2.47   BRA c.1875 DIX   BHM 1772 B27

Smith v Corporation Plaintiff Plan, Dixon & Hart, surveyors

Oiled paper 30 feet: 1 inch   68*60cm    Condition: fair

Earlier maps incorporated into this series have illustrated the east end of Goitside prior to the construction of Goodwin Street. In this map Goodwin Street is present, replacing Wade Street, so the map must post-date 1871. On the other hand Sunbridge Road does not yet exist: if it did it would run across the central section of the map, destroying Mill Bank and linking up with Godwin Street. This change had been effected by the time of the second OS map of the area (surveyed 1889) and I believe took place around 1875. So this undated map is presumably from the first half of the 1870s.

The map is marked ‘Smith v Corporation, plaintiff’s plan’.

The Smith concerned would appear to have been a butcher, with a shop next to the Crown Inn, Ivegate and a slaughter house with piggery near the Soke Mill. The Lund’s Bradford Directory (1856) places a John Christopher Smith (pork butcher) at 9, Ivegate with the Old Crown Inn next door at 11, Ivegate. John Christopher was still in business in 1862 but by the late 1860s the Bradford Observer records that a Philip Smith, was the pork butcher of Ivegate. I could not find an account of the case myself and consequently I am grateful to a very experienced local historian, Barbara Reardon, who identified it in the Bradford Observer 25th July 1867 page 5 column 2. The case concerned the hoped for compulsory purchase of the slaughter house. The actual pork butchers remained in Ivegate for many years after. Purchase, often compulsory purchase, of property by Bradford Corporation frequently originated from changes in the road layout in this case possibly one of many needed for the Sunbridge Road development. A dotted line on the map would seem to indicate that the distance between slaughter house and shop (170 yards) was of interest. There are several cottages in the area of the slaughter house which share the site with a brass foundry and a printing and dyeing mill. Not then the healthiest of environments.