Starting Point - Shipley station. Finishing Point - Bradford Forster Square station
It is hardly surprising that the city of Bradford, famous for its mills, would be connected to the canal network. Though the Leeds and Liverpool Canal is still navigable a few miles away in Shipley, little remains of the Bradford Canal that connected to it there.
Below - The former junction between the Bradford Canal and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Shipley, just a short stub of the canal at the junction remains on the left of the picture.
I started my walk at Shipley station, a station that retains many of its original buildings. The station is on a triangular junction and originally platforms were only provided on the routes to and from Bradford. One platform was added on the through line in 1979 requiring Skipton to Leeds trains to cross over to call until a second platform on the through line was provided in 1992.
The surviving Shipley station was the Midland Railway station, originally another station was provided for Great Northern Railway trains on their line from Bradford via Idle. The buildings of the former Shipley & Windhill station survive on Leeds Road (previously known as Bridge Road at this point) just east of the existing station. In recent years there have been proposals to demolish the former station to build apartments, the station isn't listed and inconvenient listed buildings in the Bradford area tend to burn down anyway so the future doesn't look good for the former station.
Below - The former Shipley & Windhill station.
Just east of the former Shipley Windhill station the road crossed over the canal on a bridge.
Below - View to the north from the filled in bridge, the ramp that lead down to the towing path can be seen with the site of the canal now occupied by the car park. On the right the former pumping station for the canal can be seen.
On the other side of the former bridge the canal has been filled to road level and landscaped over. Turning off Leeds Road on to Dock Lane leads to a couple of buildings related to the canal and the former junction with the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.
The canal was opened in 1774, the same year as the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. It climbed significantly from the Aire Valley to reach Bradford with 10 locks in its 3.5 mile route. Where as canals in open countryside might have had reservoirs to keep the water levels topped up, the summit of this canal was in an industrialised city and the canal had a problem with running dry. It also had problems with sewerage with several mills and factories polluting it with contaminated water that had been used in whatever industrial processes. In 1866 it was condemned as a public health hazard and closed for four years while upgrades to the water supply were made.
Below - The former pumping house. The building is marked with the 1872 date, a couple of years after the situation had been improved enough to reopen the canal.
Below - The former junction with the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.
Below - Bridge across the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at the former junction.
Below - Junction Mills seen across the stub of the Bradford Canal
Below - Filled in bridge under the railway.
Across the road from the former Shipley & Windhill Station a path roughly follows the route of the canal much of the way towards Bradford, though the path tends to be to the west of the former canal.
Below - Bridge under Briggate, another lock was situated here with a pumping station on the left.
Below - The other side of the bridge that carried Briggate over the canal.
Below - One of the mill streams fed from Bradford Beck that would once have powered one of the many mills along the route.
For a while the canal has been landscaped over and the path runs to the west of where it once was. There is a no sign of a bridge at Poplar Road but looking through old maps it seems this road was built around the time the canal closed so it was probably built over the canal. Poplar Crescent was built along the course of the canal, houses are built on one side but on the west side of the road the embankment of the former canal falls away quite steeply and that side hasn't been built on.
Below - At Gaisby Lane the former canal bridge survives, though is filled in.
Below - Modern houses and their gardens can be seen encroaching onto the former canal south of Gaisby Lane on the right.
The path that vaguely follows the route of the canal runs along the opposite side of the King George V Playing Field, though it was possible to walk through the field closer to the course of the canal. Where the canal passed under Stanley Road the bridge is still in situ tucked away in the trees in the corner of the field, though fenced off at one side and filled in on the other. Poking around in the leaves with my feet, there seemed to be stone slabs in situ that were possibly the edge of the canal towpath.
Below - The bridge under Stanley Road.
Below - The Stanley Road bridge from above.
Below - Close to the Stanley Road bridge was this structure I was intrigued by, looking at later old maps reveal it to be an air vent for a tunnel to Esholt Sewage Works, something that must have been a massive engineering project.
With the completion of this tunnel the sewage works situated between the canal and Canal Road (where the playing fields are now) closed, though this would seem to be around the time the canal closed. Sewage had been a problem throughout the canal's history resulting in upgrades to the local sewage systems.
South of Stanley Road the course of the canal is now largely in industrial uses with just a few surviving remnants to show the canal was there. A large timber yard occupies the former canal for some distance.
Below - Retaining wall behind the houses on Canal Road. At the top of the wall was the towpath on this side and the canal, the timber yard now occupies the site.
Below - Queen's Road crossed Canal Road and the canal on a three arch viaduct, the canal ran under the arch on the right.
Below - At the time of my visit a couple of gasometers remained of the Valley Road Gas Works, though these were in the process of being demolished. The works is seen from King's Road looking north, the canal passed the works on the right.
Below - The bridge that carried King's Road (previously Tordoff Road) over the canal.
The rest of the canal is now lost under redevelopment and the widening of Canal Road, the junction with Shipley Airedale Road occupying the site of the wharfs.
Below - Conditioning House. Behind me were once the canal wharfs and warehouses.
Below - The frontage of Conditioning House on Cape Street.
Below - The canal warehouses and wharf were once on the right of the picture, beyond the trees the junction from Canal Road to Shipley Airedale Road now occupies the site.
Below - The former Midland Mills, currently derelict and awaiting either redeveloped or arson as is often the case around Bradford.
From here it was a short walk to Bradford Forster Square for a train home. The station also featured in a walk I did earlier featuring Railways around Bradford.
The canal did continue closer to the centre of Bradford as the earlier map above shows, originally running between Canal Road and Bolton Road almost to Forster Square. This area has seen a lot of redevelopment since the canal was truncated in 1867 when the canal was modernised. A couple of rows of warehouses between Canal Road and Bolton Road have a gap between where the canal once ran but these post-date the filling of the canal.
On the railway related walk I did around Bradford I mentioned Hammerton Street which was once the course of a waggonway from mines in the Bowling area. Coal and iron goods from Bowling Iron Works were transshipped from the waggonway to the canal, though would have had to be carted along Leeds Road about 200 yards. Though Hammerton Street follows the course of the old waggonway there is no indication today that it was once a waggonway.
More information about the history of the canal can be found on the Wikipedia article.
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