Long-surviving firm proving it is not built on sand... (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Long-surviving firm proving it is not built on sand...

9:03am Wednesday 9th September 2009

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ne hundred and forty-three years ago in 1866, Uriah Woodhead set up in business as a supplier of building materials.

The firm had depots in Bankfoot and at the Great Northern railway station, both off Manchester Road, Midland Road railway station and Canal Road, near the present site.

Lime was supplied for building and plastering, and also in the yards were hydraulic lias lime, limestone, granite, Parian and Keene’s cement, best Portland cement, plaster of Paris, mastic, plasterers’ laths, nails, hair, grey and white ornamental rockery stone and sheet asphalt damp course.

Uriah and his son Irvine acquired two barges, Lion and Tiger, to transport cement, sand, stones and other materials on the Bradford Canal and along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.

As Bradford grew and developed, so did the firm. The building projects from 1954 to 1974, which changed the city so much, were a boom time. Building and maintenance materials were supplied to, among others, Lister’s Mill, Bradford Royal Infirmary, the Wool Exchange, the Cathedral, Cartwright Hall and John Street Market.

Seven years ago, Uriah Woodhead & Son resisted an attempt by Alfred McAlpine Projects and Lattice Property Holders to buy a chunk of the firm’s Canal Road site for a DIY store and separate garden centre.

John Walker, Uriah Woodhead’s managing director and owner, told the T&A at the time: “Uriah Woodhead & Son has traded in this area for well over 100 years and is still going strong… “We were approached to sell part of the Canal Road depot – but all negotiations ceased at the end of October.

“We have faith in Bradford and have obtained planning permission ourselves to totally refurbish the depot and expand a new warehouse to about 140,000sq ft.”

Now in 2009, the teeth of the recession still snapping and biting at the construction industry in particular, is Mr Walker still confident about his firm’s future?

Speaking in a small upstairs office inside the new warehouse, he said: “Trade isn’t what it was. It takes a lot of fun out of business when you get a recession like this.

“But having been here for more than 50 years, one of the joys of this job is that you’ve seen it all before. When times are good you sell; when they are bad you buy materials or property, you expand to get ready for the good times ahead.

“But to be like that you have to be out of the reach of the bank. We are self-capitalised. I think things will be a little bit better next year; after that it will be back to normal.”

Does this apply to Bradford generally?

“Don’t get me on that subject,” he says, eyes twinkling. “Why the hell don’t they turn that quarry in Forster Square into a lake or a car park and get some income? That canal scheme will bifurcate my premises. It’s crackers.”

Although he doesn’t live in the past – “I take no notice of passing time: I look to the future” – the memory of how things used to be is still vivid. He remembers the Rolls Royces in and around Market Street, parked near the Wool Exchange, when Bradford was full of characters; like the man who used to shoot pigeons with a shotgun along Valley Road every morning, and sell them a brace at a time to factory women.

John, who also owns Nelson’s, the stone merchants in Keighley, employs about 50 people on the five-acre site between Canal Road and Valley Road. The entrance to the latter has a mock road-sign: Street Of Building Materials. Ask John about turn-over and he says, “It’s not enough!” From which you may infer that the firm is thriving, in spite of the downturn in the construction industry.

Perhaps that is because with its specialism the firm offers a wide range of materials. There are five sectors of the business: plumbing, including central heating and bathrooms, roofing, ironmongery, timber and boards – there is a sawmill on site – and hardware.

“We employ blokes who know their jobs, know their products. There are so many times these days when people don’t know their products,” he added.

Someone once tried counting the variety of items on sale at Uriah Woodhead, and lost count at 16,000. Over the years some of these items have featured in unusual cartoon-style advertisements in the T&A.

John used to sketch them out on a paper tablecloth at a Heaton restaurant for one of the newspaper’s graphic artists whom he met regularly for lunch.

That was in the era when lunch was not for wimps, when businessmen did deals between the roast pork and the apple charlotte.

Factfile

John Walker’s parents were John and Kathleen. Her father, Charles Robinson, was a cabinet maker who bought Uriah Woodhead & Son from Irvine Woodhead. John Walker was a science lecturer at Bradford University.

The family home was at Undercliffe. John was educated at Bradford Grammar School.

Apart from a year in a solicitor’s office, he has worked in the business ever since and is now owner and managing director.

He and his wife Marie, who have farmland at West Morton and a home in the Skipton area, have a married daughter, Anne Marie, who is a director of the firm. Anne Marie and John both have a licence to fly helicopters.

John started growing his long, straggly Titus Salt beard 40 years ago, for a bet. The prize was a pint of beer.

He likes dogs, motor-cycles and railway models, drives a Land Rover and was not above posing as Charles Darwin for sand sculptor Jamie Wardley.

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