Bradford Lost Neighbourhoods Come to Life Through New Video Series

We think things like houses last forever. English villages seem permanent. They offer a sense of safety. We don’t expect our towns to vanish. But everything changes. Neighborhoods can disappear fast.

I grew up in Bierley, near Bradford. Schools and church shaped my childhood. Bierley was my identity. My grandparents saw Bierley change; it was greener with fewer houses then. I thought Bierley would always be there.

Later, I worked near Bradford. Students named areas by postcodes; they said BD4 or BD5. They lacked connection to neighborhood names. This shift will likely continue. Older Bradford names may fade.

This has happened before. Broomfields and Wapping are examples. Bradford people used these names every day. Silsbridge Lane joined Goitside later. Road work changed the area.

Major changes erased locales sometimes. Bermondsey went away when they built a station. Listerhills vanished for the university’s construction. They tore down twenty-two streets there. Longlands also faced this decline.

Longlands sits northwest of Bradford’s center. Housing mixes with warehouses and roads there. Newer houses stand by older tenement buildings. People now call it Chain Street; others see it as part of the city.

Longlands was open fields once. The industrial revolution changed that fast. Factories needed worker homes quickly. Longlands became crowded, filled with cheap, back-to-back houses. There was no clean water then either.

Overcrowding rose quickly among working families. Disease and poverty spread. The city saw slums develop. George Street and Wapping were also affected. Longlands was worst for health issues.

Frederick Jowett focused on Longlands. Jowett worked to improve worker conditions. He used housing laws and could declare an area unsanitary. The city bought and rebuilt the land.

In 1898, Longlands was called a “sore.” Jowett gained support to change the neighborhood.