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THE STORIES BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPHS BRADFORD ROAD - THE BRANCH Prior to the early 1820s there was no road at all between the bottom of Emm Lane at Heaton and what would later become Saltaire Roundabout. This road was constructed in the early 1820s as the Bradford to Keighley Turnpike. The electric tramways arrived in Shipley in the early 1900s following several years of steam trams on this road. CROWGILL PARK Crowgill Park was created out of an old stone quarry. This quarry was later used as the town dump, and converted into a public park in 1889. The bowling green was opened in 1914.FOX CORNER The view of Fox Corner in this photograph represents another aspect of the Shipley Improvement Act of 1873 when large parts of the central area of Shipley was demolished and rebuilt. This Fox and Hounds was erected on the site of an earlier public house. This view remained virtually unchanged until the redevelopments of the 1960s. GORDON TERRACE Erected on the southern boundary of Saltaire. This terrace originally consisted of only two shops, one at either end, with conventional houses in between. On the right-hand side of the road are a series of short streets of back-to-back houses, named after nineteenth century social reformers: Benjamin Ferrand, Richard Oastler, and Lord Ashley. The small wooden shop on the left (a still surviving structure) stands on the site of the conduit carrying water from Barden in Wharfedale to Chellow Dene reservoir in Bradford. HIRST WOOD FARM Originally a working farm, Hirst Wood Farm became renown in the middle years of the last (20th) century as a place where walkers could purchase home-made ice-cream. MANOR HOUSE George Sheeran, in his book, Village to Mill Town – Shipley and its Society 1600-1870, (Bradford Libraries 1984), tells us that the Manor House was built by William Rawson in 1673. His immediate descendants may well have lived in the house, but later lords of the manor were absentee landlords, and the house was occupied in later generations by tenant farmer of the manor lord. In the early years of the Shipley Local Board of Health, which was constituted in 1853, meetings were held in the Sun Inn, and then in rented rooms in Atkinson Street. Later the Board moved into rooms within the Manor House. The small bell tower on the roof housed the bell for the fire station located on the other side of the building. In 1907 a swimming baths was built on land behind the house. The Council Offices remained in this building until the 1930s, when they were moved into Somerset House on Manor Lane while the Manor House was demolished, and a new Town Hall erected on the site. The photograph, taken from Kirkgate, shows the rear of the house. In the past this area had included a stable block, but this was pulled down in the early 1880s, in order to allow for road widening in Kirkgate. MARKET PLACE The oldest maps of Shipley show that this part of town was always an open space, and it is possible that originally this area may have been a village green. The sloping layout of the area, as it appears in the photograph, probably dates from the 1830s when the Shipley to Otley turnpike road was created. It is known the this new road was laid down at a lower level than the original road, and the slope would have been necessary to link Westgate and Kirkgate with the new road. The Sun Inn on the right of the photograph was erected following these improvements. This area became the site of the weekly market following the Improvement Act of 1873, and continued to be used as such until the redevelopment of the central area, and the creation of a new market area, in the late 1950s. SALTAIRE ROAD - PROCESSION Gary Firth, in his book, Shipley and Windhill (Chalford Publishing 1996), says that this procession is of the Shipley Carnival of 1907. Contemporary newspapers show that it is part of the annual carnival of the Shipley Friendly and Trades Society which took place on 6th July 1907. The procession is shown as it passes by Rhodes Street and Baker Street. SALTAIRE ROAD Originally just a narrow country lane leading towards Bingley, this road was levelled and widened in the late 1820s as part of the Shipley to Bramley Turnpike. All the land on the right hand side of the road was purchased by Titus Salt in the early 1850s, when he was preparing to build Saltaire. The Shipley Board School was erected in the 1870s, and the Primitive Methodist Chapel in 1871, both built on land donated by Sir Titus. On the left hand side of the road are a series of streets of, mainly, back-to-back houses. These houses were built on the site of worked-out stone quarries on what had been the common land of Shipley Low Moor. SHIPLEY STATION The Leeds to Bradford Railway was first opened in 1846. In the early years trains stopped at a platform situated somewhere close to the present Valley Road bridge, with a 'station' that was little more than a small shelter. The station in the photograph was erected in 1848/9, in the triangle created as a result of the line being extended onto Bingley, Skipton and Colne. This building was demolished in 1883, and a new and larger station was built on the same site. ST. PAUL'S CHURCH Historically, Shipley was within the parish of Bradford. Following the growth of the population of the area in the early nineteenth century, a new parish was created, catering, at that time, for both Shipley and Heaton. The foundation stone of the church was laid in 1823 by John Wilmer Field, lord of the manors of both Shipley and Heaton.
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