eventually became partners. John Hardy was elected an MP and was the father of another politician Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy who was created Earl of Cranbrook. I understand that Samuel and John Hardy were the moving spirits behind the 1803 Bradford Improvement Act. More than forty years before Bradford became a borough this act established commissioners with a variety of local government powers such as street cleaning, lighting, and water provision.

Samuel continued to practise as a solicitor and was later in partnership with the Thomas Mason who became a director of the Bolling Iron Company and lived at Bolling Hall (see the previous map). Samuel Hailstone was the classic example of a wealthy and highly successful professional man. His politics were Liberal and, slightly unusually for non-conformist Bradford, he was an Anglican. He purchased the Bolton House estate although he never resided there. I get the impression that Yorkshire botany and geology were Samuel’s main interests. A collection of more than 2000 plant specimens was passed to the Yorkshire Museum on his death. But despite these studies he was active in issues affecting his chosen town. He helped found the Bradford Literary & Philosophical Society and also the Mechanics Institute. He served as a major in the Bradford Volunteer Infantry and was clerk to the Trustees of the Leeds and Halifax Turnpike Road.

This brings us to the maps. In Samuel Hailstone 1837 he offered for sale the land between Croft Street & Bridge Street. A small portion of a very large sale plan is illustrated here.

A second map shows land further south which is also divided into lots. This map is stylistically very similar and shows Samuel’s place of business and house. What is now called Croft Street took its name from Croft House, in Bowling Lane (now Manchester Road) which was was where Samuel lived in his early years.

In 1808, quite late in life, Samuel married Ann Jones, the daughter of a Bradford surgeon, and the couple had several children. Samuel died at Horton Hall, Bradford in 1851. In his census return for that year he indicates that he is living alone, except for a house-keeper and five servants.

The Hailstones were a very high achieving family. One son, Samuel jnr., was also a noted amateur naturalist and a collector of crustacea. He pre-deceased his father in 1841. There were two surviving sons, Rev John Hailstone (1810-1871), the vicar of Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, and Edward Hailstone FSA (1818-1890). Edward took over the Bradford legal practice but is famous for a huge assembly of books and documents relating to Yorkshire history, especially those of the Sharp family who were the previous owners of Horton Hall. This was the project of his retirement when he lived at Walton Hall, near Wakefield. At his death the collection was left to the archives of York Minster where it can still be consulted today.

Derek Barker, Local Studies Library Volunteer

Map of the Week – Holdsworth Street Mill

August 3, 2016August 3, 2016Bradford Libraries 3 Comments

The Local Studies Library houses hundreds of maps and plans in its reserve collection. My role as a volunteer is to provide the library staff with a report on the nature and condition of this material within an acceptable time frame, perhaps a few years. Consequently I can spend a few minutes at most with each map, although I use articles like this to display items which really deserve more detailed study. This plan is neither named nor dated. We have to ask four questions: what was it, where was it, when was it, and whose was it? Other Local Studies Library resources help to provide some answers to these questions.

Click on map to open in a new window

Clearly we have the integrated premises of a worsted manufacturer with a spinning mill and weaving shed, both provided with independent steam power. The cottages included would not have housed more than a tiny fraction of the workforce. Perhaps they were occupied by men whose permanent presence on-site was desirable, such as ostlers or night watchmen. A substantial warehouse is included, but there is no dye house. As was common practice woven pieces must have been sent to commission dyers. A counting house was essentially a works office. I was puzzled by the sizing room but it seems that warps were treated, or sized, to make them stronger.

Where was this mill sited? Canal Road and Valley Road are two long sides of a scalene triangle that meet near the city centre immediately west of the canal. Holdsworth Street was the shorter third side that completed the triangle. It still exists, approached from the small roundabout from which you drive to Forster Square Station, but demolition and road development has left no visible trace of these buildings. Holdsworth Street and the spinning mill are present on the first OS map of the area (1851). The weaving shown here is not in the arrangement recorded in the 1851 OS nor the Bradford tithe map. Is our map older, or more recent? A nearby land owner is evidently the Bradford Gas & Light Company which was founded in the 1820s. The area involved remained the site of the Bradford Gas works for many decades to come.

Notice that the mill is adjacent to the William Rouse estate. I have briefly researched the Rouse family. William Rouse snr. (1765-1843) was a worsted spinner and weaver. His company (Wm. Rouse & Son) appears in the 1822 Gazetteer of the West Riding located at ‘Canal Side’. In subsequent trade directories it is placed nearby at: Mill Street, Canal Road, North Brook Street and, in 1872, Holdsworth Street. I am not sure if the same mill was being referred to on each occasion since in the Factory Commission report (1833) data was collected from three Rouse Mills, the oldest at Canal Side being built in 1815. The company’s closest brush with history must have been in 1820-22 when Titus Salt spent two years with them ‘learning the trade’ under the direction of John Hammond (see Jack Reynolds, The Great Paternalist, 1983, p.46). Rouse must have produced worsted stuff in the years before wool-combing was mechanised. With his son John (1794-1838) he employed hundreds of hand-combers who worked for him producing the wool ‘tops’ needed for the worsted process. By the time of William’s death the writing was on the wall for the poorly paid hand-combers whose trade was effectively destroyed by mechanical combs in the 1850s. The business clearly continued despite its founder’s death and the changing technology.

The 1853 White’s Leeds & the Clothing District Directory mentions a William Rouse, spinner & manufacturer, of West Lodge, Great Horton Road. William Rouse jnr. (1809-1868) had evidently succeeded his father. In the 1851 census Rouse reported employing 400 combers, 100 boys, and 150 girls. He may not have been too hard an employer since, on a Saturday in September 1849, the Bradford Observer records a works trip to Clapham by special train. Some employees saw the famous caves and others played cricket. All enjoyed a good dinner, and were home by 10 pm. William Rouse jnr. did everything expected of a successful textile man: church warden 1847, town counsellor 1848, magistrate 1852, and Poor Law overseer in 1860. By 1861 he was living in Burley House, Burley with his wife, children and six servants. He died there in 1868.

By the time of the 1879 PO Bradford Directory Wm. Rouse & Sons are placed at North Brook Street Mills. North Brook Street joins Canal Road just north of our map. North Brook Mills are mentioned in the book Yorkshire Textile Mills 1779-1930 (RCHME) but unfortunately they had already been demolished when the mill survey was undertaken in the early 1990s. The mill in the plan is present in the 25 inch OS map of 1891. It seems to be linked to the named North Brook Street Mill but the mill building was then a warehouse, and the weaving shed was divided up between a repository and an engineering shop.

Wm. Rouse & Sons is included in The Century’s Progress, an 1893 work of self-publicity produced for Yorkshire industries. This states that the company was run by John, Frank and Herbert Rouse, grandsons of William Rouse snr. It is said to have operated ‘a vast home and export trade’ and to have had 40,000 spindles and 900 workers. The entry describes the company occupying the ‘Old Mills’ and the ‘New Mills’ acquired half a century earlier, that is in the 1840s. It states that the New Mills were in North Brook Street. I imagine that at some stage the company had created the premises illustrated in the plan but I am not sure if it was ‘Old’ or ‘New’. Can anyone help me?

Derek Barker, Local Studies Library Volunteer