Bradford

Rain and cold, sleet and cold, snow and cold. Not the best weather on my visit to Bradford, and as a result the photos are not of the best quality.

Bradford was City of Culture last year, with plenty of the signage and other material still in place. But although it was City of Culture, Bradford is certainly bot City of Clockture, with a very paltry tally of clocks for a settlement of its size (perhaps they all sateyed indoors to keep out of the rain). However, you work with what you have got.

Let's start with the cathedral.

It is hard to see the clock from surrounding streets, so you need to get through the gates into the cathedral precinct.

The building, which has parts dating from the 15th century, was designated as a cathedral in 1919, some 22 years after Bradford was granted city status.

The cathedral's website (www.bradfordcathedral.org) notes that the clock was installed not long after four bells were hung in 1666, and that "for a long time this was the only public clock in Bradford".

The clock face is unusual in that it is painted directly onto the stonework.

In the shadow of the cathedral sits the Arts Centre. This is located in St Peter's House. Despite being described in Pevsner (Yorkshire : The West Riding - 1967 edition) as one of the "buildings of no distinction" in Forster Square, it is Grade II listed.

                                        

St Peter's House was built in 1886 as the main Post Office.

The clock is listed in "Potts of Leeds".

Another Potts clock, dating from 1866, can be found in the Wool Exchange. The building in Venetian Gothic style was compled in 1867.

Its wooltrading days are now a distant memory, but it now houses a rather slendid branch of Waterstones (there must be a pun in there somewhere about water stones and Venetian Gothic).

The Town Hall building was completed in 1873, but has since been renamed to City Hall to reflect Bradford's elevation in status in 1965.

The clock tower is described by Pevsner as "a tall tower (200 ft) in the form of a Tuscan campanile".

Leisure Time is an entertainment centre in Westgate.

The style of the clock suggests that it was installed when there was a grander use for the building. Some initial research suggests (can any local Bradfordians confirm?) that this once a department store called Lingards, which closed in 1977. This would certainly seem a better fit for this clock.

The Kirkgate Centre is a brutalist shopping centre (and as a lover of brutalist architecture I have no problem with that). There is a slightly unusual line of eight 'K's over one of the entrances - was this always llike this or did it originally spell Kirkgate?

The clocks, which can be found over the entrances on both Kirkgate and Darley Street, are tired, uninspiring and not working, which equally is a description for the centre itself which seems to have been usurped by the more modern Broadway Centre.

Below are views of the Kirkgate clock:

And this is the one on Darley Street:

Bevan House is a medical centre on Piccadilly. 

There is an interesting way of illuminating the clock, which partially obscures the view of the dial.

A relatively unusual rectangular clock can be found on Northgate.

Oxtoby's is J H Oxtoby & Sons, a clock repair shop established in 1894, and according to the Telegraph & Argus (October 2016) is "believed to be the longest-running family firm in Bradford".

As they are a clock repair business I will give a plug for their website at www.jhoxtobyandsons.co.uk (other clock reapir services in the Bradford may be available - but they probably won't have such a stylish external clock).

The Penny Bank building at the junction of Manor Row and North Parade is a Grade II listed edifice dating from 1894.

It was originally home to a branch of the Yorkshire Penny Bank which was established in 1859, becoming the Yorkshire Bank in 1959.

The current use of the buildig seems to be part-time of possibly full-time (depending on different reports) and has a smallish sign saying "The City Gent - Traditional hand pulled ales" at street level.

Facing the Penny Bank is the Clarendon Medical Centre, with a clock tower very much in the style of the building we have just been looking at. 

In the cold and wet and poor light conditions, my thoughts were that this was a long-standing landmark. However, a little bit of digging revealed that in fact it was only built in 1995 as offices for Sovereign Health Care, and is named Royal Standard House. Its new use as the Clarendon Medical Centre only started on 15 January 2026, just two weeks before my visit.

Our final clock is that of St John's church. This is to the south of the city centre, and involved a long walk in pouring rain and strong headwinds alongside a very busy dual carriageway. It was definitely a case of get there, tick if off, and head back to the hotel to get dry and warm up.

You can see by the photo below that it is not in the nicest of locations.

I imagine that there must be other clocks lurking in Bradford, so if you know of any more please let me know - it would be good to re-visit the city in better weather. I am aware of two other clocks - one on the Grammar school which I saw but didn't take pictures of as it was during the school day (people might get the wrong idea), and one on the Industrial Museum which I didn't get time to visit.