These pages will include all street names, area names, places, and building names, extracted from Ordnance Survey, other maps, and other printed sources. Old Ordnance Survey maps are available to view online at the National Library of Scotland.
Where there are bold dark green words which are underlined, clicking on them will link to more information. Currently a check of information from online newspapers is underway.
The area covered will be shown soon, but is that in the current Thornton part of the Thornton and Allerton electoral ward, plus the whole of Keelham and the north side of Well Heads (currently in the Bingley Rural Ward). From 5 August 2023, West Scholes, Pit Lane. Low Lane and about one hundred houses in Mountain are also being added, as queries are received about this area, which was transferred to Queensbury civl parish in the year 2000. (Updated 10 August 2023)
List of sources checked to date:
1849 Tithe award map for Thornton. It shows every field name and every dwelling. A key to field numbers giving their names, their owners and occupiers, is freely downloadable from the link above. The map includes much of Denholme and West Scholes which were then in the Thornton Township.
1852 (Surveyed from 1847, published 1852) Ordnance Survey map. Scale 6 inches to the mile. Few road names are given. The main road shown is the Bradford and Thornton Turnpike Trust road from Bradford centre to the Keighley and Halifax Turnpike Trust road, what we know today as Thornton Road. At this time the only means of getting from A to B was on foot or by riding a horse or being in a cart or carriage pulled by one or more horses.
1891/2, (published 1893/4) Ordnance Survey. Scale 25 inches to the mile. Transport now includes the Bradford and Thornton Railway and the Halifax, Thornton and Keighley Railway.
1905 Ordnance Survey, published 1908. Scale 25 inches to the mile. Transport now includes a tram from and to Bradford.
1914 Ordnance Survey, published 1921. Scale 25 inches to the mile. An abundance of Allotment gardens, following the 1908 Small Holdings and Allotments Act.
1933/4, Ordnance Survey, published 1934/5. 25 inches to the mile. The Council estate, is shown. It was built in the late 1920s.
1947 Ordnance survey map, surveyed from 1934. 6 inches to the mile
2023 Historic England’s list of Listed Buildings This is the most up-to-date list of Listed Buildings, and gives an indication of the age of those buildings. Details about those listed buildings are copied from the official list, in whole or in part. Generally I have used numerals, rather than Roman numerals, i.e “Grade 2”, rather than the offical “Grade II”, which looks like eleven.
From 1947 most Ordnance Survey maps are of a small scale and do not show changes which are easy to spot. Existing roads will be listed, and dates as to when they were built will follow.
Census Returns from 1841 to 1921 and the 1939 Register.
Local Newspapers from 1750.
Currently I’m rechecking each entry for further information, and researching biographies of people and the history of the mills.
As with the whole of this website all pages continue to be updated daily. From 21 October 2022 the dates when new information is added, or other changes made, is given at the end of the entry.
From sometime soon the list will be split into 4 sections, of places starting with the letters A to D, E to K, L to R, and S to Z. This is to help people using mobile ‘phones, tablets and laptop PCs who cannot quickly zoom through a long list. (Updated 2 March 2024)
Links to places starting with letters shown.
Click or press to see places
All About Thornton 