IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Bull Ring, WAKEFIELD, WF1 1HF

Radcliffe Place, named after one of Wakefield’s famous sons, John Radcliffe (1652–1714), a British physician. See Image A number of landmark buildings in Oxford, including the Radcliffe Camera, the Radcliffe Infirmary, and the Radcliffe Observatory were also named after him.

John Radcliffe was reputed to have lived near here as a boy. The blue plaque, Image, is affixed to this house in Radcliffe Place, being the nearest spot to Radcliffe’s childhood home in the mid 17C.

Looking over the Ridings shopping centre from the car park, on the left is the Town Hall, on the right is the Cathedral.

William Whiteley (1831-1907) the ‘Universal Provider’ learned his trade as a shopkeeper in the premises near here of Harnew and Glover, drapers, where he was apprenticed in 1848. Leaving Wakefield in 1855 he went on to found one of the world’s first department stores in Bayswater, London. As a boy he lived at Agbrigg. He was shot and killed in 1907 by a deranged man claiming to be his illegitimate son.

In 1905 the unveiling of the memorial to Queen Victoria took place in the Bull Ring. She resided there until 1950 when she was moved to Clarence Park due to redevelopment work. In 1985 she was again resited in the Bull Ring, but due to further refurbishment work she is on the move again.The refurbishment work includes proposals to relocate the Queen Victoria statue to Castrop Rauxel Square in the city centre's civic quarter, the present home of the Barbara Hepworth "Family of Man" sculptures. Image

The “Galloping Horses” carousel, set up in the Bull Ring, being prepared for the days riding!

The current refurbishment works are part of a three-stage, £7M plan to regenerate the wider area around the Bull Ring, Teall Street, Westmorland Street and The Springs,due for completion Autumn, 2009. The central attraction will be a water feature has been designed as a series of 48 circular arching jets, which will create a tunnel of water for people to walk through - without necessarily staying dry.

Substantial grade II listed, early-mid C18 house, walls stuccoed with artificial rustication, and a high pitched swept roof of stone slates with 4 square headed dormers. The central stack, (now demolished), had a stone cornice with gargoyles at each corner. It would appear that the roof has been made good with ordinary blue slates, rather than stone used on the original roof. Not in keeping with a grade II listed building I would have thought.

William Whiteley (1831-1907) the ‘Universal Provider’ learned his trade as a shopkeeper in the premises near here of Harnew and Glover, drapers, where he was apprenticed in 1848. See Image The plaque took some finding as it hidden from view by the 'To Let' sign above the red door.