HEATON ESTATES
Historical development and changing character of the CA
Heaton is not mentioned in Domesday Book (1086), but Chellow is recorded as having formed part of Arnketil's manor of Bolton in 1066, the first documented reference to "Hetun" being in 1160 (the name means "high farmstead"). Throughout the Middle Ages it was an independent manor in the Parish of Bradford, being situated in Bradfordesdale where land was granted to Selby Abbey by the Everingham family who were lords of the manor. After the Reformation the manor was sold in 1568 to the Batt family of Oakwell Hall, Gomersal. From 1634 to 1912 the manor, with estates of up to 880 acres, was owned by the Fields of Heaton Hall and their descendants the Earls of Rosse. In 1836 the heiress of the Heaton Hall estates married Lord Oxmantown, later the 3rd Earl of Rosse.
Originally a farming area, the township yielded large quantities of sandstone from c.1840 to c.1920. It extends from the Bradford Beck at Frizinghall, in the east, to Sandy Lane in the west. The Heaton Estates CA is substantially a late 19th-century and early 20th-century residential development immediately to the east of the former village of Heaton. As indicated on an 1839 map the western half of the CA lies over one of Heaton's medieval open fields: the name Emm Field is still attached to a number of the enclosed parcels of ground. The eastern half of the CA covers the High Green and Low Green areas which may historically have been associated with Frizinghall. The main lineaments of these fields, and of the routeways through them, are still visible in some of the alignments and property boundaries of the CA.
The 1852 O.S. 6 inch to one mile map shows buildings as well as fields and marks the 18th-century buildings which survive on the western edge of the CA; these were originally on the eastern periphery of the earlier village. It also marks the Woolsorters' Public Gardens, which underlie the north east corner of the CA, and of which a small lake seems to survive. This was created by the Amicable and Brotherly Society of Woolsorters to provide employment during a period of severe trade depression in the early 1840s. Designed originally for the cultivation of vegetables and plants for sale, in addition to the gardens they also built public baths, tea rooms and lawns on the 9 acre site. Opening in 1846 there were a series of ornamental ponds ascending the hillside, a bath house with a red tile roof and open-air pools for swimming and diving and a tea-house in a Chinese pavilion. The gardens received wide support including a subscription from Queen Victoria and many local businessmen. 150 rare herbaceous plants from Kew were donated by Viscount Morpeth (and it is possible that the surviving garden may contain surviving species) and the Earl Fitzwilliam gave rare birds including a stork, a black swan, a Chinese golden pheasant, an owl, a goose and a vulture. Following a disastrous storm on New Year's Eve 1854 the buildings were destroyed and the gardens never recovered closing in 1865, when the plants and shrubs were offered for sale. The land was sold to Mr Kell of Heaton Mount, who in 1866 commissioned Messrs. Smith and Gothardt to draw up plans for "freehold villa sites", advertised prior to 1882 when Heaton became part of the City of Bradford as "free from the Borough Rates of Bradford".
The Earl and Countess of Rosse had plans drawn for new roads with building plots offering ground-leases for "villa residences". Several of the roads incorporated family names such as Wilmer, Parsons and Randall. The construction of a railway station at Frizinghall in 1875 led to the development of the area as a commuter suburb with many "gentlemen's residences" and villas being constructed up to the outbreak of the Great War. The major sale in 1911 of the Heaton Estates, to meet the newly introduced death-charges, led to new development on the north-western edge of the CA, with some larger properties being built in 1913 to 1915.
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