SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Does anyone know where & why Nineveh Street / Parade / Gardens in Holbeck got their names?Nineveh was an ancient trading city pretty much where Mosul in Iraq is now. Wikipedia says...Occupying a central position on the great highway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, and thus uniting the East & the West, wealth flowed into it from many different sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region's ancient cities.If you swapped Atlantic Ocean for Mediterranean & North Sea for Indian Ocean, it could be talking about somewhere we all know & love!I was wondering if the intention behind naming the streets after this ancient city was linked to building Mills in the style of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, & chimneys in the style of Giotto's Campanile on the Duomo at Florence (both within three minutes walk of Nineveh Street). Was this another attempt by Victorian Philanthropists to educate their workers by association with ancient cities???Wikipedia also states Nineveh's greatness was shortlived... A word of warning?    

munki wrote: Does anyone know where & why Nineveh Street / Parade / Gardens in Holbeck got their names?Nineveh was an ancient trading city pretty much where Mosul in Iraq is now. Wikipedia says...Occupying a central position on the great highway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, and thus uniting the East & the West, wealth flowed into it from many different sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region's ancient cities.If you swapped Atlantic Ocean for Mediterranean & North Sea for Indian Ocean, it could be talking about somewhere we all know & love!I was wondering if the intention behind naming the streets after this ancient city was linked to building Mills in the style of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, & chimneys in the style of Giotto's Campanile on the Duomo at Florence (both within three minutes walk of Nineveh Street). Was this another attempt by Victorian Philanthropists to educate their workers by association with ancient cities???Wikipedia also states Nineveh's greatness was shortlived... A word of warning?     Didn't Jonah prophecy the destruction of Nineveh? All I remember about Nineveh Road is that the Holbeck Loco sheds were on it and we used to call them "Nineveh" Many's the Saturday morning I spent as a lad sneaking in for the locos that were inside.

i remember first time i worked city and holbeck division (i'm on the radios for the police) i was so pleased when my colleague said 'ninny-ver' gardens (or whatever) before i needed to, as i had absolutely no idea at all how to pronounce it...

Nonconformist chapels, particularly Congregational and Baptist, were frequently named after places in the bible. Was there once a chapel nearby called Nineveh?

Calliad wrote: Nonconformist chapels, particularly Congregational and Baptist, were frequently named after places in the bible. Was there once a chapel nearby called Nineveh? Good suggestion... There is an enormous dramatic old building on... is it Domestic Street, where the shops are? It is a big baroque grey stone building which is now a carpet warehouse, & looks like it might have been a non-conformist chapel. I don't have a picture. Does anyone know anything about the history of this building? It's called Holbeck Mills Carpets...

Good suggestion... There is an enormous dramatic old building on... is it Domestic Street, where the shops are? It is a big baroque grey stone building which is now a carpet warehouse, & looks like it might have been a non-conformist chapel. I don't have a picture. Does anyone know anything about the history of this building? It's called Holbeck Mills Carpets... .............Perhaps there is a clue to the previous use of this building in it's name???Just a thought!

It definitely looks like it was a Chapel of some kind. It wasn't a mill.

Calliad wrote: Nonconformist chapels, particularly Congregational and Baptist, were frequently named after places in the bible. Was there once a chapel nearby called Nineveh? I thought that too, but Ninevah although mentioned in the Bible is not what you would call a particularly holy place - unlike Bethel or Bethesda I write as a reformed (by Joshua Tetley)dyed in the wool Methodist.

Ninevah was a 'city of sin' according to the Jonah story ...No idea why the streets are so named.

No doubt 19th century Leeds was considered by some to be a 'city of sin' too. But the Ninevites repented, wore sack cloth and sat in ashes and were forgiven. I've no idea if there was a chapel so named in Holbeck but there remain examples elsewhere.