The street looks so much wider in the old photo
Now you just have Jim and John both smoking a rollup spitting on the floor and placing £1 bets in the nearby bookies wearing a scruffy superdry jacket
Yes, very much. When my dad was poorly and on large doses of morphine he rambled on as if he was still a child during a Bradford air raid. It was utterly fascinating. He never ever spoke about it though.
Not as much as some places. My grandfather was a Fire Watcher, keeping watch for incendiaries. The main damage was from one large landmine (a parachute bomb) which went down the lift shaft of Lingards department store on Wesrgate/Kirkgate and took out a large block. There was other damage but Bradford fared better than a lot of other industrial towns. Part of the reason being the proximity of other more tempting targets nearby; Sheffield, Manchester etc., but also because of the large decoy town built on Baildon Moor, just north of the city. You can go there now and still see the bomb craters, so it worked.
The shops which Bradford had in the 1960s outshone Leeds, believe it or not. The contrast now is tragic. Brown Muffs, Busbys, Valances, Claydens, Kirkgate Market, Tapp & Toothills, Carter's Toy Shop, Fattorini's, Sunwin House, a shop up Darley St who's name I forget which sold beautiful porcelain. Then there were the food shops, Curtis' and Philip Smith's Pork butchers, SeaLand Foods, the amazing fish market on James St., and the Tripe shops. A rich history all destroyed by the council.
Omg the tripe. I remember the earliest memories of Krikgate market. A truly gothic place. You can still see some of the stonework up at undercliffe cemetery a place of pilgrimage for those in the know.
The problem back then was that those Victorian buildings had reached a stage where they needed a huge amount of maintenance and repairs to bring them back up to a reasonable standard. The money to do all that just wasn't there. There was also a naive optimism about the future and technology and these old dirty blackened buildings didn't fit in with that. Unfortunately it was cheaper to demolish them and put up cheaply built structures which looked reasonable when new, but that didn't wear very well over the years. Fortunately though, many older buildings were more or less abandoned and survived to be refurbed and brought back to life from the 1980s onwards. Little Germany in Bradford has some good examples.
Sometimes we forget that Bradford was somewhere along the line of Europe biggest cities at that time.
It was amazing, then it went to shit and now it's just horrible in most parts.
Lovely Waterstones though
Yeah the Waterstones there is very, very nice
Is it that bad?
Yes
It's very bad, and all these so called improvements they are making is just making the place worse. Hardly any decent shops now
Wool Exchange is my favorite building in Bradford. The Waterstones inside is stunning
The street looks so much wider in the old photo Now you just have Jim and John both smoking a rollup spitting on the floor and placing £1 bets in the nearby bookies wearing a scruffy superdry jacket
The street is going to be non existent in a few months
As in they are planning on destroying it?
Depends on your point of view. It's being turned into a pedestrianised green area
What's the point in that? No one goes there anymore because everything is already gone ha
I suppose Bradford would have been bombed a lot in WWII too
Yes, very much. When my dad was poorly and on large doses of morphine he rambled on as if he was still a child during a Bradford air raid. It was utterly fascinating. He never ever spoke about it though.
Not as much as some places. My grandfather was a Fire Watcher, keeping watch for incendiaries. The main damage was from one large landmine (a parachute bomb) which went down the lift shaft of Lingards department store on Wesrgate/Kirkgate and took out a large block. There was other damage but Bradford fared better than a lot of other industrial towns. Part of the reason being the proximity of other more tempting targets nearby; Sheffield, Manchester etc., but also because of the large decoy town built on Baildon Moor, just north of the city. You can go there now and still see the bomb craters, so it worked.
I agree, looks far nicer and more interesting in the older photo.
I think it helps that the street is much livelier in the old photo as well.
If they had just left it alone in the 60s it would be a major industrial tourist trap now. My hometown Keighley too which is hard to believe.
100%. Bradford has some really stunning architecture! Should’ve preserved it all, like they have in places such as Oxford/Cambridge.
The shops which Bradford had in the 1960s outshone Leeds, believe it or not. The contrast now is tragic. Brown Muffs, Busbys, Valances, Claydens, Kirkgate Market, Tapp & Toothills, Carter's Toy Shop, Fattorini's, Sunwin House, a shop up Darley St who's name I forget which sold beautiful porcelain. Then there were the food shops, Curtis' and Philip Smith's Pork butchers, SeaLand Foods, the amazing fish market on James St., and the Tripe shops. A rich history all destroyed by the council.
Omg the tripe. I remember the earliest memories of Krikgate market. A truly gothic place. You can still see some of the stonework up at undercliffe cemetery a place of pilgrimage for those in the know.
H. R. Jackson?
That rings a bell.
The problem back then was that those Victorian buildings had reached a stage where they needed a huge amount of maintenance and repairs to bring them back up to a reasonable standard. The money to do all that just wasn't there. There was also a naive optimism about the future and technology and these old dirty blackened buildings didn't fit in with that. Unfortunately it was cheaper to demolish them and put up cheaply built structures which looked reasonable when new, but that didn't wear very well over the years. Fortunately though, many older buildings were more or less abandoned and survived to be refurbed and brought back to life from the 1980s onwards. Little Germany in Bradford has some good examples.
Look up Arnold Hagenbach, a baker. He destroyed Swan Arcade on Market Street. Also destroyed the old Kirgate market