A Historical Cycling Tour of Wakefield
In Which the Author:
- discovers that the city can
lay claim to the world’s first ever public railway
- sets eyes on one of the town centre’s most elegant and
historic – and secret – streets
- learns about one of the
residents of that street who grew up to be a world-renowned singer, but who is
largely forgotten today
- uncovers numerous other
interesting facts about Wakefield’s history
I did the following circuit back in June 2019 when everyone was blissfully unaware of coronaviruses and while face masks were something worn only by those crazyily over-cautious folk in Asia. Rather like our lives, the blog has been on hold while I attend to other writing projects, but I’m now hoping to add a few more posts this year. As I reviewed this particular journey, I realised that it was the perfect place from which to reboot. The reason is that the route took me past or at least near to a number of sites involved in former stories covered on the blog. As well as exploring some new interesting facts about the city, it gave me the chance to recap some previous discoveries about Wakefield and its people.
This particular tour all started when my friend Dave casually mentioned a cycle path that followed the old gravity railway. He reckoned we could cycle all the way from his home in East Ardsley to Stanley Ferry nearly three miles away and we would barely have to pedal. I was rather disbelieving but this turned out to be mostly true. There were a few flats but certainly no significant hills to ascend. And this was something of which the early railway pioneers of the area took full advantage.
So what was the gravity railway and why does it have such significance in the history of railways?
The Lake Lock Rail Road Company was formed in 1796 and the first route started moving goods along the narrow gauge line in 1798. Anyone could use it for the payment of a toll, but one problem faced by the nascent railway was that it opened so early in the development of rail transport that they had to wait a few more years for the steam locomotion engine to be invented. Horse power was the order of the day with one horse generally pulling three wagons. These wagons would be heavily laden on their way down to the canal in Stanley, but with an average gradient of 1 in 70 the main obstacle to the operation would have been losing control. Fortunately, the wheels could be slowed down with steel lockers.
After unloading at the bottom, the carts would be hauled back up the hill. Happy was the horse that had an empty cart but they could be loaded with, for example, stone, timber or lime (for agriculture), in which case there would be a call for more horses.
The increase in ease with which materials could be moved greatly aided the development of the areas it served (110,000 tons were shifted this way in 1807). Originally, the railway ran from Lake Lock near Stanley to Outwood, about two and a half miles away. However, the owners soon applied to extend the line so they could pick up coal from the many local collieries, so by 1810 it was also serving such places as Kirkhamgate, Lofthouse and East Ardsley, which brings me back to the beginning of my tour.
The races were shut down when the 1793 Wakefield Enclosure Act came into force and all the common land became private property again. This is significant for the story of the railway because it was the Enclosure Act that meant the Lake Lock Rail Road Company could then apply to the Enclosures Commissioners to buy from them the stretch of land now known as Grandstand Road.
Pottery production went into decline in the second half of the 18th century as the marketing people decided that the Potteries was a catchier name than Potovens and by 1785 all the kilns in the area of Wrenthorpe had fired for the last time. Growing up in the village, however, I remember finding loads of bits of pottery hidden in the earth, including bits of the odd clay pipe and, of course, the legacy lives on in the name Potovens Lane. Considering production peaked in the late 1600s, it's impressive that such links with the past live on.
Taking a right off Potovens, we negotiate the suburban streets of Outwood
and emerge onto Leeds Road, happily very close to the Woodman Inn, where we stop
for a quick pint. We then cross the
road to pick up the route of the old gravity railroad. This section is an
official cycle path and is where the gradient soon becomes thrillingly steep. We
plummet at breakneck speed down towards Aberford Road, but before we get there
we emerge from the cycle path onto Lime Pitt Lane. The name is evocative – remember,
lime was one of the materials that was transported back up the line to fertilise
the fields of East Ardsley and the like – and we are confronted by the site of
a small section of rails embedded in the road.
We’ve made it to the canal. Time for another pint, this one at the Stanley Ferry pub. All that freewheeling down the old gravity railway route – we’ve earnt it. Time also for one final fact about the railway: its heyday was short-lived and the tonnage it carried steadily declined between 1807 and 1823. By 1836 it had closed altogether as an alternative railway was built by the major colliery owner J & J Charlesworth.
The remarkable facet of the view I currently have of the chapel on my ride is that this is the exact same view that the artist JMW Turner would have had as he sat on the riverbank here in the 1790s, sketching this building that was already centuries old. I admit I’m no great lover of fine art – see POST 2 where I visited the Hepworth Gallery – but I do like the notion that such a famous artist must have sat a few metres from where I am now, over two hundred years ago.
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We take a left, however, off Thornhill Street through the West Parade burial ground. This, I believe, was the cemetery for the Trinity Methodist Church that was on the South Parade to where we are heading. One source I found suggested that the original Methodist place of worship was on Thornhill Street and that the foundation stone was laid by John Wesley himself on August 30th 1772. The Weslyans then moved to the premises on South Parade in 1805, selling their old place to the Quakers (there is still a Quaker meeting house just off Thornhill Street).
We push our bikes up past the rear of the Job Centre and Dave says, ‘So here we are.’ The first thing I see on South Parade is an ugly building that a local artist thought would benefit from being spruced up with some graffiti. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at,’ I reply. ‘No, there,’ he says, pointing further down the way.
‘Ah.’ Now I understand why we’re here. South Parade is an elegant, Georgian-style street in the style found and displayed in plain sight in the St Johns area of the city. This single row of houses is hidden in plain sight and is therefore meat and drink to this blog. I’ve lived in Wakefield for most of my life and have never set eyes on this architectural gem. Turning right out of the Ridings car park, I’ve given cursory thought to the buildings on my left on George Street, thinking they look pretty old, I wonder if they have any stories to tell, but little did I know what was on the other side.
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Although born in Lincolnshire (in 1883), Phyllis Lett was made in Wakefield, growing up on South Parade and being educated at Wakefield Girls’ High School.
She also became one of only three women ever who have received the distinguished gold award from the Musicians’ Company and even has her portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.
And it’s not only Wakefield that seems to have forgotten her. She doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, such is the fickleness of fame. So let’s sprinkle a little bit of that stardust around for Phyllis a hundred years after her heyday.
As a teenager, in around 1899, she made her debut at Wakefield’s Corn Exchange before heading off to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship. Just three years after graduating she was performing as a contralto soloist at musical festivals throughout the nation. She also embraced the new technologies of the day, being heard regularly on the wireless during live broadcasts on the BBC and going on to make several gramophone recordings.
She apparently never forgot her roots, though, returning to Wakefield a number of times, including for the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue in the Bull Ring in 1905. She also sang again at the Corn Exchange in 1914, raising funds for the war effort. Of course, the First World War arrived during the best years of her career but she did her bit, giving over a thousand concerts at home, in France and Belgium to raise money and morale.
She also visited Wakefield again, singing
for patients at her old school when the original building of the girls’ school,
Wentworth House (pictured), became a temporary hospital from 1917-19. The hospital was
catering for casualties of the war, but I wonder if any of the patients were
suffering from the pandemic of the day, Spanish flu? After all, it’s thought to
have originated in the military food stations of northern France where many soldiers
were barracked.
Her career continued to flourish after the war before she married an Australian in 1924 and they chose to move back to his home country the following year. A measure of her standing at this time is provided by the send off she received. Her final concert in 1925 at Crystal Palace is said to have attracted a crowd of 15,000 and her farewell radio concert is believed to have had an audience of over ten million, with the famous Italian singer Luisa Tetrazzini making the journey from Italy to sing with her.
Phyllis still performed for a time in Australia but her career was winding down as she became a mother and rheumatoid arthritis began to take its toll. It seems it didn’t take long for her fame to wane, for when she died in 1962 her obituary in The Stage only ran to six lines.
There is evidence of Phyllis Lett’s musical renown on eBay where I found sellers asking for £50 for her signed photo. Some of her old gramophone recordings can be bought on the site too.
In 1922 Lett sued Pathé for issuing substandard recordings of hers without her consent. She won the case, in part due to the fact that Edward Elgar testified on her behalf.
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South Parade is situated on land that was once the allotments of the burghers of Wakefield. In medieval times burghers were essentially the wealthy bourgeoisie, which is appropriate as that is also the social class of person who lived here when the street was developed in the late 18th century.
As an example, another famous resident was the wealthy businessman William Marriot. His family had made its money from worsted spinning and by the 1850s the Marriot business was the largest and richest in Wakefield. William also had an interest in Newton and Wrenthorpe collieries, and by 1867 he was snapping up Sandal Grange for the princely sum of over £15,000, which was a touch over the price of the average house back then.
Fortunately, Marriot was not the sort to sit on his piles of cash and ignore the plight of those less fortunate. He was known as a philanthropist who donated vast sums of money for the rebuilding of Clayton Hospital and to aid the establishment of Yorkshire College, which later became Leeds University.
The good work that really caught my eye, however, was his key role in funding the formation of Clarence Park. The genesis of Wakefield’s central parks and the fascinating history, including its lost castle, that is contained within them was covered in POST 6 and POST 7. As we near the end of the street, I can just about see the treetops in the distance. Nice one, William, don’t tell me it was really nothing.
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Another key feature of South Parade are the gardens that belong to each property. Unusually, they are on the other side of the road to the houses, but going to your garden must have been like visiting the park because they’re absolutely massive (maybe William Marriot wanted everyone to be able to experience a large green space like him and that was why he helped to create Clarence Park). They remind me of the communal squares you find in upmarket areas of London.
Sadly, many are in a neglected state with the ornate gates to them being chained – apparently there is a problem with the homeless bedding down in them at night. I doubt that any of the houses on the street are still private residences. Instead, an assortment of businesses and other organisations have moved in and this has contributed to the overall vibe of faded glory, with most occupants presumably having no interest in the once grand plots that stare back forlornly at their address (the above garden was one of the exceptions).
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We come to the last residence on South Parade, Church House, which was the former offices of the Diocese of Wakefield before the city's Anglican diocese came to an end in 2014. Then its back on the bikes on George Street, past the site of the old cattle market where the Royal Mail sorting office is situated now. The market was established in 1765 and became the largest cattle market in the north of England for a time. It kept going for nearly 200 years and continued trading all the way till 1963, though it was much reduced in size by this time.
I wonder if the cows were driven down Market Street on their way to being sold. Certainly they were grazed somewhere near the junction with George Street as the Graziers pub takes its name from the practice. I wonder too what the residents of South Parade made of having the market on their doorstep. I can’t imagine them appreciating the smell of cowshit whilst they were trying to enjoy their lovely gardens, but they should have known what they were letting themselves in for. The cattle market began so long ago that it had been going for over 25 years when the houses on South Parade were built in the 1790s.
There is a blue plaque detailing the
location and longevity of the market on the side of the sorting office.
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At the bottom of Smyth Street we encounter the first ascent of any significance since we left East Ardsley. I’m all right as I’m on an electric bike due to the irritating fact that I have MS, but by the time we’re at the top of this small hill Dave is suggesting that another pint is required in Harry’s bar. While there he pulls up some old maps on a favourite website of his and shows me how Wakefield centre looked one and two hundred years ago. The main thing that strikes me is just how many mini-breweries there were in Georgian and Victorian times. Was this a legacy of the medieval era when beer was the drink of choice instead of water, as there was less chance it would kill you? Or is it simply because the people of Wakefield have always enjoyed their alcohol? It was known as the Merrie City for centuries after all.
Having continued the city’s ancient tradition, we move on, down Westgate, then right at Henry Boons along the intriguingly named Parliament Street (it’s had several names apparently but I couldn’t find any evidence as to why it ended up being called thus). The foreboding entrance to HM high-security prison comes into view. A history of the institution and of some of its inmates is on my list for future posts but we don’t stop. We continue along Love Lane, which somehow seems an inappropriate name, given that it bisects the prison and an asylum seekers holding unit.
Once we reach Balne Lane, it’s onto Stratheden Road, before eventually traversing Wrenthorpe Park to reach Wrenthorpe Road. Then it’s down Trough Well Lane. Somewhere near its end is, I believe, where a World War Two bomb exploded, one of three high-explosive bombs that fell on Wakefield. As a pupil at Wrenthorpe Junior School, I recall being told that it blew out windows in the school.
We then turn right up Brandy Carr Road. The June sun is beating down hard now, teaming up with the current gradient to form an unpleasant alliance. After the long ride, Dave is starting to struggle. Even on an electric bike, I am too a little but I sail past him without any apparent effort. ‘I’m sure you would also be labouring up this hill if you weren’t battery-powered,’ he says through a sweaty-faced grimace, ‘and I could well do without your self-satisfied grin as you pass me.’ Well something like that anyway. I only catch two words and one of them is ‘off’.
His labours up the hill give me the opportunity to pause at the top of the road and peer through the gates at Prophet Wroe’s old mansion. POST 8 that explored the rip-roaring story of the charlatan John Wroe was one of my favourites and seemed to garner one of the biggest reactions from readers. If you are unaware of Wakefield’s very own Victorian cult leader, I urge you to give it your attention.
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I later read on one website that there was
another route we could have taken through Wrenthorpe that would have been apposite.
Jerry Clay Lane is named after a local landowner from around the turn of the 19th
century who had mining interests in the area, Jeremiah Clay, but in the 1851 census
the name of the road was returned as Prophet Wroe’s Way (it joins Brandy Carr Road at one end). I’m not quite sure how it attained this moniker in 1851 as the
mansion on Brandy Carr was not yet built, though Wroe had been knocking about
in Wakefield since around 1837, so presumably he had been putting on some of
his ‘miraculous’ shows and gathering followers in the vicinity for a while.
Jerry Clay Lane, at one time known as Prophet Wroe's Way apparently.
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The return to our starting point in East Ardsley beckons. Unfortunately this entails riding along the A650, side by side with its heavy traffic. I’m sure ‘Prophet’ Wroe would have been happy to offer us a blessing to ensure safe passage – for a fee – but we will have to take our chances without his help. I’m sure we’ll be OK and I’ll be able to shine some more light in the future on another aspect of Wakefield’s past, a past that lies hidden in plain sight.
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