Ripley Ville or Ripleyville was an estate of model houses for the working classes in the West Bowling ward of the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England.
Started in 1866 the development was built for the industrialist, politician and philanthropist Henry William Ripley. It was intended as a commercial development of model houses but when completed in 1881 had many aspects of an industrial model village – although residency was not limited to Ripley's employees. It was the only model village in the Borough of BradfordSaltaire was not incorporated into the City of Bradford until the 1970s and can be compared with Akroydon in Halifax, built by Ripley's friend and schoolmate Edward Akroyd, Saltaire and model housing schemes in other West Riding textile towns. includes descriptions of Saltaire, Copley, Ackroyden, West Hill Park, Wilshaw and Meltham Mills. Ripley Ville contained 196 workmen's cottages, a school and teacher's house, a church, allotment gardens and, on a separate site about a half-mile distant, a vicarage and ten almshouses which are still standing although all the other buildings had been demolished by 1970.
Background
By the 1860s Ripley was managing partner of the Bowling Dye works, founded by his grandfather in 1808. In 1822 the dye works had relocated from West Bowling to a site in Spring Wood next to the Spring Wood Colliery pumping shaft – which supplied the works with steam and water. The works employed 18 men and boys. From 1835 as the junior partner Henry was "regarded as the boss of the dyehouse". He built up the business to be the biggest dye works in Yorkshire. From the Bowling Iron Works he purchased the freehold of the dye works and about 100 acres of land surrounding it and subsequently built up the landholding to about 130 acres. The landholding added to the available water supply – "The whole of the water required for the supply of the works is an available source of 1,250,000 gallons per day". To the dye works income he had added income from several mills: "the enterprise and forsight of the late Sir Henry Ripley who erected .. many large blocks wholly devoted to the worsted industry" rented out on a "room and power" basis, from a water works (supplying 600,000 gallons per day) and a gas works. He was recognised as one of Bradford's "big four" industrialists alongside Titus Salt, Samuel Lister and Isaac Holden. As a councillor, JP and public figure Ripley was deeply involved in the debates which engaged the recently (1847) incorporated borough council and its citizens.
After four decades of rapid economic and population growth Bradford had some of the worst housing and sanitary conditions in the UK and about the lowest life expectancy. A sanitary commissioner reported – "Taking the general condition of Bradford, I am obliged to pronounce it to be the most filthy town I visited."James Smith, Report on the Sanatory Condition of the Town of Bradford, Health of Towns Commission, 2nd Report, 1845, Vol. XVIII, Pt.2, p.315. In 1850 Titus Salt relocated his mills outside of the town and embarked on developing his model community at Saltaire. Bradford's Building and Improvement Committee reported in 1855 to the council "Your committee again beg to draw the attention of the Council and the public to the continued practice of building houses back-to-back. Out of 1401 sanctioned, 1070 or 76.9 per cent are laid out upon that objectionable principle.".George Sheeren.Back-to-back houses in Bradford. Bradford Antiquary 1986 in volume 2, pp. 47–53, of the third series. Bradford council passed a series of building bylaws (1854, 1860, 1866 and 1870 – entries under the relevant years. ) intended to ensure that new houses were of a decent standard. The bylaw of 1860 effectively banned construction of back to back houses which had been the predominant form of working class housing for 30 years. The building interests mounted a campaign to have the bylaw rescinded, maintaining it was impossible to build "through" houses at a price that working-class people could afford and as evidence pointed to the precipitate fall in new building starts. In the elections of 1865 the chairman of the Building and Improvement Committee lost his seat and was replaced by a councillor more sympathetic to the building interests. In 1866 Bradford council issued a revised by-law which allowed construction of "back to backs" provided they met stringent requirements for space, ventilation, water supply and sanitary provision. These "tunnel backs" became Bradford's predominant form of working-class houses during the next 20 years. The council approved no further plans for back to back houses after the 1870 bylaw but the builders had a sufficient stock of approvals to continue building them well into the 1890s.
Ripley was not convinced by the arguments of the speculative builders. In November 1865 he issued a prospectus for the construction of 300 "Working-men's dwellings" on his own land. They were four-bedroom through houses with rear yards and front gardens and equipped with an internal WC. The houses were intended for sale to small landlords and owner occupiers with a provision for rental purchase and some renting. The Bradford firm Andrews and Pepper were appointed architects. The specification for the Ripley Ville houses was influenced by the proponents of model housing, such as J.Hole and Godwin, editor of "The Builder" and the practices of contemporary model builders in the West Riding. By the mid 1860s the views of the improvers had moved on from the provision of basic accommodation to considerations of lighting, ventilation, heating, storage, privacy and open space. The design of the Ripley Ville houses incorporated these enhanced standards, and in several respects exceeded them.
Construction
Planning permission to build 254 houses was granted on 24 January 1866. Four invitations to tender appeared in the Bradford Observer – the first on 23 March 1866 and the fourth and final on 21 March 1867. sets out the planning approval and invitations to tender dates. amounting in total to 200 houses. The reduction in the number of houses to be built in part reflected the decision to include a school. Planning approval for the school was given 8 June 1867.
All the houses were completed by early 1868 and the school was in use by autumn that year. Houses built under tenders 1 and 2 were completed with internal WCs in the cellar. A change of plan in spring 1867 led houses built under tenders 3 and 4 having external ash closets. Tenders 1 and 2 houses were retrofitted with external ash closets and the WCs removed. Reasons for the change remain obscure. reports that a plan for WC's in the Akroyden houses was dropped in view of the high water charges the Halifax Corporation demanded. Bradford Corporation bought Ripley's public supply water works in late 1866; this may have resulted in an increase in charges above the level Ripley's water works would have levied. The Corporation water works was desperately short of water in the 1860s and 1870s and discouraged the use of WC's. See .
On 11 December 1868 the Bradford Ten Churches Building Committee announced its intention to build its tenth church in Ripley Ville on land donated by Ripley.Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 14 December 1868 "Church building at Bradford". Leeds Mercury 12 December 1868 "Proposed New Church at Bowling" T.H and F Healey who designed Our Lady and St James Church in Worsbrough were appointed architects. St Bartholomew's Church was consecrated in December 1872. The architecture and townscape of Ripley Ville was complete and remained substantially unchanged until demolition a century afterwards. In 1875 a vicarage for the incumbent of St Bartholomew's was completed on land given by Ripley at the extreme southern boundary of his landholding. At that time it was a semi rural environment. In 1881 ten almshouses were built at the cost of Ripley on a plot close to the vicarage. Six of the almshouses replaced almshouses built in 1857 on a site which had been partly taken over by the Thornton Railway.During construction the Thornton Railway Company was incorporated into the Great Northern Railway Company (GNR).
Site and architectural scheme
In 1865 more than 80 acres of Ripley's land holding were still undeveloped. The area was dotted with the Bowling Iron Company's former mine workings. Several old mine shafts had been converted to wells to provide the dye works with its soft water supply. Ripley Ville occupied most of the Broom Hall Estate: Broom Hall was a working farmhouse into the 1860s. The northern part of the estate had been acquired by the Great Northern Railway Company (GNR) to build the Bowling Curves that opened in 1867. The site chosen for Ripley Ville had the disadvantage being irregularly shaped with steep gradients. Its central street fell 40 feet over a distance of 300 feet but it was relatively free of old mine workings and contiguous to the urban development along Hall Lane which gave access to the town centre.
The site's gradients and the irregular shape determined the architectural scheme. Thirteen terraces of houses along four residential streets were laid out on a north–south axis. The outer streets, Vere Street and Ripley Terrace had houses on one side and full width carriageways. The internal Sloane and Saville Streets had 6 ft pedestrian walkways separating the front gardens. The cobbled back streets provided access for wheeled traffic and contained the mains services (water, gas, sewerage). Three streets on an east-west alignment (Ellen Street, Linton Street and Merton Street) provided access to the residential streets and locations for retail premises and public buildings.
The development had 196 houses with three sizes of house, 25 of the largest Type 1 houses in two terraces, 140 of the intermediate Type 2 houses in nine terraces and 31 of the smallest Type 3 houses in two terraces. The front elevations, apart from a small difference in width, were identical for each type, and permitted a unified architectural scheme.
The church was completed four years after the houses and school by other architects and it seems that Andrews and Pepper's scheme anticipated a major building at this point. The impact of the completed scheme was dramatic, especially when viewed from the east. Ripley terrace was virtually level along its 750 ft length. The slight fall of about 4 ft was compensated for by building up gardens walls in the lower section so that doors and windows remained in alignment. Behind the south section of the terrace the school buildings rose above the house roofs with the pinnacle of the clock tower about 50 feet above the roof ridge of the houses. Behind the central and north sections of Ripley Terrace the roof lines of the successive terraces rose in echelon with the gable of St Bartholomew's rising 40 feet above the highest roofs. The pyramidical theme was repeated in the front elevations of the terraces.
Architectural punctuation of the terraces' front elevations was provided by tall gables to the terminal and central houses. In the north section the outer terraces had gables intermediate between the central and terminal houses. Different designs of gable window were used in different terraces. Left and right handed houses were used to provide symmetry. In a left-handed house the front door was to the left of the ground floor window. In a-right handed house it was to the right. The handedness changed in the centre of the terrace and was marked by a gable house. Between the gable house and its partner was a double chimney stack. Thus there were no chimney stacks on the terminal walls of the terrace and each terminal wall had a front door adjacent to it.