Queens Mills, Bradford

Dixon & Hindle

Paper       Scale: 10 yards to 1 inch   25 * 20”        Condition: good

Research for this plan is some hampered by the present Covid-19 epidemic which has shut the Bradford libraries. In my survey of the Local Studies Library reserve collection I have found a large number of maps and plans showing Goitside and the surrounding area. The Lord of the Manor of Bradford once had the medieval right to a corn-milling monopoly at the Soke Mill, which had stood above Aldermanbury for centuries. Bradford Corporation bought out this right in 1870. Almost immediately clearance of much property in this area began, and modern Godwin Street was created.

I believe that the district was once called St Helena and the Soke Mill became the Queens Mill. I have read that at one time it was divided between corn and worsted milling, but I imagine that by the time of this plan it was purely textile. I should add that the old goit which drew water from the Bradford Beck and supplied it to the mill is now culverted: on the surface Goitside, which runs parallel to Thornton Road, is in a heart-breaking state.

This plan is undated and north is in the usual east position. I have tried to arrive at its date by comparison with other city maps but it is clear that this area was undergoing complex and radical remodelling in the late nineteenth century. The street arrangement of this plan is very different from the 1854 Bradford map. By 1861, Aldermanbury and Wade Street are drawn but there is no Godwin Street. The Bradford Beck is still open adjacent to Aldermanbury whereas on the plan property belonging to Mr John Willis and Bradford Corporation occupies this space: the Beck itself must now be culverted. Presumably Bradford Borough is buying up property prior to redevelopment.

The widely distributed Dixon & Hindle town plan of a decade later shows Godwin Street completed: Wade Street, although unnamed clearly approaches Godwin Street at a shallow angle, as here, and the two appear to be linked by flights of steps, again as in our plan. The 1876 Milnes & France map adds the projected line of Sunbridge Road and shows the goit in exactly the form of our map. On this map however Wade Street is missing, although it reappears in the Byles map of 1887-88, but on a different alignment. As a consequence of all this I shall place our plan in the early 1870s.

What else is marked on the plan? Two pubs: the Bull Inn and the Spotted Ox are present. Secondly there are a number of neighbouring property owners. I thought that Whilley Balm should be easy to identify in view of his rather splendid name. But I could not find him in the 1871 census, even if his name was really a more plausible Willy Balme. There was a solicitor called Henry Yewdall who is a plausible owner of the Mill Bank property but I shall have to leave further research for when I once again have street directory access.