A pillar of Salt

This statue of Saltaire's founder, Sir Titus Salt, first stood in Bradford's Town Hall (now City Hall) Square.  Funded by public subscription and unveiled in 1874 by the Duke of Devonshire, amid lavish celebrations, the marble statue itself was sculpted by John Adams Acton.  It shows Sir Titus Salt seated, holding a scroll of the plans of Saltaire.  The canopy was designed by the architects of Saltaire, Lockwood & Mawson and features Salt's coat of arms, along with symbols representing Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Charity.   In 1896, traffic congestion in central Bradford forced its relocation to Lister Park in Bradford, where it remains today.

It's said that when Sir Titus found out about plans for the statue, he joked: "So they wish to make me into a pillar of salt."   At the unveiling, the Chairman of the committee said: "we are met to do honour to one of Bradford's worthiest citizens......whose modesty of disposition and strength of character are worthy of imitation by the rising business men of the town."

Tombs with a view

(Click on photo to enlarge it)
Undercliffe Cemetery  is perched on top of a hill in Bradford.  The city itself (to the left of this picture) sits in a bowl, nestled among the surrounding hills.  In Victorian times, most of the growing population was crammed into a small central area, in terribly crowded and insanitary conditions.  So land was bought, well away from the population centre, to provide much need burial space.

The well-to-do folks (Titus Salt and his young wife among them) started to build large houses out to the north-west, into the areas known as Manningham and Heaton.  In those days the city didn't extend anything like as far as it does now.  In the early 19th century, much of what you can see here would have been green fields and moorland with a few hamlets dotted around.  Salt chose a greenfield site to build his new mill and village of Saltaire.

This photo is taken from the edge of Undercliffe Cemetery, looking north-west.  You can just see Saltaire in the middle distance - the tall chimney on the right is Salts Mill, sitting right down in the bottom of the Aire river valley. The church a little in front and to the left is St Paul's Church, Shipley.  Even further left, towards the middle of the photo, is the tower of Shipley's Roman Catholic Church, St Walburga's.  The patch of green on the far left middle is part of Northcliffe Park in Shipley.  Undercliffe Cemetery and Saltaire are almost exactly contemporary - Salts Mill was opened in 1853 and the first burial in the cemetery was in 1854.

(see also earlier posts - click the Cemetery label below)

Graves

I wandered around Undercliffe Cemetery for a couple of hours
just reading the gravestones and enjoying the peace of the place.  Inevitably there are some poignant reminders of how tough life was in the 19th century.

This ivy-covered stone (right) records the children of Ann and James Hall(am?) (a Bradford ironfounder): William died aged 3 years 6 months in 1861, Arthur, died aged 3 years 4 months in 1864 and three other children - Mary Ann died in 1843 aged 16 months, John died 1847 aged 13 months and James died 1853 aged 13 months.  How tragic. I wonder if they had any children that survived?  
(click the pictures to make them bigger)

Walter Calver (1830-1866), Proprietor of the Original Marionettes, had a puppet theatre that travelled through northern England visiting towns and country fairs.  The theatre seated 1000 spectators!  His puppet theatre performed for Queen Victoria, who presented Walter with a snuff box.  After Walter's death, his son took the show to China and Australia.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

The Smith monument, a 30' high obelisk in a prime position overlooking the city of Bradford, is the resting place of Joseph Smith (1801-1858), land agent. He was the man who sold the cemetery plots and one of the 'perks' of the job, written into his contract, was the privilege of occupying the cemetery's most prominent location! 

 

There are also more recent graves in the cemetery, including that of Bob Cryer MP (1934 -1994). He was Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Keighley from 1974 -1983, a Member of the European Parliament and then MP for Bradford South from 1987 until his life was tragically cut short by a road accident.  After British Rail closed the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, Bob Cryer was one of a group of local people who formed the KWVR Preservation Society, which bought the line from British Rail and reopened it (see my posts from 14 February).  His memorial stone describes him as 'Socialist parliamentarian, iconoclast and life-long rebel'.

Stafford Heginbotham is also buried in Undercliffe Cemetery.  He was Chairman of Bradford City Football Club at the time of the tragic fire at the ground in 1985, started by a discarded cigarette which set fire to rubbish under the stand. It killed 56 supporters and shocked the nation. (In the aftermath, he is reputed to have said: "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it invariably comes too late.")

William Mawson

There are some notable people buried in Undercliffe Cemetery in Bradford (see yesterday also).  One of them is William Mawson, one of the architects of Saltaire.

William Mawson (1828-1899) was born in Leeds, the son of William Mawson, a paper manufacturer.  Aged just 21, he became a partner in an architectural practice with Henry Francis Lockwood, who at 38 was older and more experienced.  They opened an office in Bradford, after winning a competition in 1849 to design St George's Hall (a concert hall).  It was to this recently formed partnership that the visionary mill-owner Titus Salt turned in 1850, entrusting them with the task of planning and designing a large new mill to which he could transfer production from his five existing mills.  Salt rejected the architects' original proposals, asking them to submit a revised plan for a mill twice the size - demonstrating from the start the scale of his ambition.  His faith in the young architects was rewarded.  Lockwood and Mawson became one of the leading architectural practices of the time and went on to oversee the design and planning of the whole village of Saltaire, and some of the most notable buildings in Bradford, including the Wool Exchange and City Hall - both magnificent buildings.

Undercliffe Cemetery

I love old cemeteries (perhaps on account of the fact that my childhood home was right next to one and it was a wonderful place for imaginative adventures and nature walks).  Undercliffe Cemetery in Bradford is quite famous, but in all these years I had never visited it, so one bright, frosty day I decided to remedy that.  I hadn't realised that it wouldn't be very good for photos as the low sun made such strong shadows, so I will have to go back on a more overcast day to get some better photos -  it is a very photogenic and atmospheric place.

The population explosion in Bradford in the early 19th century Industrial Revolution meant that more burial space became a necessity. A large mansion and grounds were bought in 1851 and the Bradford Cemetery Company was formed.  The first burials took place in 1854 and continue to this day.  The cemetery now contains over 23000 graves and 124000 burials.  It is arranged according to the strict hierarchies of Victorian England - half of it unconsecrated (for non-conformists like Methodists and Baptists - 'chapel' people) and half of it consecrated for members of the Church of England.  Furthermore, there was a social hierarchy too, with the gentry buried on the elite upper terraces and ordinary mortals on the lower terraces.

Graves are crowded upon one another and there are all manner of elaborate memorials, lavishly decorated with Victorian funerary art - obelisks, draped urns and even a scaled-down version of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh!

Burials declined, and the company went bust in 1977.  The whole site became neglected and vandalised and, when it was bought by a property developer in 1980, a campaign was started to rescue it.  Bradford Council compulsorily purchased it and some restoration took place and it is now properly managed by a new company, as a working cemetery, historic site and environmental conservation area. It's a fascinating place.

National Media Museum

The National Media Museum, Bradford, is housed in a concrete 1960s complex that also holds the ice skating rink and Bradford Central Library.  The tower block was once part of Bradford University and is now student flats.   The museum frontage has been modernised by the addition of a glass atrium and the former library theatre has become a cinema, part of the Museum, which also boasts a gigantic IMAX cinema screen.

I found the following, quoted in 2005 by Dr George Sheeran, of the University of Bradford's Pennine and Yorkshire Studies Unit:

"A lot of the stuff (regeneration) that was done in the Sixties was done on a big wave of optimism about the future, and it did produce some things which unfortunately haven't lasted. If you look at Bradford Central Library, opened in 1966, then it was the biggest library (in terms of the number of books it had) in England which is an astonishing statistic when you think about it. It had a small art gallery, a cafeteria and it had a theatre and people were willing to put their money behind that sort of thing then, and some of the things done in the 1960s were very good.

On the other hand, the architecture was dire. It was on a scale nobody had seen, it was of a design nobody in Bradford had experienced before. I think there was this ideology behind it which saw everything modern as progressive - that was a big word in the Sixties, whether it led to social progress or not, and there was a deep, deep hatred of everything in the Victorian past. In about 1960 there was a Dutch chap who taught planning at Leeds School of Architecture, I can't remember his name, but he called Bradford, 'a city designed by the devil' which I think was an attitude of mind amongst planners. I know which (Bradford) I would rather have."

He speaks for a lot of people. A lot of us mourn the loss of some of the Victorian buildings.  Those that remain have been transformed by stone cleaning and sympathetic renewal.  But it's good to see these 60s buildings being used in a creative way even if they aren't too pleasing to the eye.  There is always a huge poster on the front of the Media Museum and I like the impact of this particular image of the young boy.

(This has had a bit of work in PS - desaturated it, popped the colour back on the poster and added some grain to emphasise the gritty concrete.)

Christmas pud?

I spotted these balled topiary box trees in the city centre - with a dusting of snow on top, they reminded me of traditional Christmas puddings.  I have one of these (tree, not pudding!) in my back yard, but it long ago ceased to be perfectly spherical.  The red box behind them is a small modern mail box, outside the National Media Museum.  I suppose it's handy for tourists to post their postcards: "Just visited Bradford's National Media Museum... it's great! Really interesting..."

When I'm in Bradford I usually try to find time to visit the Media Museum.  I consider myself very lucky that, of all the national museums, Bradford has the one in which I'm most interested - Film, Photography and TV.  This time I saw an exhibition: 'Land revisited' by Fay Godwin (1931-2005), one of Britain's greatest landscape photographers.  Do click the link to see some of her incredible black and white images.  The exhibition is well worth a visit if you're in the area - if not, explore the website, as there's some interesting stuff on there, including photos and some biographical material about Fay Godwin.

Brown, Muff & Co

I made a rare visit into Bradford city centre on Saturday, to visit a 'pop-up shop' styled in the manner of a 1930s grocer's shop.  It’s part of a BBC TV Learning Hands on History project complementing the series Turn Back Time – The High Street, currently running on BBC1.

The shop was sited in part of what used to be Brown, Muff & Co's department store - known as 'the Harrods of the North' because it was one of the classiest stores in the region in its hey-dey. The roots of Brown, Muff can be traced back to 1814, when a room shop was set up in Market Street by Elizabeth Brown.  In 1834 it was taken over by her son, Henry, who married Betsy Muff, an Ilkley girl. The department store was founded in the 1840s (I'm sure Sir Titus Salt's wife, Caroline, must have shopped there) and thrived for many years, eventually being taken over by Rackhams in 1978.  It closed some years ago, a victim of the move to shopping malls rather than department stores and also to Bradford's decline as a centre for 'middle-class' shoppers (who now favour Leeds).

I have my own fond memories of Brown, Muff's.  When I first came to Bradford as a student in the early 1970s, the store was still the place to shop - full of beautiful clothes and other goods, with gleaming wood and brass shop fittings and an air of solid good taste.  I vividly recall one bright sunny day when a friend and I, in the middle of preparing for our exams, decided we needed a treat.  We went to Brown Muff's delicatessen, situated right on the top floor of the store, and bought olives and cooked meats and all sorts of other yummy luxuries, plus a bottle of sparkling wine, then went back to my bed-sit.  We sat on the bed in the sunshine, surrounded by revision notes, and scoffed the lot!  Revision went a lot better after that!

Where is Saltaire?

In response to T Becque's question in last Sunday's comments - Where is Saltaire in relation to London? - it's here:

It looks quite a long way, but England isn't very big really! It is about 175 miles (281 km) from London and takes less than three hours to travel by train from London, via Leeds, to Saltaire.

Saltaire, when it was first built, was a village (or township) in its own right. Sir Titus Salt deliberately chose a greenfield site, away from the centres of population at the time, because he was appalled at the poverty and disease-ridden slum conditions in the centre of the nearest city - Bradford - where his existing textile mills were situated. But gradually over the years, urban development has spread so that now Saltaire and Shipley, the nearest small town, have almost merged to become part of Bradford's suburbs.

It takes about 14 minutes by train from Saltaire station, travelling south, to get into the centre of Bradford. It also only takes about 17 minutes to get to Leeds, which is to the east. Leeds is the other big city in the area, larger and more prosperous now than Bradford. Perhaps in the weeks to come I will show some photos of these two cities. They were both proud and important northern cities, growing as a result of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. They have very different characters and Leeds has developed and prospered very differently from Bradford in more recent times.

Interior, 1875

There are no 'museums' in Saltaire and - apart from during the annual Saltaire Arts Trail - you can't visit inside any of the village houses, as they are all private dwellings.

On a recent visit to Bradford's Industrial Museum, I had a look into the row of Victorian back-to-back houses that were moved from their original position in Bradford and rebuilt on the Museum site. Back-to-back houses are literally that... two houses built back to back, each having one entrance, one downstairs room and two bedrooms upstairs. There are none like that in Saltaire - its houses are terraced and have a front and back entrance, so they are bigger than the ones at the Museum. Nevertheless, this picture will give you some idea of what the inside of a millworker's house looked like around 1875.

The houses were lit by gaslight, oil lamps and candles. You can see the black coal-fired range that was used for cooking - it has an integral tank for heating water to use for washing and bathing (in a tin bath). The scullery would have had running water from a cold tap. If you click the pic to enlarge it you can also see, resting by the fire, two 'flat irons' that were heated in the fire to iron clothes, a pottery hot-water bottle and the very necessary bellows used to get the fire roaring. Although spartan by modern standards, Saltaire's cottages would have been cosy and luxurious compared with the prevailing living conditions in the city at the time. Most of Saltaire's Victorian residents worked in the mill or had other jobs in the locality so most would have been able to afford reasonable food and furnishings.

Top balls (!)

The next stage of the worsted manufacturing process was Top making or Finishing. The wool slivers were further treated to make them a uniform thickness and moisture was added to enhance the suppleness of the wool. The Top ball produced was the woolcomber's finished product and the Tops could be packed and transported like this. Many of the textile mills in Bradford specialised in just part of the overall manufacturing process - woolcombers or spinners; whereas Salts Mill was such a huge enterprise that it saw the complete process through from end to end - from raw wool to the finished worsted cloth.

A history lesson

When I was wandering round Salts Mill recently, I got thinking that - much as I love the mill and Saltaire in its present incarnation, and enjoy uncovering its history - I really know very little about the processes that went on in the mill during its time as a worsted manufacturer. There are the paintings by Henry Carr (see 16 February) which give some idea, but hardly the full picture. In the interests of research therefore, I took myself off one day to visit Bradford's Industrial Museum, to find out more about the woollen and worsted industry, upon which the fortunes of this area rose and fell. Their displays are fascinating and I learned a lot.

Bradford was originally a small town, granted a charter in 1251 by King Henry III that enabled it to have a weekly market. This was an important development as it became a meeting place where people could buy and sell cloth. Poor conditions in the area for growing crops meant that local farmers subsidised their income by weaving cloth. People could now buy local wool to card, spin and weave it into cloth to be sold for a profit at the market. Initially this was a 'cottage industry' carried out in people's homes. Many of the old 'weavers' cottages' hereabouts have large windows in the upper storey, as good light was important for handloom weaving. And the area is criss-crossed with 'packhorse routes' along which people from the moorland villages would carry their cloth down to the markets. Eventually some of the local corn mills, powered by streams coming down from the moors, were adapted into small mills for making cloth.

Alhambra reflections

Almost next door to The Sir Titus Salt pub I featured yesterday, in the centre of Bradford, is what I consider to be one of the most interesting buildings in Bradford - The Alhambra Theatre. Built in 1914 at a cost of £20,000, the name comes from the Arabic "Kal-El-At-Ambra" meaning red-domed castle.

It was the brainchild of Francis Laidler, an impresario who became famous for producing pantomime. Conceived as a Variety Theatre, a 'Palace of Pleasure' for the whole family (moving on from the earlier, earthier Music Hall style of show) the Alhambra eventually became (still is) one of the premier venues for pantomime in the UK. (Pantomime is a particular form of musical comedy theatre with slapstick, audience participation, traditional storylines and a host of in-jokes and sexual innuendo. There is always a "dame" - a man dressed as a woman, and the "principal boy" is always an attractive young woman, playing the male romantic lead.)

The theatre was enlarged and restored in 1986 - one of the good decisions Bradford Council took, despite its reputation for razing Bradford's finest old buildings to the ground! It is now able to host the biggest shows, direct from London's West End. An evening at the Alhambra is always a treat; the inside of the building is magnificently restored and the auditorium itself is stunning. (Click on the Alhambra link above to see photos on its website.)

My photo shows the theatre reflected in the former city police HQ opposite - another building which will shortly be demolished, to make way for a new park and lake in the city centre (!).

The Sir Titus Salt

I have written before on this blog about Sir Titus Salt's antipathy to alcohol. Although not a teetotaller, he was well aware of the damage that drink can do to individuals, families and communities and he made sure that there were no public houses in his village of Saltaire. That was true until relatively recently. I don't imagine he'd be thrilled therefore to find his name attached to this pub. It's not in Saltaire - in fact it's in the centre of Bradford up near the University, and is popular with students.

I have never been into the building in its present incarnation. I was however a frequent visitor many years ago. When I was at university in Bradford (I won't tell you how long ago!) this was a public baths, the Windsor Baths - swimming pool, slipper baths and a wonderful Turkish bath. You can see above the door it says Men's Bath. There was a separate entrance for women. My friends and I spent many a relaxed and happy time here, gently steaming ourselves pink, squeaky clean and sleepy. It was lovely, when we all lived in fairly grim bedsits with not very nice bathing facilities. The Baths were very old-fashioned with beautiful old tiles (Victorian of course). But they obviously didn't pay their way. It was long before spas became fashionable (again) and the Council chose to close the baths many years ago. If you want a similar experience now you have to travel all the way to Harrogate, to the famed Spa baths there. (Which I wholeheartedly recommend.)

Here's a little known fact: the 1983 film "The Dresser", starring Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, was partially filmed at the Windsor Baths, as well as in several other well-known locations in this area.