Plaque 15 is across the road from the Broadway and along towards the cathedral a few paces and is sponsored by Napoleon’s Casino.
“Skip across the broad ford
Bradford is named“
This plaque is close to what was once the terminal basin of the Bradford Canal and what was formerly a vast area of docks. The canal was three miles long with ten locks. In the 1860s following an outbreak of cholera, there were attempts to close down the canal, “that seething cauldron of impurity,” as the Bradford Observer described it. The canal company argued that the water was polluted before it reached the canal. It is said that in Victorian times, one could light the surface of Bradford Beck with a match. The Bradford Canal closed in 1922 and was filled in.
