If you have followed this series of maps you will know that I am fascinated by the story of Rev Godfrey Wright, one of Bradford’s biggest landowners in the early 19^th century. There is some reason behind my obsession. The reserve collection at the Local Studies Library has several maps of his estates which are valuable descriptions of contemporary Bradford. Naturally the development displayed in this series of maps was paralleled in the other areas of the Borough.

The presence in the first map of Christ Church means that its date is later than 1815. The fact that there is no Court House in Hall Ings places it earlier than 1834. Leeds Road is present, but it is described as ‘Leeds New Road’. Vicar Lane is named as Dead Lane. In the bottom right-hand side of the map field 73 has had some later roads sketchily added, and a small box with a frontage on Leeds Road (and presumably constructed at the same time) is labelled as ‘Coal Sta’.

Figure 2 is from a very similar Wright estate map. We still have a ‘New Road’.

In the detail you can see that the field 75 Coal Staithe is larger and labelled J.S. & Co. It is supplied by a ‘new rail road’. I assume that we are looking at another map from the late 1820s. A coal staithe is a place adjacent to a highway from which merchants can collect a supply for subsequent delivery to their customers. The marking J.S. & Co clearly represents John Sturges (or Sturgess) & Co. which was the company that operated Bowling Iron Works. The ‘new rail road’ drawn must in fact be a mineral carrying tramway bringing coal in trucks to the Eastbrook staithe, by rope haulage, from the iron works. Bowling Iron Company owned and operated many collieries and ironstone mines. The trucks may have been returned filled with limestone, needed for iron smelting, which would have arrived at the nearby canal basin from the quarries at Skipton.

There is a town plan of Bradford which was surveyed in 1848. I have not shown it, but substantial changes have occurred in this area. The first Eastbrook Chapel and the first Mechanics Institute have been built. The coal staithe is now marked as an ‘old coal staithe’. I have been told that the coal supply tramway was actually closed in 1846 but I cannot confirm this. Immediately south of the staithe Eastbrook Mills has been constructed, and a network of side streets is present. A railway station is present on an 1854 revision of the map.

This map detail doesn’t name Eastbrook Mill or its owners but does provide a good deal of its sub-structure. Readers will know, I am sure, that cloth was woven in a shed but yarn was spun in a mill. A constant supply of steam power was required which explains the presence of reservoir and boilers.

The Reserve Collection has several other maps and plans of this area, but it is difficult to provide exact dates. In the above plan the existence of the Great Northern Station and the Leeds, Bradford & Halifax (Junction) Railway must date it to later than the mid-1850s. Eastbrook Mill is present but the owners are not identified. The Coal Staithe is marked but cannot be functioning as Hamerton Street runs across it to reach Leeds Road. The big puzzle is the Dewsbury, Batley, Gomersal and Bradford: the whole purpose of the plan seems to be the course of this line, and the road and tramway diversions needed for its construction. The railway dates the map to about 5 years later than the last. The company name was not at first familiar to me but it appears in Bradford Observer share advertisements first in 1860, although none of the original promotors were Bradford businessmen. It would appear that the railway company were planning a 7 miles line from Batley to Bradford, via Gomersal and Birstall. The line would have originated at an independent station near the junction of Leeds Road and George Street and, passing north of Eastbrook Worsted Mills have left Bradford next to Hammerton Street.

An expensive part of the project would seem to have been a planned tunnel, 1.5 miles long, conveying the line under the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Railway junction and on to Birstal. The position of the tunnel entrance is marked on the plan but is not shown in the detail selected. The project would have been associated with the creation of a large number of residential streets in east Bradford. It is clear that the larger London and North West Railway Co. were involved but a bill proposed to Parliament was withdrawn when only £60,000 could be raised locally rather than the £200,000 required. I do not find the name of the company in newspapers after April 1861 and evidently no such railway line was ever constructed.

The final map detail must be a little earlier since the course of Hamerton Street is given as ‘intended’. The owners of Eastbrook Mill, S. Anderton & Co, is finally provided. The land owned by Rev Wright has a blue border and the names of other landowners are also given.