New history project aims to map locations of Bradford's lost mills and their owners' mansions
They said: “Do you live in an area where a mill once stood? Did members of your family work in a mill somewhere in the Bradford district? Do you have stories of mills and their closures over the past 50 years or have photos?
“We are building an online archive of stories and interviews that will tell the fascinating story of the last decades of Bradford’s great textile history. If you, a family member, a friend, colleague or neighbour has a story to tell of those times- no matter how small – or a picture to share, we’d love to find out more from you.Bradford’s leading ‘wool barons’ become so successful that they were eventually able to buy country estates and live like landed gentry.
One who did live mostly in the city was the great worsted spinner, Quaker and philanthropist Frederick Priestman, whose home, Pierrepont House, was on Toller Lane. The family also had a shooting estate in the North York Moors. Other great mansions were lost, the most notorious being Milner Field in Shipley Glen, demolished in the 1950s when it became difficult to sell or let. Built for Sir Titus Salt’s son, his father’s residences included Crow Nest near Halifax. He rented it from the Walker family – local mill owners whose daughter Ann married Anne Lister – before eventually purchasing it from them, but this too was demolished in the 1950s and the grounds are now a golf club.
Sir Isaac Holden, perhaps the most ‘self-made’ of the wool barons, also had a grand mansion which has been lost. Thewas a book-keeper in a Bingley mill before he opened Alston Works in Bradford, the world’s largest wool-combing site. He built Italianate-style Oakworth House near Keighley, but in 1907 it burned to the ground. The site is now Oakworth Park.
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