Leventhorpe Hall 1850

3.030 LEV 1850 PLA BHM 733 B11

Leventhorp Hall & estate off Thornton Road

Paper Scale: unk Size: 62*58 cm Condition: poor

This map closely resembles the first Ordnance Survey map (1852) and was therefore given a provisional date of around 1850. Some of the annotation on the back is torn away but it clearly once read ‘Leventhorp Hall Estate 2 Ch^s. The house is now more usually spelled Leventhorpe Hall. This is a seventeenth century Grade II* listed building with nineteenth century additions. The whole site also includes two grade II listed barns. Heading in the direction of Thornton it is just past the Lower Grange Estate on the opposite side of Thornton Road. Parts of the building seem now to be used as for a stables and livery business, but the overall plan has not altered much since this map was originally drawn.

The map shows the complete estate together with fields and their names. Four neighbouring land-owners are also recorded. The water courses are the Pitty Beck and the Clayton Beck. From the latter a goit (mill race) supplying Leventhorpe Mill is drawn although the mill itself is not shown. Another interesting feature is a toll bar adjacent to the turnpike. To the north of the Thornton Road – Old Road junction are two kiln flats. A flat is a portion of flat ground in an otherwise hilly area. Whether the space afforded was used for bricks, lime or malting is unknown: all are possible.

The Leventhorpes were a distinguished medieval family and there was once a Leventhorpe Chantry in the cathedral. This, presumably, explains the name of the estate but any medieval house has long since vanished and its position is unknown. Advertisements in the Bradford Observer indicate that the estate was certainly sold in 1850 when the tenants were a father and son both called Richard Smith. Neither the vendor nor the purchaser are mentioned. Plans, of which this is probably one example, were available from Lister & Ellison, surveyors.

Even William Cudworth doesn’t make the earlier nineteenth century ownership clear. Writing in the 1870s (Bradford Observer) records that the contemporary owner of the estate was Mr FS Powell. I assume that this was Sir Francis Sharp Powell (1827-1911) a conservative politician and MP for Wigan. I believe he died at Horton Old Hall but possibly he bought the Leventhorpe Estate as an investment. Cudworth further states that a ‘Dr Hill’ owned Leventhorpe Mill in the late eighteenth century and an H R Ramsbottom in the nineteenth. There is plenty of opportunity for further research.