Kate Taylor - Not So Merry Wakefield

W akefield in the early years of the twenty first century is very different from the Wakefield I knew in my childhood. The slums are gone, but the drive for new housing today is to serve commuters to Leeds rather than people whose work lies in the town. Much of the employment base in coalmining, engineering and textiles has gone too. The sprawling industrial estates and office parks on the perimeter now help to sustain the economy but add little of attraction to the landscape. The town centre is heralded, on its main roads, by bland glass car showrooms. The once familiar and distinctive skyline of the city, with the Town Hall tower, the County Hall dome, and the Cathedral spire standing out, has become cluttered with high-rise flats.

The character of Wakefield its individuality is being eroded. It owed much to the developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which brought not only the handsome terraces of St Johns and South Parade, but the group of civic buildings in Wood Street and the fine commercial properties in Westgate. The great classical Corn Exchange, which dominated Westgate for more than a century, is long gone. Since the abolition of the Quarter Sessions in 1971, the imposing Court House has fallen into a sorry state although its rehabilitation as part of the leisure industry has been promised.

I can think of no new building of the last half century that has that landmark quality that gives a place its uniqueness.

The increasing popularity of family history reflects the importance of having roots. But for me roots mean place as well as people. The place provides the context for the rough times as well as the good ones. If I have had some bad experiences in Wakefield, I have also found immense interest in finding out more, and writing, about this place where I was born and have lived for more than seventy years, in particular its social and cultural history. I wonder what future local historians will have to say about a Wakefield influenced by somewhat remote bodies like Yorkshire Forward and in danger of being no more than a satellite of Leeds.

Perhaps there is a chance that Wakefield will regain both character and prestige in particular from art and drama. The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the proposed Waterfront Gallery, the budding trend for public sculptures like the conceptual stick of rhubarb erected on the edge of the park in 2005, bring some promise. Public Arts began and has remained in Wakefield. There are plans for the Art House a complex of artists studios to be built in Drury Lane close to the Theatre Royal and Opera House. The theatre itself is to be extended.

When I began this book, I had Henry Clarksons Memories of Merry Wakefield (1887) in mind. Towards the end of his account, Clarkson says,

A very warm feeling for my native place fills my mind and I trust that firm friends and true will always be found to stand by her, and that brighter days even than any she has seen, may dawn and continue over her.

Despite my criticisms, I share Clarksons warm feeling and I hope that something of Wakefield will live in my pages as it does in his. But I am not at all sure that his trust will prove well-founded!

The Rhubarb sculpture by Graeme Ritchie and Scot Fletcher. The author

Wakefield Bridge, on the left, originated in the 1340s. The bridge on the right was opened in 1933. The author

The formal gardens in Thornes Park in 2005. The author

County Hall, Wood Street, built for the West Riding County Council and opened in 1898. Wakefield Historical Publications