A pictorial tour of Bradford city centre - part 1

A pictorial tour of Bradford city centre Part I - RETAIL

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I got my camera out well over two years ago, meaning to pop back to take the few remaining shots I wanted before uploading the photos to my blog. I didn’t get round to getting back with my camera until over a year later (when due to the Bradford Sky Ride I wasn’t able to get the best shots anyway). The sheer enormity of the task caused me to procrastinate further, and it’s only now that I’ve got round to putting it in any kind of order ready to go on the web. I’ve split the tour into parts for ease – and can’t guarantee when the next instalment will be ready – but today’s post will concentrate on Bradford’s department stores and markets.

The stories behind these buildings are a combination of research, reading and a fair amount of folklore. Unfortunately, I don’t have sources for many of them due to them being from articles, books, blogs and websites that I either don’t still have, lent out, lost the link for, etc. So don’t take these histories on face value – the stories are there for interest only.

I hope you enjoy these snaps!

Manningham Lane Retail Park

We begin our tour with this horrendous photograph of a fairly uninspiring looking retail park at the extreme north of Bradford city centre (I was unable to get a face-on picture due to the skyride). The unprepossessing edifice does nothing to belie the fascinating past of this plot of land. The site on which Manningham Lane now stands was in its previous incarnation the home of Busbys Department Store – known as the “Harrods of the North”. A photograph of the Busbys store from the 1930s is shown on the Telegraph and Argus web site.

Busbys was known among Bradford’s children as the store where the real Santa Claus visited – clearly, those who were taken elsewhere were hoodwinked into seeing an imposter!

The store’s edifice was adorned with the slogan, “The Store With The Friendly Welcome”, and speak to Bradfordians of a certain generation and they will confirm that the slogan was accurate. Rumour has it that the store’s founder, Ernest Busby, was torn between setting up in London and Bradford, but chose Bradford because it was projected to be more successful than a London store at the time.

The store was taken over by the Debenhams department store chain in 1958 and eventually closed in 1978. It was razed to the ground by fire in 1979.

Brown, Muff & Co

Brown, Muff & Co was Bradford’s second department store and by all accounts was more upmarket than Busbys. The company was bought by the Birmingham based Rackhams Group in the 1970s which was in turn subsumed into the House of Fraser chain.

Notice the Bradford boar above this former entrance to Brown & Muff. Bradford Council does a far better job of telling the legend of the Bradford Boar here,

The store ultimately closed in 1995 to be replaced with a selection of businesses including Dillon’s Bookstore, a Birthdays card shop, Boots the Chemists, Virgin Records and Wendy’s Hamburgers. I’ve been told – but can’t verify – that the Bradford branch of Rackhams was profitable, but that the House of Fraser Group was suffering at the time from a cash-flow crisis which required it to release funds. How much truth there is in this story I have no idea, but if it is true it is almost as sad an end to a Bradford institution as the fire at Busbys.

Once the Muff family had made their fortune, they moved from Bradford to Ilkley and simultaneously changed the family name from Muff to Maufe, inspiring the famous Bradford sense of humour to concoct the following ditty:

Here in Bradford it’s enough

To be known as Mrs Muff

But out in Ilkley, next the Wharfe,

’Tis better to be known as Mrs Maufe

Sunwin House

Bradford’s third department store was built in the 1930s as the Co-operative Emporium. The name ‘Sunwin’ was chosen as the building is on the junction of Sunbridge Road and Godwin Street. Yorkshire Co-operatives used the name Sunwin for all of its department stores – with the exception of the Shipley branch which was called Victoria House, and for other businesses such as its car dealerships and security alarm division. The name lives on in the form of Sunwin Support Services, which is the Co-operative Group’s in-house maintenance division.

When Yorkshire Co-operatives (which was based in Bradford) merged with United Norwest to form United Co-operatives with a head office in Stoke on Trent, the combined group decided that it no longer wished to be in the department store business, resulting in the retail estate being sold. The Bradford branch was sold to the T. J. Hughes department store chain, which closed following the company’s liquidation.

Unfortunately, Bradford seems to have been the major loser in the merger between Yorkshire Co-operatives and United Norwest.

Lingards

Bradford’s fourth department store, Lingard’s, was one of the the city’s few casualties of the Luftwaffe, but reopened after rebuilding. Ultimately taken over by United Drapery Stores, who had a second store in Kirkgate known as Ludlow’s, the store ultimately closed its doors for the final time in March 1977. UDS had planned to take a department store unit within the new Kirkgate (Arndale) Centre under the name Allders, but never moved in.

Lingard’s today operates as an amusement arcade and nightclub, a shadow of its former self.

Bradford’s markets

Time was – not all that long ago – that Bradford had four permanent municipal markets within the city centre. I recall visiting them all as a child but the number of markets now stands at two.



 The Kirkgate Shopping Centre contains the Kirkgate Market, and itself replaced the original Kirkgate Market on the same site. The original market was built in 1878 and was enormously popular with Bradford’s shoppers. There was huge opposition to the (then) Bradford Corporation’s plans to demolish it and the rumour goes that the demolition began on Good Friday, 1973, so that by the time anybody could get through to somebody to complain four days of demolition would have passed thus rendering the damage irreparable . The replacement – the Kirkgate Arndale Centre (now known as the Kirkgate Shopping Centre) – was built by the Arndale Property Trust, which was also responsible for the demolition of the Swan Arcade to make way for Arndale House in Charles Street.

The large and distinctive iron gates from the old market were supposedly kept for ‘safekeeping’ to be reinstalled after the build, but they went missing following demolition and have never been found. A similar story is attached to the Talbot dog that once adorned the Talbot Hotel in Darley Street.

A photograph of the original Kirkgate Market can be found at this link. Baxendall’s Café, which can be seen in the T&A’s picture, can be found in the ‘new’ market too.

Rawson Market was the city’s meat market. It was vacated temporarily by the council in the 1990s for a full refurbishment, with the stallholders temporarily decanted into a temporary Rawson Market. Ultimately, the council ran out money mid-conversion and had to abandon the project, with the stallholders being moved (again) into John Street Market.

After a failed plan to launch an Asian themed market on the site, it was finally purchased by Manchester based Modus properties, who redeveloped the remnants of the building as a shopping centre anchored by the Wilkinson chain.

James Street Fish Market abutted Rawson Market and closed at the same time. This was one of its understated entrances, the other being at the top of the same street. The market was linked by a walkway to Rawson Market. You can see from the picture that the council haven’t bothered to remove the sign yet – a clear indictment of their respect for our city centre!

John Street Market ultimately took over the former stalls of both Rawson and James Street Markets and was subsequently rebranded the Oastler Shopping Centre – a completely ridiculous name that gives a totally wrong impression of what is inside. This is nevertheless a fantastic market with several decent butchers and greengrocers, as well as a Morrisons supermarket, which was deemed controversial at the time of construction but allowed the Corporation to build the market without recourse to borrowing.

This is the temporary market built to house the stallholders uprooted from Rawson Market during its ill-fated refurbishment. Ultimately the businesses were moved into John Street Market, which can be seen in the background. The temporary market has lain empty since. It strikes me that this would be the perfect location for the ‘Bradford souk’ idea that keeps raising its head – it’s already designed as a market with all of the internal infrastructure in place.

Putting this together has taken several hours, so whilst I will upload some more of the pictures I’ve taken, this may be some time away. If there’s any part of aspect of the city centre you’d like me to feature next, let me know and I’ll write the next post around it!