2.92   BRA 1832 BAP    BHM 994 B12

Plan of the Baptist Chapel and Burial Grounds, 1832

Cartridge paper    Scale: 2 yards to 1 inch   

Size: 50*120 cm   Condition: Poor with old repairs

This is a very detailed plan of the now long demolished Baptist Chapel, Westgate (also known as the Westgate Chapel) which, together with a Sunday school and burial ground, was once situated between Westgate and Long Lands Street. The plan is printed on both sides with many copperplate ink, and pencil, annotations. Both the ground floor and the gallery plans are included in separate places which is slightly confusing.

The Sunday or Sabbath School was clearly a flourishing institution. The Bradford Observer reported in June 1840 that it had 910 scholars, and had to be enlarged. The boys and girls had separate yards, and separate privies. Many of the adjacent land-owners are named: Robert Laycock, Francis Simes Esq., the late Miss Hodgson, William Tetley, John Aspinal and the late Mr Baker. The original site must subsequently have been enlarged since it is recorded on the plan itself that ‘220 (square) yards were bought of Mr Tetley in 1814 for £33’.

I understand that the Baptists had a presence in Bradford from the mid-eighteenth century onward, although they were active in Heaton at a much earlier date. John James in his History of Bradford reports that there were Particular Baptists and General Baptists but the distinction is not explained. This chapel, founded in 1753-55 and described by William Cudworth as the Top o’ t’ Town chapel, seems to have belonged to the General Baptists. William Scruton adds the additional detail that they initially used the Mill Goit at the bottom of Silsbridge Lane for baptisms.

The minister at the time of this map would have been the Rev. William Steadman D.D who died in 1837 after a pastorate of more than thirty years. A memoir of his life by his son Thomas was published in 1838 and reviewed in the Bradford Observer. I believe the chapel was demolished in the early twentieth century and that the Westgate Baptist Chapel, Carlisle Road, Manningham was built in 1900 to replace it.