3.009       LIS c.1860 PLA        BHM 1169 B14

Material: paper                Scale: 1 chain per inch

Size: 95 * 73 cm             Condition: very poor

I need hardly say that this plan is not dated. When it was first indexed, I suggested its date might be c.1860 but this is probably about 15 years too recent. It would appear to show a land allotment or sale of an area between Great Horton Road & Thornton Road. The thoroughfare labelled as Leeds and Halifax Old Turnpike Road is modern Great Horton Road. The Bradford and Thornton Turnpike Road is today’s Thornton Road, constructed in the 1820s.

The plan is annotated on the back ‘Mrs Giles from Great Hort (on Road to) Thornton Road‘, but even here I have had to do a little plausible reconstruction of the handwriting because of damage. The plan is in very poor condition with both old and new repairs visible, so here I have had to content myself with photographing details. The arrangement of the Leeds & Halifax Turnpike, and Ashfield Place, closely matches the 1852 Ordnance Survey map. There are other maps in the LSL reserve collection showing Mrs Giles’s land around Ashfield place, and so her land sale may well have been really quite extensive.

I shall need you to remember some landowners’ names before we look at the geography. Firstly, Mrs Giles was Ann Giles who possessed much property in Great Horton. The means by which she acquired her estate was quite complicated. Hannah Gilpin Sharp (1743-1823) of Horton Hall bequeathed her mansion, with all her land in Bradford, to her nephew, Captain Thomas Gilpin and in his ‘default of issue’ to her niece Ann Kitchen. Captain Gilpin died at Madeira in the year 1826 without ever having been married, so Ann Kitchen came into the property. In 1828 she married a clerk in Somerset House, as her second husband, who Cudworth records was called Edward Giles, although I believe that Edmund is the correct name. Their son, another Edmund, was baptised the following year. Ann’s husband died in 1832 leaving his infant son as heir to the Horton estates. At the age of 25 (so this would be 1854-55) her son Edmund went to Australia, being enamoured of sea life, but only lived three days after landing in the colony. So, all the property was Ann’s again. In 1839 an Act had been passed for disposing of the Giles estate at Horton, owing to the great increase of buildings in the immediate vicinity. Lands belonging to ‘Mrs Giles’ are common on maps of Bradford and Horton. Her daughter by her first marriage, Ann Haines, was ultimately to inherit her estate. The two main characters in this account were once commemorated by Ann Place and Edmund Street, off Little Horton Lane.

Colonel Fitzgerald is a name that crops up frequently on Bradford maps of the period. A Colonel Thomas George Fitzgerald (1778-1850), of Turlogh, Ireland was, after 1839, a Lt-Colonel in the army. Fitzgerald had a strong Bradford connection for in 1809 at St Peter’s Parish Church, he had married Delia Field (1780-1817), daughter of Joshua Field of Heaton Hall, and sister of John Wilmer Field. In 1819 he took Elizabeth Crowther (1788-1838), daughter of a Dr James Crowther of Leeds, as his second wife.  Two subsequent daughters died young but they had one son Henry Thomas George Fitzgerald (1820-90) who took over their Irish estates, and was a major in the 1^st Yorkshire rifles. Henry Fitzgerald had been born and baptised in Bradford but probably didn’t live here. His family was commemorated in a Fitzgerald Street off Little Horton Lane. As you can see, Colonel Fitzgerald and Dr Crowther owned land in Bradford but would have both have died by the date I had presumed for the plan. This plan may be based on an earlier example which has been uncorrected, but the absence of a gas works which was built around 1845 is significant dating evidence.

Second only to dating the main problem posed by maps are the street names. The first figure shows Water Lane, just north of Thornton Road. The complexity here is that Water Lane continued south and presumably predated Thornton Road which must have split it in two. Figure 2 shows the area east and slightly south of the first detail. The northern section of Water Lane is still present today. The waterway is the Bradford Beck. This and the goit to the old Soke Mill are now culverted. Water Lane Mill was built here, and a gas works would be constructed south of Thornton Road in this position around 1845.

Due south of Water Lane is Dr Crowther’s land. Here Lister Hills Lane bends to meet Bridge Street. This confusing since this is nowhere near modern Bridge Street. In the 1854 Bradford map Legrams Lane bends to meet Fieldhead Lane. in this location. By the 1880s the first section of Legrams Lane is called Listerhills Lane and Fieldhead Lane has changed again to Preston Place (now Street). Of the various side streets on our plan only Milton Street retains its name.

The ‘bent’ road leading off Lister Hills Lane is labelled Norcroft Street. By 1854 this is Chancellor Lane (1852 OS), and later Richmond Road (1890 OS) by which name it will be very familiar to Bradford University students.

The last plan detail shows the intersection between Norcroft Street and Great Horton Road. Ashfield Place is prominent, and the watercourse is the West Brook. The development of this area and the laying out of streets ultimately did take place very much in the arrangement hinted at here, but the whole area is now under various university buildings.