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| A tourist information panel in Birstall |
Since arriving at Batley railway station at 10:37 am, I had spent an hour looking at the historic architecture on Station Road and in the Batley Market Place Conservation Area, with the intention of the catching the No. 281 bus to Birstall Retail Park, which was due to depart at 11.41 am.
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| An extract from the Nos. 281/283 bus timetable |
When planning my day out, I relied on the timetables on the West Yorkshire METRO website, which do not include a map and, although they list the timing points and main stops on the route, they are not very helpful to a visitor who does not know the area. Looking at Google Map, to locate the position of the bus stops on Wellington Street and the way to Birstall, I assumed that I would need to catch the bus from the Fox's Biscuits stop on the south side.
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| The stops for the No. 281 bus shown on the timetable |
I didn't see a timetable and when a bus finally arrived 10 minutes later than I had expected, it stated Dewsbury as its destination. With nobody else waiting at the stops on Wellington Street, it was only when the next bus arrived did I hail the bus, only to be told by the driver that the buses to Birstall actually left from the Fox's Biscuits stop on the other side of the road!
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| Market Place in Birstall |
Finally catching my No. 281 bus, I alighted on Low Lane and walked back to Market Place, which the 1854 Ordnance Survey (OS) map shows was at the heart of a settlement that was quite substantial, before the rapid post industrial revolution growth that took place in the region during the second half of the C19.
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| The 1854 Ordnance Survey map of Birstall |
Very many of the Victorian buildings remain and, although possessing no great architectural merit in their own right and not one of them being listed, the area around Market Place is quite attractive and these make a significant contribution to the character of Birstall Conservation Area.
Having arrived in Birstall 45 minutes later than planned, I was very aware that St. Peter's church, which was open for the 2024 Heritage Open Days festival, was due to close at 2 pm so I did not have time to go in search of buildings identified on my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge.
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| My British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Birstall |
Set at the east end of Market Place is a considerably larger than life bronze statue of Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, which was designed by Frances Darlington and erected by public subscription in 1912. According to a report in the Leeds Mercury "The statue represents Priestley in the act of plunging a lighted candle
into an inverted jar, the supreme moment of his life, when he made the
discovery of oxygen".
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| The statue of Joseph Priestley |
As always, as a geologist I was particularly interested in the grey granite that was used for the tapering square base. Looking at the polished panel with the description, the large rectangular phenocrysts of white alkali feldspar and the general colouration of the crystalline matrix, show this is characteristic of the Cornubian Batholith, which underlies much of Devon and Cornwall.
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| A polished panel showing alkali feldspar phenocrysts |
On Chapel Lane, I noticed a couple of large buildings built with sandstone ashlar and took a couple of general photos and I have since learned that one of these is St. John's Methodist Church (1864), which Historic England (HE) suggest may be by James Simpson - the architect responsible for the Methodist church on Hick Lane in Batley.
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| Views of St. John's Methodist Church |
Heading back to Chapel Lane and turning down Market Street, I next stopped to photograph the former Princess Picture Palace (1919), which I am quite surprised is not a listed building, because it has an ornate rounded pediment and has considerable social significance.
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| The former Palace Picture House |
Outside Birstall Library, I stopped very briefly to photograph the Poppy Paving by Chris Terry, which the plaque says was laid in 2014 as part of the WW1 Centenary and is made of stone and cobbles. I didn’t examine it closely, but the poppy looks like a Permo/Triassic red sandstone, with Cumbrian volcanic green slate used for the leaves.
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| The Poppy Paving |
A large building that was built between 1905 and 1915 is set on the corner of Low Lane and Kirkgate and is shown on the 1922 OS map as a Roman Catholic church, with an adjoining presbytery, but it now appears to have been converted to residential use.
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| The former Roman Catholic church and adjoining presbytery |
It is built with rock-faced sandstone walling with ashlar dressings, which is quite dirty and I cannot get a good idea of its colour characteristics. On its west elevation, a statue of a bishop is set into a niche, which is made with a white stone that looks quite weathered when I enlarge the photo, but I cannot tell if it is white Carrara marble or Portland stone.
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| A statue on the former Roman Catholic church |
On the opposite side of the road is one of a series of public buildings, which are marked in black and are described on the 1894 edition of the OS map as being schools, but which have since been converted to residential use.
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| A former school building on Kirkgate |
Adjacent to this is the Grade II listed former National School (1818), which is now used by a construction company. At each end, there are large square finials and two more of these are set on the crenellated parapet above the entrance porch.
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| The former National School |
To the immediate south-west of this is another single storey building that is part of the later C19 schools described above. It has a steep Welsh slate roof with velux windows and a porch on the south-east corner, with a staircase leading to an entrance to the roof space on the south elevation.
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| A former school building on Kirkgate |
To the west of this on Bradford Road is another school building that, as with the others described above, is built with a sandstone that has very distinct orange colouration, which is quite different to the uniformly coloured light brown Thornhill Rock that has been used to build the warehouses and public buildings in Batley.
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| A former school building on Bradford Road |
The 1854 OS map shows several quarries in Birstall, which worked Birstall Rock from the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation and it is therefore likely that all of these school buildings - the last mentioned having a date of 1885 on the lintel above its entrance – are built with this sandstone.
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| A detail of the former school building on Bradford Road |
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