A RESIDENT has been left angered after a historic city centre building was covered in black paint.
Grade II listed Gallon House, on Burnett Street in Little Germany, has long been converted from a Victorian salesroom and warehouse into apartments.
Blotches of the black paint could be seen splattered across the exterior.
Photographer Asadour Guzelian, based in Little Germany, captured these images of the building.
The wall on the left also has black paint smeared along it.
'Appalling'
"It looks terrible," one resident told the Telegraph & Argus.
"In what should be a crown jewel, it has got the biggest concentration of listed buildings in the country, Little Germany.
"With City of Culture coming up, it is not a good advert for the city."
Councillor Si Cunningham (Labour, Bolton and Undercliffe), who is the chair of Bradford Civic Society, said: "I’m not sure what’s happened here, but it looks appalling and is very concerning given the prestige of the building involved.
"I’m personally quite concerned about the deterioration of Little Germany conservation area in recent years.
"Incidents like this recent one certainly don’t help. Let’s hope the owners can get it cleaned swiftly.”
The historic buildings within Little Germany can be traced back to the 19th century.
Most of the impressive architecture was used by the city's once booming textile businesses.
The quarter also housed some Baptist and Methodist chapels.
A large proportion of the merchants who worked there arrived from Germany, earning its name as Little Germany.
Bradford’s notoriety as a Victorian success story owes much to the Jewish textile merchants who settled here in the 19th century.
One of the founders of industrial Bradford was Jacob Unna, manager of SL Behrens and Co on East Parade. Born in Hamburg, he laid the foundations of Bradford’s first synagogue and was a founder of Bradford Chamber of Commerce.
Merchants’ House was run by Victor Edlstein and Jacob Moser, a health and welfare pioneer and Lord Mayor of Bradford in 1910.
Originally from Denmark, he founded the Bradford Charity Organisation Society, the City Guild of Help and the Technical School, and served on the board of the Infirmary. He provided a £10,000 benevolent fund for the city’s aged and infirm, supported the Children’s Hospital, set up a workers’ pension fund and donated 12,000 books to Bradford Central Library.
There are streets in Bradford named after Moser and Charles Sermon, Bradford’s first foreign-born Lord Mayor, in 1864.
The European merchants who founded Bradford Chamber of Commerce made up a quarter of its members between 1851 and 1881. Their names can be found on walls of the Chamber’s building in Little Germany.
Decades later, Little Germany has become a popular filming location for TV and films.
There have been efforts to regenerate the area.
Earlier this year, plans to bring a long-empty city centre building in Little Germany back to life were revealed.
The plans for 30 Chapel Street include a new office space for small businesses, café for people working in the building, workshops and a conference and events space for up to 63 people.
The former warehouse and office building has been vacant for around two decades, and parts were damaged in a fire in 2014.
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