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Plan of Leeds, 1806.

THE plan of Leeds which I have been asked to describe is dated 1806, and appears to rank next in point of time after the second of the two which were reproduced in Volume IX of the Society's Transactions, and so well described by Colonel Wilson.1 It was found amongst some papers which had belonged to my grandfather, Thomas Benson Pease, who died in 1846, and who, though not, I believe, a native of the town, lived all his life in Leeds, and took a very active interest in its affairs. He was one of the Commissioners named in the Leeds Improvement Act of 1824, which authorised the removal of "the Middle Row."

The plan was published by John Heaton, who was a well known bookseller and publisher in Leeds, but there is no internal evidence. as to its author. He can hardly have been a surveyor of any note, since the work is extremely crude; indeed the principal streets might have been traced by a ruler, they are so extraordinarily straight and generally at right angles to each other. From the point of view of accuracy in delineation, the plan is almost valueless; but it is interesting as a link between its predecessor of 1771, and the beautiful survey of 1815 by Netlam and Francis Giles; and as illustrating the growth of the town. The Leeds of 1771, as shewn by the map of that date, is very little different from the Leeds of Thoresby's time, as portrayed by the earlier map, which is dated 1725 by Colonel Wilson. Some of the main roads have more buildings alongside them, but there is no laying out of streets or appropriation of fields and gardens for building purposes. In 1806, after an interval of thirty-five years which separates the plan of 1771 from that now under consideration, a great change has come over the town. On every side we see expansion, though on the north and south less building has taken place than on the west and east. Commercial Street (called Bond Street at its eastern end) has been

1 I have just learned that a plan of Leeds dated about 1780 is in the possession of Mr. T. Blair, but I have not seen it.

cut from Briggate to Albion Street, and all the ground to the west of Lands Lane, which in 1771 appears as fields and gardens, has been laid out in streets and squares. To the east of the Parish Church, the Mill Garth and the land adjoining Timble Beck have nearly all been built over.

The town is no longer in that condition which induced Leland two and a half centuries before to say it was not so quick as Bradford, but has started on the career of prosperity which is to characterise it for the next hundred years.

It is impossible now to decide whether the publisher had any definite purpose in issuing this plan. I thought at first it might have been intended to illustrate a directory or guide to the town. The directory of 1797 was published by Thomas Wright, the proprietor of the Leeds Intelligencer, who lived in New Street leading to St. John's Church, and had a bookseller's shop in Briggate. I believe subsequent editions were published, and indeed my copy (which belonged to Griffith Wright) is corrected in manuscript for 1798, as if for the printer. But I do not know that John Heaton had any business connection with the Wrights, or that he ever himself published a directory or guide. was printed by Edward Baines "for the 1808 was printed by John Ryley, and J. Heaton. But it has no plan. Nor has the little compilation entitled "A Walk through Leeds," dated 1806 and published by John Heaton. The directory of 1817, which was published by Edward Baines, has no plan of Leeds, and I know of no intermediate work of that kind. One must conclude, in the absence of further evidence, that the issue of this plan was a venture on the part of John Heaton, unconnected with any particular object. And I think the edition must have been very limited, as I never saw or heard of a copy before.

The Leeds Guide of 1806 Author." The reprint of sold by (amongst others)

Turning now to the plan itself, we find that Briggate still ends at the Middle Row, and that the Prison still stands on the south side of Kirkgate. It was not removed till 1813, when the new Court House and Prison in Park Row was completed. The Middle Row was removed in 1825 under the powers of the Improvement Act of 1824. So long before as 1765 these buildings were felt to be an inconvenience, as appears by the following from the Leeds Intelligencer, 10 September, 1765:-"The inhabitants at the Back of the Shambles "began last week to take in their Shop windows and pull down their "Penthouses in order to make a better Passage for carriages; the

"want of which has been long and loudly complained of: but much "more to the credit of this opulent town wou'd it be to purchase "the whole Pile of Buildings which are in the Middle and so greatly "obstruct the passage of that otherwise noble street (Briggate) . . . . .” The new street opposite Kirkgate and extending to Albion Street is called Bond Street on our map as far as Lands Lane, and thenceforward Commercial Street. It is so named in the plan of 1815 and in Charles Fowler's plan of 1821, and it was not till the extension to Park Row was carried out, some time between 1821 and 1826, that the present names were bestowed. Commercial Street

from Albion Street to Lands Lane must have been laid out some time before the Bond Street of our map. Mr. C. D. Hardcastle, in his paper on "Leeds in my Grandfather's Days," says that on the 12th April, 1S06, all the materials of the tenements in Briggate, lately occupied by Mr. Hugh Bell and nine under-tenants, were advertised for sale: "This range will be pulled down forthwith, to make a projected "new street from Briggate to Commercial Street." Probably Commercial Street was laid out about the same time as Albion Street. The plan of 1821 shews a projected extension of Commercial Street in a straight line across Albion Street to Park Row, but this must have been abandoned for some reason and the present curved street constructed before 1826, as it is so shewn in Fowler's plan of that date. The Bond Street of to-day, from Park Row to East Parade, was constructed before 1821, and was in the first place called Russell Street. In the early years of the last century, a sedan chair was kept for hire in a cellar in Commercial Street, and my mother, who was born in 1814, remembered riding in it as a child. The following advertisement, taken from the Leeds Mercury of November 3rd, 1804, shews that Commercial Street was not yet a street of shops :-"To be let two "newly-erected messuages in Commercial Street, Leeds, each containing "2 good cellar kitchens with oven grates and pots therein, 2 rooms on "the ground floor with 6 lodging rooms above . . . . . Commercial "Street is one of the most pleasing airy and healthful situations in "Leeds and very convenient for trade and market.”

Our plan shews the whole of the land in these two streets as built over, but this cannot have been the case, as in the map of 1815 there is vacant ground in both of them.

1771, but the

It was kept in

The inns in Briggate are much the same as in old King's Arms is soon to disappear from the list. 1797 by J. Hick, but in January, 1813, it had ceased to be an inn. The building is still standing, and is occupied by Mr. Bean, the

bookseller, and others, but it has been acquired by the Corporation and will be removed in the widening of Duncan Street. It was the scene of rioting in 1753, when the people resisted the introduction of turnpikes, and in front of this house, in which the magistrates met to deliberate, the military fired with fatal effect upon the mob. In 1797 it must have been the principal coaching house in the town, since five coaches left for London and other places, while from no other inn did more than three depart. It belonged to Joseph Wood, a hatter in Briggate, who gave his name to Wood Street (now demolished by the Leeds Estates Company), and who dwelt in St. Peter's Square, and it remained in his descendants' possession till the Corporation bought it.

Lower down Briggate the name "Hotel" appears. In the Directory of 1817, under the heading "Inns, Tavern," &c., is the following:"Hotel, Sarah Greaves, Briggate." It is curious as being the only house called a hotel, and was probably the first to be so designated, I imagine it is the same as the Royal Hotel, so long kept by Stanwix. In the map of 1815, it is called Greaves' Hotel.

Boar Lane presents very much the same appearance in our plan as in that of 1771, except that the ground between what is now Albion Street and Bank Street is apparently built over. Alfred Street is not yet in existence, but it was laid out very soon afterwards. I have just come across some particulars of sale, dated 1809, of property belonging to Richard Lee, a merchant and manufacturer, and who appears to have been also receiver of land tax and other duties. He made default in his accounts, and a writ of extent was sued out against him in the Court of Exchequer, under which his lands were seized and sold by the Deputy Remembrancer. Lot VII is described as "a capital messuage situate on the south side of Boar Lane "in Leeds now in the occupation of John Kemplay with the "bookbinder's shop occupied by Henry Dodsworth," and other buildings, "with the yard and part of the garden containing 900 "square yards or thereabouts including 240 yards now staked off on "the west side of the said yard and garden for the purpose of "forming part of a certain intended new street of 15 feet wide or "thereabouts to be called Union Street and to lead from Boar Lane "aforesaid into a certain other intended new street of 26 feet wide "or thereabouts to be called Fenton Street."

Then follow other lots of land, some abutting upon Union Street and some on Fenton Street, with rights of way for some of the latter through White Horse Yard, and for all of them through a covered passage into Briggate.

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