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Wellington Bridge
(1819/1974)
Wellington Bridge marks the western end of the motorway section of the Inner Ring Road. This is a major gateway into Leeds from the South West and is the busiest stretch of road in the city centre. However this motorway flyover has much humbler origins going back more than 200 years.
In the 1810s there was only one crossing over the Aire, the ancient stone structure of Leeds Bridge. There had long been discussions about building new bridges to ease this bottleneck and stimulate the growth of Leeds, an increasingly important commercial centre. These discussions were starting to bear fruit when several prominent people in the town, mainly local businessmen, pledged thousands of pounds of their own money to finance the building of a new river crossing at this location, known then as Bean Ing.
One of these businessmen was Benjamin Gott, a famous son of Leeds and the wealthy owner of the nearby Bean Ing Mills. Also known as Park Mills, it was the first woollen mill in the world where all the different manufacturing processes were tightly integrated together. Raw wool was processed into finished cloth all in one factory, making the whole process quicker and cheaper. Previously the different stages of washing, combing, spinning, dyeing, weaving would have been carried out at different factories, often miles apart.
A new bridge at this location would have greatly benefitted Mr. Gott, making it easier to move materials and goods from his factory across the river to the nearby canal and further south.
Eventually, funding was secured and an application to parliament was made in 1817 to build the bridge and also a short road connecting the new bridge with the existing Leeds to Bradford road. This was to be the first toll bridge in Leeds and the fees received would be used to repay its benefactors.
The bridge was opened on the 18th of June 1819, the 4th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The bridge was named after the Duke of Wellington, commander of the victorious British-led allied armies in that battle.
Other roads followed, with the Leeds to Birstall Turnpike (now Gelderd Road) and the Leeds to Whitehall Turnpike (now Whitehall Road) adding to the importance of this route.
Bean Ing Mills and Wellington Bridge from an 1821 map
Soon the railways appeared and the area became surrounded by goods warehouses, run by the various different railway companies. Evidence of this still exists today, with the beautifully preserved Roundhouse Engine Shed nearby just south of the canal.
In the early 1960s the Bean Ing Mills were closed after an impressive 170 years of use, and the site was cleared. The Yorkshire Post acquired the land and built a state of the art facility, one of the most advanced in the world at the time, that would house their new print works and offices. The new complex, with its famous clock tower was opened in 1970 by HRH Prince Charles.
By the mid-1970s, plans were underway for the third stage of the Inner Ring Roadwhich involved a new expanded flyover junction between Wellington Road, Wellington Street and Kirkstall Road. The western end of the flyover, opening in November 1974, combined the old stone bridge with a modern concrete and steel structure. It is especially wide as it incorporates a 2-lane dual carriageway with slip roads and footpaths. The original bridge now forms the northbound exit slip road onto Kirkstall Road (A65). The 1819 bridge is still there but is now difficult to see, mainly obscured from view by the modern concrete parapets.
For years the Yorkshire Post Tower sported a digital display, alternating between the time and the temperature (in Fahrenheit, naturally), and was an impressive sight for motorists sweeping over the motorway flyover and through the city, especially when illuminated at night.
The Yorkshire Post buildings were vacated in 2012 when printing was outsourced to another location, and the site was again sold off for redevelopment. Despite the newspaper building’s demolition, the clock tower was given a reprieve, and remains – albeit quite decrepit – to this day. However its future is highly uncertain with no guarantees of its continued existence. Whether or not it lives on, it will quickly be dwarfed by three huge residential towers soon to be built on this site.
