Bradford’s Main Road Routes, c.1827

2.74   BRA 1827 ROA    BHM 2054 B29

Material: Paper Scale: unk Size: 65*47 cm

Condition: Fair

Keywords: Road, Thornton Road, Leeds Road

This map is undated and simply annotated ‘Bradford’. Evidence suggests an early nineteenth century origin pre-dating Bradford becoming a borough in 1847. It consists of two plans. One is of the main road routes into the town, and the second is an enlarged view of the town centre. The compass points are mislabelled, although the arrow head is pointing north as it should do. The top right corner of the map would have been clearer if the parish church had been included. Church Bank is approximately the continuation of the mapped Hall Ings, although much of Hall Ings has now vanished following development. Neither map shows the canal (constructed late eighteenth century), possibly it did not interest the anonymous mapmaker. The Blue Bell turnpike (Bradford via Toller Lane & Haworth Road to Colne) constructed in 1755 is also absent, although its origin in Westgate is present. There is no suggestion of the the line of the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway from Halifax via Low Moor (opened 1850), and if this is not in existence the map must be earlier than the late 1840s. The Keighley & Bradford Turnpike is drawn (opened 1814). Leeds Road is in existence which dates the map to later than c.1825-30 during which period the new turnpike to Leeds was constructed by the Leeds & Halifax Turnpike Trust.

The short road joining Well Street to Vicar Lane was constructed and still survives. It also took the name of Well Street and, resurfaced, it is now between Little Germany and the new Broadway shopping centre. The end of Wakefield Road is modern Bridge Street. The real puzzle comes with the track directed ‘north’ from the bottom centre of the map. Is this intended to be Manchester Road? No, Manchester Road must be the straight highway to the left ending at the junction of Tyrrel Street and Chapel Lane. The puzzle road seems to be following the course of the Bowling Beck and the watercourse is presumably indicated by the faint superimposed wavy line. The Bowling Beck is now culverted but I believe it does lie well east of Manchester Road. What is the unnamed linking road joining the thoroughfare to Wakefield Road? It is not Croft Street, which survives, but it is in the right place to be Union Street which was lost in the development around the Bradford Interchange. If I am correct then the puzzle road itself was never constructed but the second small scale map enables one to project its further course. It would have joined Manchester Road just before Ripleyville.

As you can see in the town centre the planned road would have reached a point marked ‘bowling green’. After a short gap another road leaves westwards from two origins. I wondered if this was approximately the track of the future Thornton Road (constructed 1829). This works if Great Horton Road is the unnamed thoroughfare making a right angle with Manchester Road, but the tracks seem to start too far north. Another superimposed faint line marks, I assume, the course of the Bradford Beck in which case the ‘box’ at the end of it would then be the Soke or Queen’s Mill. I cannot make the tracks fit with any roads I know, but in any case the street plan here changed radically after 1870 with the creation of Aldermanbury and Godwin Street. The other small scale map brings the planned road to a junction with Brick Lane after which it does continue along the line of Thornton Road as far as I can judge. If I am right the illustrated map must date from the late 1820s, after the construction of Leeds Road but before that of Thornton Road. The track of Thornton Road turnpike (opened 1829) seems to be suggested in red in the original map and appears to be the one adopted. My suggested date for the map is therefore 1827.

I think I am on firmer ground with the ‘bowling green’. This was an inn that once stood on Bridge Street. Cudworth mentions that in the 1830s its owner was a Mrs Susannah Ward, widow of Joseph Ward, about the time then that this map was being made. On-line masonic records suggest that the Bowling Green Inn was in existence in the late eighteenth century (c.1794) and William Scruton, in Pen & Pencil Pictures of Old Bradford, pushes that date back still further into the seventeenth century. He regarded the Bowling Green as ‘the best inn of the town’. It was used by the Royal Mail and the open space in front of the inn was seemingly employed for political meetings. Copies of Scruton’s book, which mentions many other former Bradford taverns, are to be found in the Local Studies Library. Also available and useful is Michael Hopper’s History of Communications in Bradford up to the Period of the First World War.