Early History...

The site of Quarry Hill has seen many changes, particularly in the twentieth century, when it blossomed from being the worst slums in Europe, through to the innovative social housing of Quarry Hill flats, and more recently the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds College of Music, BBC Leeds studios and Quarry House, HQ of the DSS. Little is known about its early history, but there is evidence to suggest that the site of Quarry Hill was the location of the Roman settlement, Cambodunum/Campodunum, back in the 7th century. If this suggestion is true, then it would indicate that Leeds was the administrative centre of an Anglo-Saxon Royal Estate, which was sacked by Penda of Mercia in AD633. Some earthworks on Quarry Hill are possibly remains of an ancient settlement, and it was the main early Anglo-Saxon site in West Yorkshire. The name Quarry Hill was thought, by the Rev. Daniel Haigh, to derive from Carrei, the name of a British Chieftain, and Caer, meaning a camp, the whole signifying the camp of Carrei. The word Hill would have been added in Old English days.

Jumping forward to the 18th century, we find evidence that Quarry Hill was growing as a residential location, but had not yet reached the stage of being the notorious slum area it was destined to become. The Leeds Mercury of 9th February 1884, in its series of articles “Pictures of Old Leeds”, has this description of a dwelling in Quarry Hill in 1738: “….A good house at Quarry Hill, consisting of three low rooms, three cellars, one good chamber, garden, outhousing, and other conveniences, belonging to, but not occupied by, Widow Rolland, of the White Hart Inn, Briggate.”

Jeffrey’s map of Leeds of 1770 shows the road named Quarry Hill, surrounded by fields and orchards, with only a handful of buildings scattered along it, so it would appear that the area was once quite a pleasant place to live. By 1815, the Giles and Netlam plan of Leeds shows the area is beginning to be built up, but is still mainly fields and open country to the east. Not until 1850 do we find that the area has become congested with high-density dwellings, and it is no coincidence that the railways had arrived in Leeds a few years earlier. The 1841 and 1851 census returns show dwelling houses occupied by up to 20 people, and we know from sources such as Robert Baker’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of Leeds that many of these houses were only two or three rooms at the most, including a cellar. A lot of the people that lived there came from Ireland, perhaps to escape the Potato Famine of the 1840s and 50s. Occupations in the main were jobs such as brick labourer, general labourer, flax mills, and agricultural labourer. Many women worked in the mills as well, and there were a good sprinkling of washerwomen listed.

So, from the 1840s and 1850s onwards, as far as we can tell, Quarry Hill began to grow rapidly, and fill up with cheap, sub-standard housing. Despite all this, a look at the maps for around 1890 and early 1900s show that the open county was still only a jump and a hop away. You only had to go up York Road a mile or so to be surrounded by fields, although whether the overworked population had the time or the energy for a country walk on their days off is unknown! To get a flavour of the 18th century, here are a couple of news items relating to a couple of Quarry Hill residents: Leeds Intelligencer of 6th May 1766:

On Friday last, a melancholy accident happened in this town: One Tomlinson, a poor labouring man at Quarry Hill, had some wearing apparel and other things left him by a relation who died a few days ago; upon examining of which, he found a paper of powder, which he supposed to be cream of tartar, and therefore laid it carelessly down; when a child of his own, and another of his neighbour’s, each about three years of age, in playing about the house, got hold of it, and believing it to be some kind of sweetmeats, tho’ it unfortunately proved to be arsnick, eat it up betwixt them, and notwithstanding all proper means were immediately used to expel the poison, they both expired a few hours after, in great agonies.

On a slightly happier note, the London Chronicle of 11th March 1786 reported this rather extraordinary human interest story:

There is now living at Quarry Hill, Leeds, one Peter Johnstone, a blind man of Irish extraction, aged 91, who has had five wives and twenty-seven children; by the first wife he had twenty-three; by the second two, by the third and fourth none, and by the fifth two. What is remarkable, he has only two (children) living.

to be continued....