GOITSIDE CONSERVATION AREA BRADFORD
Historical Introduction
The Goitside area of Bradford is of special historic and architectural interest because it represents a substantially complete and well-preserved urban landscape typical of the social, commercial and industrial elements of late 19th and early 20th century Bradford. In addition, the area encompasses the site of some of Bradford's earliest mills, as well as remains relating to the town's earliest use of water power. Beginning at the top of the hill, Goitside resolves into four zones of interest. The first comprises the well-preserved commercial sector along West Gate. The second encompasses the social housing in the Longlands and Wigan Street areas, resulting from slum clearances of the early 20th century, and demonstrating a continuing concern among social reformers and local councillors for the welfare of the poorer members of the community. The third encompasses the Sunbridge Road warehouses, which illustrate the significant change in the character of Bradford industry which took place after about 1880. The fourth, the area immediately flanking Goitside, is typical of the less glamourous mills and workshops which served as the backbone of Bradford industry.
Topography
The Goitside conservation area incorporates the slope, summit and base of the steep hill which lies to the north of Thornton Road and the parallel course of Bradford Beck. A narrow water channel known as the Goit (formerly open but now enclosed and incorporated into the city's sewer system) runs parallel to Thornton Road near the southern edge of the conservation area. The conservation area is transected by three main roads, running northwest to southeast. These roads - Westgate at the top, Sunbridge Road in the middle, and Thornton Road in the valley bottom - all follow the contour of the slope and were all either established or improved during the 19th century. A fourth road, now Grattan Road but formerly known as Silsbridge Lane, runs down the slope diagonally from northeast to southwest and is earlier in origin. Steep, narrow lanes running down the slope of the hill connect the main thoroughfares. Many of these lanes retain their original stone setts. Those on the western side of the conservation area, where they fall below Sunbridge Road, terminate in long flights of steps.
Historical Development and changing character of the conservation area
Although the buildings and features now extant at Goitside date from the 19th and 20th centuries, the roots of settlement and industry in the area lie in the medieval period. There is documentary evidence from the beginning of the 14th century for the existence of the manorial cornmills of Bradford, which were probably located somewhere between Aldermanbury and Godwin Street. Water power for these mills was probably provided by means of an artificial channel, or goit, which took water off Bradford Beck down a long but gently sloping course to the mill wheels. The placement and length of the water channel which lies within the conservation area suggests that, in origin at least, it is the medieval mill goit. The earliest available plan of Bradford and environs, dating from 1722, shows the mill goit and a Syllbrigge Lane, which converges with the course of the Goit and crosses it to join what appears to be Legrams Lane, running toward Lidget Green and thence to Clayton, to Halifax and to the Pennine uplands above Bradford. Settlement appears by this period to be well established on the top of the hill, at West Gate, but no buildings are marked along Syllbrigge Lane or the upper reaches of the Goit. Neither is settlement shown in this area on the Jefferys' map of 1772. By the beginning of the 19th century, however, ribbon development began to appear on Silsbridge Lane, representing expansion away from the town centre.
Industry, too, began to make an appearance in the area at the beginning of the century. The earliest mechanical breakthrough in the textile industry was in the spinning of fibres, and water-powered spinning mills began to be established in the West Riding from the beginning of the 1790s. Although spinning machinery was in use in Bradford by the end of the 18th century, the first purpose built spinning mill in the town was probably Holme Mill, located on the north side of the Goit and completed in about 1800. At least two more mills may have been standing in the area by the late 1820s, including Hollings Mill on Silsbridge Lane. Despite the fact that the later mills may have made some use of steam rather than water power, industry within the Goitside area tended to concentrate near the goit. The remainder of the area between the goit and West Gate was either vacant or given over to housing. The population of Bradford expanded rapidly during the first half of the 19th century, and the need for new housing was considerable. Starting with the development along the line of Silsbridge Lane, housing began to be constructed on side roads running off the lane. The earliest houses probably took the form of rows of through-cottage terraces. By the 1820s, the population of Bradford had doubled, and the need for further quickly erected, cheap housing led to the introduction of yardless back-to-backs. By the end of the 1840s, with the exception of two chapels and their attendant Sunday schools, the area between the industrial Goitside and the older housing at West Gate had been almost completely filled with dwellings.
The mid-1820s brought an intensification of the industrial character of the area along the banks of the Goit. The construction of the Bradford-Thornton turnpike road in the 1827 afforded easy access to this area from the town centre, and there was a corresponding increase in the number of mills and workshops adjacent to the new road. By the middle of the century, the banks of the Goit were occupied by six worsted mills, a dye works, an iron foundry, and two tool manufactories. The worsted mills by this date incorporated not only spinning and combing facilities, but also weaving sheds. Thompson's Mill, with a weaving shed to the south of the goit, provided room and power to the weaving department of Titus Salt's mill when Salt was still based in Bradford proper.
Bradford's prosperity by the middle of the 19th century was founded firmly on the manufacture of worsted cloth for a lucrative export trade. Changes in the world economic climate and in foreign tariff practices in the late 1860s/1870s, however, resulted in a slump in trade which had considerable adverse effects on local industry. The Bradford response to failure in the market was initially to find other markets, and then to diversify. From the beginning of the 1880s, Bradford manufacturers and merchants began to trade in prepared fibres (subject to less punishing tariffs), rather than in whole cloth. This move successfully bolstered the local economy and led to another upsurge in the fortunes of the Bradford textile industry.
The Goitside area was very strikingly affected by this change in manufacture. Under the Bradford Improvements Act of 1873, clearance took place along the centre of the slope above Goitside, and Sunbridge Road was constructed cutting across the line of Silsbridge Lane (Grattan Road after the turn of the century). The establishment of a new route and the clearance of property to either side of it opened up land for construction at a time when Bradford merchants were beginning to import large amounts of wool for carding, spinning and re-export. The period between 1880 and the early 1920s saw the construction of a number of impressive purpose-built wool warehouses along the line of Sunbridge Road. Some further industrial development also took place, with the establishment of further textile mills along the newly-established Tetley Street at its junction with Sunbridge Road, and an increase in the number of engineering works along Thornton Road. A roughly contemporary development in commercial property saw the establishment of a fine series of shopping parades along West Gate in the late 1890s.
The establishment of the new road system had a considerable impact on the housing stock in the immediate area. Many houses were cleared during the reconstruction, and this presumably placed additional pressure on the remaining, increasingly elderly housing to the north and west of the new development. The mid-Victorian concern for social welfare is first reflected in the area in the construction of a model lodging house at the corner of Wigan Road and Sunbridge Road in the 1870s; this was followed by the establishment of further model lodging houses, including a "Women's Home and Shelter," in the immediate vicinity. However, the problem of sub-standard living conditions in Longlands was finally solved in one bold move by Bradford Corporation with the establishment in 1909 of the Longlands Improvement Area. This was Bradford's first tenement development assayed by Bradford, and consisted of five blocks of three storeys each. The development was followed closely by further tenement blocks in Chain Street and Roundhill Street.
Some infill and a small amount of redevelopment took place within the Goitside area after 1920. However, with the construction of the Longlands tenements in 1909/1910, the hillside above the Goit had basically attained the character and appearance which it retains today.
|