Eccleshill, Bradford

The remains of gateposts to Eccleshill Hall embedded in a wall

In 1713 Eccleshill Hall was built for Dr Stanhope, located to the east of Stony Lane at the site of previous Eccleshill Halls, on what is now Victoria Road.[3] Eccleshill hall was demolished in 1878 and all that remains are parts of stone gateposts embedded in a roadside wall.[4]

Initially the churches built in Eccleshill were nonconformist. Before 1775 the only place of worship in Eccleshill was The Quaker Meeting House on Tunwell Lane.[5] In 1775 Prospect Chapel also known as Bank Top Chapel a Wesleyan Chapel was constructed on Lands Lane off Norman Lane.[6] In 1776 Methodist John Wesley (1703-1791) preached there.[6] On the opposite side of Norman Lane is Prospect Chapel burial ground, created in 1823.[4] Doctrinal disagreement led to a split and the establishment in 1823 of Salem Independent Chapel.[5] Salem Chapel and Sunday school both now demolished, were built on Dobby Row, an event that was to prompt the renaming of the street to Chapel Street.[4] The Chapel Street chapel was eventually replaced by the Congregational Church on Victoria Road near Harrogate Road, built in 1889.[5] Salem Chapel burial ground remains on Chapel Street.[4] The Congregational Church was demolished in the 1960s and the United Reformed Church, a single storey building built on the site in 1967 and the Congregational Church building was demolished in 1979/80.[5]

A further split at Prospect Chapel had led to the establishment of Eccleshill United Methodist Chapel on the corner of Workhouse fold now named Stewart Close.[5] In 1854 the remaining worshippers of Prospect Chapel built Eccleshill Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Stony Lane and sold Prospect Chapel.[5] The old Prospect Chapel building had many subsequent uses including as an organ works.[3] When congregations shrank at the Wesleyan Methodist Church on Stony Lane worshippers moved to join the Primitive Methodist Chapel built in 1911 on Norman Lane to become Eccleshill Methodist Church.[5] The Eccleshill Methodist Church has now been demolished and there are plans to replace it with apartments. The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was sold in 1965 then became the Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church.[5][7]

Construction of St. Lukes church was ordered by the Rev William Scoresby, Vicar of Bradford[3] and this was consecrated in 1848. It was designed in a vertical Gothic style with a spire, however the spire was removed in circa 1971 when the stonework began crumbling.[4] The ecclesiastical parish of Eccleshill takes in Greengates, and Apperley Bridge south of the River Aire.

The quarrying, pottery, spinning and weaving industries have been located in the area for some time but only quarrying remains today.

Eccleshill has a number of mills. The Old Mill on Victoria Road was a woollen mill built in 1800 but was destroyed by fire in 1816.[8] The present building on the site is dated 1863 although parts of it date back to the early 1800s. On the other side of Victoria Road from the Old Mill is a row of houses and street once known as Dobby Row - a dobby being a type of cloth, a type of loom or part of an early form of weaving loom taking its name from a corruption of the words 'draw boy' - a weaving assistant.[4]

In around 1816 Union Mill on Harrogate Road was constructed for the manufacture of woollens.[4] From 1892 to 1983 John Pilley and Sons owned and operated the mills[9] A further three storey mill building known as Pilley's Mill was added to the south of the site. Union Mills had a serious fire in 1905.[10] In 2019 both mills were demolished and the site cleared to make way for a retail complex.

In the 1838 White's Directory Eccleshill is described as engaged in the manufacture of white woollen cloth.[3] In 1872 Tunwell Mill was built by Messrs Smith and Hutton as a woollen mill[3] near Tun Well (Town Well) directly south of Stony Lane—although today's Tunwell Mills are not the original mill building.

At the north end of Stone Hall Road is a mill variously known as Stone Hall Shed and Whiteley's Mill where worsted was manufactured.[11] Halfway down Stone Hall Road off to the west stood Victoria Mill, a worsted mill. This mill has been demolished and domestic properties now stand on the site.[4]

Moorside Mills was built on Moorside Road in 1875 by John Moore for worsted spinning.[12][13][14] In 1919 two floors were added and a clock tower as a war memorial to those who had died in the First World War.[10] Ownership of the mill changed hands many times and in 1970 the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council bought the property from Messrs. W. & J. Whitehead to create the Bradford Industrial Museum.[13]

In 1837, the Manor Pottery was established by Jeremiah Rawson, lord of the manor on a site east of the Undercliffe Road-Pullan Avenue junction using beds of shale, fireclay and coal at a deep quarry near Bolton Junction[3][8][15] at a site now partly occupied by Kents Fitness Gym. There was a rail tunnel under Leeds Road, then known as Pottery Lane, with waggons carrying clay and minerals from the quarry to the pottery on the other side of the road.[3] Manor Pottery produced a salt glazed brown stoneware, household utensils, brown and cream crockery, ornaments, garden vases, busts, and statuettes although these did not bear any distinguishing marks.[4][8][15][16] Although the product stood comparison with other local wares, the local market for pottery was eventually supplied by better and cheaper stoneware from Staffordshire, and by 1867 the pottery had been sold to William Woodhead and production switched over to house bricks, firebricks and sewer pipes.[3][15][16] The kilns were shut down in the early 20th century, and in 1921 the chimney was demolished,[3][15] however the manor house still remains.[3][17]

There were numerous coal pits in what is now the Thorpe Edge and Ravenscliffe areas of the Eccleshill ward. This coal was required for steam powered machinery and the pottery. Unfortunately the digging of the coal pits caused many local water wells to run dry.

The former Eccleshill Mechanics' Institute^* (1868), Stone Hall Road

Eccleshill Mechanics' Institute on Stone Hall Road was built in 1868.[18] Charles Bottomley converted the upper floor of the Eccleshill Mechanics' Institute into a 359-seat picture hall which he named Eccleshill Picture House and then opened in 1911.[19] Shortly after this the cinema was renamed 'Picture Palace' but closed in 1931 never running any 'talkies'.[3][19] Before construction of the building the institute used to meet in the now demolished school buildings at the western end of Chapel Street on a site now occupied by Eccleshill Victoria Conservative Club.

For the last two hundred years the shopping centre for Eccleshill has been Stony Lane and it was here that Henry Sparks, founder of Sparks Bakeries, had his first shop.[3] The last butchers in the village formerly the William Hudson & Son has now been converted into a micro pub called the Greedy Pig.

In 1804 the Dudley Hill to Killinghall turnpike was constructed.[3] Parts of this are now Killinghall Road and Harrogate Road. In 1889 Mill Lane, Town Lane and Town Street were renamed Victoria Road to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria that year.[4] The tram service came from central Bradford up Bolton Road then Stone Hall Road to a terminus in front of the Eccleshill Mechanics Institute.[3] The tram service also went along Harrogate road to Greengates but because of the low rail bridge at Eccleshill Station only single decker trams could get under.[20]

In 1874 the Great Northern Railway opened its Laisterdyke - Shipley branch (the Shipley and Windhill line), a six-mile double track branch line from Quarry Gap junction in Thornbury to Shipley and Windhill railway station, passing Eccleshill, Idle and Thackley railway stations.[21] Eccleshill railway station opened in 1875 with its sidings and coal yard.[18] This was located just north of the rail bridge crossing over Harrogate Road. Only the embankment and abutment of one side of the rail bridge remain.[4] The former Station Hotel on Harrogate Road took its name from its proximity to the railway station. The railway station closed to passengers in 1931 although goods traffic continued on the line until 1964.[22] Subsequently, the line was taken up and the bridge demolished.

In 1928 Ralph Dickinson created the purpose-built 1,000 seat Palladium Cinema on Norman Lane, opened in 1929.[19] Later the cinema changed ownership and in 1931 the new owner John Lambert altered the name to Regal.[19] In 1958 the cinema closed for refurbishment and updating, and reopened later that year, but closed finally in 1966.[19] Later with the construction of an extra internal floor the building was used as a bingo hall, a snooker hall and then a fitness centre.[19]

The former Central Board / Hutton School (1884-2016)

The school on Fagley Lane was built in 1845.[4] The school in Chapel Street (1875) was declared unsuitable in 1884 and to replace it the Central Board School was built on Victoria Road in 1887 on the site of the old Eccleshill Hall.[3] In 1889 the Central Board School was renamed Hutton School after the chairman of the School Board.[3] The school was attended by world-famous artist David Hockney. After a period as a fitness centre the building was demolished in 2016 to make way for housing.

Fagley is an area to the south-east of Eccleshill ward. The local economy includes a sandstone quarry,[23] and a riding school.[24] Most of the shops including the post office are on Fagley Road running east–west.[25] Fagley no longer has any public houses.[26] The local school is Fagley Primary School[27] and in the east of Fagley is the Fagley Youth and Community Centre.[28] Further east is Fagley Beck and the Leeds Country Way bridle path and the border with Pudsey.[29]

Ravenscliffe is a housing estate in the north-east of Eccleshill. In Ravenscliffe is a sub post office[30] and The Gateway Community and Children's Centre[31] and the Eccleshill Adventure Playground.

Entrance to Bradford Industrial Museum on Moorside Road

In the south of Eccleshill off Moorside Road close to Fagley is the Bradford Industrial Museum in what was Moorside Mills.[13][49] This museum houses machinery from local textile and printing industries and has a row of workers houses. It used to house the popular Horses at Work exhibition but this has now closed.[50]

Originally built in 1854 as a Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox church is the only listed church building in Eccleshill.[7] Tucked behind this church is a former Wesleyan Sunday School of 1885,[4] now residential accommodation.