3.015       THO c1840 FIR    BHM 659 B10

Paper   Scale: unknown  Date c.1840

Size: 95*62 cm    Condition: fair

This rather lovely estate map of Thornton shows properties, field boundaries and land-owners names in great detail. The overall arrangement of properties resembles the first Ordnance Survey map of Thornton which was surveyed in the late 1840s.

As you can see the map is entitled ‘Plan of Miss Firth’s Property in Thornton’. Underneath this printed description someone has added, in ink script, ‘Rev J C Franks estate’. Underneath this in turn is a single word in pencil which may be ‘Occupiers’ but is too faint for certainty. If the map is consistent then land-owners of property adjacent to the estate are added in ink, and pencilled names, scarcely legible here, might be the estate tenants.

The name Rev. Franks has appeared before in the Local Studies Library Reserve Collection maps. There is a plan of Kipping in the 1860s entitled ‘plan of projected Upper Kipping Estate, property of Rev James Clark Franks MA’. I made a note that Rev. Franks (1793 – 1867) was the Vicar of Huddersfield but that he clearly had properties in this area, possibly through his wife who was born in Kipping. There is also a railway planning map of 1875 entitled ‘Property required from Rev. John Firth Franks, Alderscholes Lane, Thornton’. The limited type of family history research of which I am capable suggests that the two men were father and son. John Firth Franks (1826-1917) survived until the 20^th century and his middle name suggests that the estate passed to his father from Miss Firth by inheritance rather than purchase. His father James Clark Franks, then incumbent of Sowerby Bridge, married an Elizabeth Firth in 1824 at St Peter’s Church, Bradford. He had been a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge and seems to have been quite a distinguished scholar. Did he acquire an estate through the death of his wife’s aunt or sister?

The use of a first name for Miss Firth would have helped the process of identification enormously. We have the 1770 enclosure map for Thornton which suggests that this estate was on land enclosed before the passing of the late eighteenth century Enclosure Act. One of the names of those subsequently awarded parts of the common was a Dr John Firth. William Cudworth in Round About Bradford mentions a Firth family, and in particular a Joshua Firth, living at nearby Allerton Hall in 1777. In 2009 the Thornton Antiquarian Society published Thornton 1751-1938 which is a fascinating collection of newspaper items mentioning the area which were collected by historian Jean K Brown. One from the Leeds Mercury in 1823 mentions that Kipping Mansion House was ‘presently occupied by Mrs Firth’. I can find Miss Firth in Land Tax Records for 1821 and 1823 but since no first name is provided there either, so I’m not much further forward.

Since I first put this map on-line some years ago I have had access to a collection of images from the Local Studies Library reserve collection. Although a generation later than the map these photographs do illustrate some of the map features, and also indicate some of the new developments.

This late nineteenth century postcard shows the Wesleyan School at Thornton. This was on West Lane. It was associated with the Bethesda Wesleyan Methodist Chapel which was constructed in 1824 but has now been demolished. The school building is still present but has been converted into residential property.

This old photograph is annotated ‘Thornton Church’. The shape of the tower, and the fact that it is offset on the nave, identifies it as St James Anglican church. This was built in 1871 on the opposite side of the road from the Old Bell Chapel. Famously St James has an east window made to a William Morris design. I was surprised that the photograph shows so little development round the church, but OS maps shows that this was still the case c.1890. Can you spot Clayton gasworks?

The church also figures in this photograph of Thornton Mill.

This postcard is of ‘New Road Congregational Church, Thornton’. The OS map detail from 1890 shows a ground plan that seems to fit the image. It has now been demolished. Kipping Chapel was an Independent Congregationalist place of worship originally built in 1769, but now with an 1827 datestone indicating a substantial reconstruction. It survives.

Thornton Viaduct is a beautiful (and listed) S-shaped construction which took the Queensbury to Keighley line over the Pinch Beck and its valley. It can now be crossed on foot since the trains are long gone. Since the railway line first opened in 1884 this photograph from the Local Studies Library may well have been taken when the viaduct was new.