Plaque 14 is outside River Island, opposite the Midland Hotel car park entrance and is sponsored by The Broadway
“Beck fed the canal basin
its miasma ill-famed“
Look across the road to the Midland Hotel. On 13th October 1905, the famous actor, Sir Henry Irving, collapsed and died in the hotel’s foyer. He had been appearing at the (now demolished) Theatre Royal on Manningham Lane. His manager was Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and his suitcase is an exhibit on one of the hotel corridors.
Beneath your feet was a sluice gate where water was channeled away from the beck to feed the beginning and highest point of the former Bradford Canal. The canal company never had permission to take water from the beck in the first place and in 1866 an injunction forced them to close off the feeder link and fill it in.
