The Coat of Arms
This is the town coat of arms that were granted in 1847. Bradford became a city in 1897, but did not receive the grant to change their coat of arms until 1907 and so this building which was erected in 1902 has the town coat of arms.
It takes the form of a shield with a boar’s head on top. On the shield are 3 hunting horns and usually in the middle what is either a spring or a castle depending on who you believe.
The boar’s head and hunting horns refer to the legend dating back the 14th Century. A dangerous boar was terrorising the local populace of Cliffe Wood. A reward of a piece of land was offered by John of Gaunt, the Earl of Lancaster, to anyone who killed the boar.
The deed was done by a lone hunter but the boar was too heavy to carry. He cut out the tongue as proof of what he had done. However someone else found the body cut off the head and took that as proof of his kill. The 2nd hunter actually tried to claim the land first, but the arrival of the original hunter with the tongue ensured that the rightful person got the prize.
However in order to keep the land It was necessary to blow a hunting horn in the market on St. Martin’s day. It seems unlikely that this alone would secure a piece of land. A more likely story is that at that time travel was dangerous and people would offer to provide protection to travellers from outside the area. This service was announced by the blowing of the horn. In the case of Bradford the specific requirement was to provide an escort to John of Gaunt whilst travelling to the castle at Ripon.
There is some debate about whether the object in the middle of the shield is the Castle of Ripon, or signifies a spring at Bradford Beck on the site of what is now Bradford Cathedral.
The inscription at the bottom of the shield, ‘labor omnia vincit’ is loosely translated as hard work conquers all, reflecting Bradford’s industrial heritage.
The Conditioning House
The building was a purpose built conditioning house but is currently lying derelict. It is an English Heritage Grade II
listed building and there were plans to convert it to a hotel of offices but has gone back on sale.
Traditionally wool formed the main industry of Bradford and the city was once known as the wool capital of the world. In 1887 an Act of Parliament allowed Bradford to set up the conditioning house as a place that would act as independent testers of the quality of wool. Traders at the nearby Bradford Wool Exchange used it as independent quality assurance service to ensure the wool being traded was of the stated standard.
In 1902, Bradford Council built this new Conditioning House, not only as a quality assurance facility, but also as a fully equipped scientific testing facility to test the performance of wool under a number of different conditions. There were other conditioning houses in the U.K. but this was the biggest and only one to be run by a town council.
The service finally became unprofitable in the 1980s after many years of decline of the UK wool industry with competition from markets abroad.
F. Wild designed the building but he died part way through the construction and the city architect F E P Edwards took over from him.