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Leeds Bridge (1873)
This is the location where a permanent crossing was first established over the River Aire in Leeds. The elegant iron structure you are standing on today is not that first bridge, nor even the second, but the latest in a succession of bridges that can lay claim to the title of Leeds Bridge. This ‘new’ bridge is a mere 150 years old but is a far cry from the narrow, cramped crossings of the past.
A bridge in some form has existed at this location for at least 800 years, possibly much longer. The earliest bridges were made of wood, eventually replaced by stone structures. Until the early 19th century this was the only place you could walk across the river without getting your feet wet!
Leeds was quite literally built around the bridge. The main North-South thoroughfare, Briggate, essentially means ‘the way to the bridge’. Communities south of the river such as Hunslet and Holbeck became established as population centres due to the vicinity of the river crossing.
As far back as the 16th century the narrow stone arched bridge was the focal point of the twice-weekly cloth market. The booming cloth trade in Leeds rapidly increased to the extent that during market hours the bridge was almost impassable, being only a few feet wide. Eventually in 1648 the cloth markets were relocated to Lower Briggate, and subsequently to the new cloth halls in the 1700s.
The stone bridge was widened twice in the 18th century before several private toll bridges at other points on the river started to appear in the early 19th century. Despite these alternative crossings, the old Leeds Bridge remained the busiest, not least because you didn’t have to pay to cross it! By the 1850s over 50,000 people per day crossed the bridge on foot alone.
A postcard depicting Old Leeds Bridge prior to demolition in the 1870s. Image: Andrew Silver.
This dramatic increase in traffic during the 19th century led to the present iron bridge being commissioned by Leeds Corporation as part of the 1869 Leeds Improvement Act, a wide-ranging parliamentary bill first proposed in the 1840s, which attempted to mitigate many of the infrastructural issues associated with the rapidly expanding population of the now heavily industrialised Leeds.
The contract for designing the bridge was awarded to the Welsh engineer Thomas Dyne Steel, with the ironwork produced locally at the Stanningley Iron Works. Work commenced in 1871 but because the bridge was so crucial to day-to-day business, a temporary wooden bridge first had to be constructed before the old stone bridge was demolished.
The new single-span wrought iron bridge opened to traffic on the 9th of July 1873 with great fanfare. A large crowd turned out in fine weather to witness the civic dignitaries of the town form a procession from the Town Hall down to the bridge for an opening ceremony.
This bridge was a far more generous affair. It was nearly twice the width of the old one – 60 feet wide. Comparisons were hastily made to other famous bridges of the day – a whole 4 foot wider than London Bridge! (sadly today’s London Bridge comfortably exceeds the width of Leeds Bridge by at least 40 feet).
Local businesses in the vicinity of the bridge wasted no time associating themselves with it. Newspaper ads for clothing companies directly mentioned the bridge, as people came from far and wide to inspect its craftsmanship, and to perhaps make the purchase of a new suit at the same time.
Several years later in 1888, a French cinematographer named Louis Le Prince, who was based in Leeds at the time, pointed his experimental camera out of an upper window of the white building overlooking the bridge and filmed traffic and people going about their daily business. The 3-second clip is one of the world’s first ever examples of moving pictures on film and is commemorated by a blue plaque. It also inspired the Leeds International Film Festival, first held in 1987, just prior to the centenary of that famous film.
