The search for Wakefield’s ‘secret tunnels’ began right where I was conducting my professional genealogical research, on Bread Street, in the heart of this ancient city that gained city status in 1888.
Bread Street is now a somewhat dilapidated street that runs parallel to Cross Square and Little Westgate and is frequented by shoppers looking for easy access to Northgate, the Cathedral or the Kirkgate shopping area, or by those who huddle by the back door. from the Black Rock Pub, smoking cigarettes. The street, in its current state, is somewhat unappealing and desperately in need of a makeover. The disused derelict buildings retain their 19th-century storefronts, but lack shop windows, as the thin, cracked glass shows dirt and grime and is framed by rotting wood stained by the rubble of crumbling bricks. This place, however, was once a prosperous street, with stalls selling Manorial Bakehouse bread, made from ground flour at King’s Mill. Behind the booths and under the old structures that once stood. of its current counterparts, there was a hidden path of interconnected arched cellars leading to the parish church. These wineries, still in place, are now firmly fixed in Wakefield myth and folklore, but are revealed here to be very real.
According to Reverend JL Sisson in his book Historical sketch of the parish church, WakefieldTwenty-four priests of the Chapel belonged to the church and each of the priests had lodgings in houses north of the Churchyard, that is, on Northgate and Bread Street, known in Sisson’s time as Ratten Row, and in the time of the priests as bread booths.
Writing about old religious houses on Bread Street, the local historian and luxury goods dealer, Mr. John Hewitt in his quaint and rare serialized volumes titled The history and topography of Wakefield Parish and its environs, first published in 1862, expands the link between the street and the church.
“In past times, it was customary to erect booths for the sale of bread on the facades of houses on Bread Street, and hence this street was called” Casetas del Pan “and later its current name.
“… where the Miter Inn is now located, it was the residence of a Priest. Several other residences of Priests were also in the same locality; and from that circumstance, and the number of people who came to the Church and the houses of the Priests, the Bread huts were erected for the purpose of selling bread to both the priests and their friends.
“An underground passage was connected to this old house. It led out of one of the basements in the direction of the parish church. The entrance is now bricked up. The passage was arched with bricks and was about 6 feet high. This underground path was probably for the priests to proceed by their means to and from this building and the church.
“This old house is believed to have been used as a secret church in days of persecution.
In the late 1880s, the renowned octogenarian, Henry Clarkson, made an even stronger case for an underground path that existed under the houses leading to the church, when he fairly innocuously described how entry was obtained to the church yard in the days of his childhood. Specifically referring to the years 1810 and 1811, in its charming Memories of Merry Wakefield, whose first edition was published in 1888, explains that:
“At that time the parish church yard was much smaller than it is now, a series of houses and shops continued from Northgate, partly on the current street and partly in the church yard; these buildings blocked the entire west side of the Churchyard, extending to the opposite side of the George Hotel, and the last house at that end was occupied by the Wakefield Dispensary.The main entrance to the Churchyard, was an ordinary arch, below the center of the houses that I have described, about where the present gateway to the west is now. “
The quintessential double volume set that anyone serious about the Wakefield story should have in their collection, Wakefield, its history and its people by the most famous of its historians, John W. Walker, contains more details of the arched passage. It tells of a house next to Mr. Bucktrout’s grocery store. Bucktrout is related to another well-known story about the Wakefield Passages, it is related to the discovery, in a Northgate basement, of religious images, smuggled out of the Chapel Chapel at Wakefield Bridge, through another passageway. underground during the Reformation. In our story, Mr. Bucktrout appears because his store adjoins a house occupied by a John Bagshaw, a scissor sharpener. JW Walker explains that under Bagshaw’s house “It was a low arch entrance to the cemetery off Bread Street.”
Many of the houses that stood before the entrance to the cemetery that is still used today (to access the building through the West Gate, known as the Tower entrance) were cleared in 1821. Sisson tells us that the inhabitants must be especially praised. for helping tear down their own houses to improve eyesight. Later church restorers have also convinced the public that removing the solid structure of the church is for their own good. Interestingly, “insiders” in the same church have denied any talk about tunnels, possibly horrified at the idea of priests having their own free passage of congregations “back to base.” If such a tunnel existed today, it would be a slightly longer way home as the clergy residences are a little further out, now adjoining Newstead Road at the northern end of the city limits.
So is there any evidence for these ancient passageways today? The Register of Deeds on Newstead Road in Wakefield provides original documentation that amply answers this question with a definitive … yes! Various deeds deposited in the impressive collection make specific reference to the arched basements below Bread Street, which are described in parts, each part owned by the occupants of the individual properties, and each adjoining the basement of the building next door.
One deed refers to the purchase of a building on Bread Street by Alfred Moodie, a wine merchant who is remembered today for the bar in Little Westgate (going back to Bread Street) called Moody’s. The deed refers to the purchase of the building by James Wells from Elizabeth Hardcastle in 1812, and it is mentioned that an earlier transaction took place in 1791 involving Wells and Mr. Liversidge. Reference is also made to plans drawn up in 1866 and an 1853 contract. When marked, all of these deeds for these legal transactions, and the deed referred to here, each contain the following passage (brackets mine):
‘… and also that part of the vaulted cellars under Bread Street (otherwise Ratten Row) that is adjacent to the same venue.’
Perhaps the worthy men of Wakefield, Clarkson, Walker, Hewitt and Sisson are all wrong and the priests never occupied houses on the street and the vaulted cellars did not exist, but it is more likely that this route built for the priests to proceed to and from their place. of work, it was very real and perhaps a little excavation could show once and for all what lies beneath Wakefield.