Bradford Beck is a river that flows through Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, (then Bradford Dale) and on to the River Aire at Shipley. As it reaches Bradford city centre it runs underground after being built over in the 19th century. It is culverted as it runs from Bradford city centre to Queen's Road after which it runs mostly in an open channel to Shipley. The beck used to be known as the filthiest river in England. Bradford itself is so named after a crossing on Bradford Beck (the Broad Ford) which was located near to what is present day Church Street in the city centre, with a crossing named as Broadstones. The beck is formed from a number of smaller watercourses, namely Pinch Beck, Pitty Beck, Middlebrook, Clayton Beck, Bull Greave Beck, Chellow Dene Beck, Westbrook, Dirkhill Beck, Bowling Beck, Eastbrook, Bolton Beck, Trap Sike, Northcliffe Beck and Red Beck. History Anglo-Saxon Bradford was centred around a point where at least three streams converged. This was the site of two crossings – Ive Bridge and Church Bridge, where the parish church was located (later to become Bradford Cathedral). In medieval times, the waters from one of the streams feeding Bradford Beck were redirected to power mills in what is now the Sunbridge and Thornton Road areas. This section west of the city centre is known as Goitside. A site north west of the parish church was the place where a ducking stool was kept on the beck. This was for the punishment of scolding and unruly women. On the eventual opening of the Bradford Arm of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, the stool was removed and used on the canal instead. Water from Bradford Beck was used to supplement the low feedwaters going into the canal, however the canal was only supposed to take water from Bowling Beck, but as this proved insufficient, the polluted waters from Bradford Beck were used also. This turned the Bradford Canal into an open sewer. The pollution in the beck during the 19th century was legendary with it being describes as being the filthiest river in England, and Friedrich Engels described the beck in the 1840s as a "coal-black, foul-smelling stream". The canal was subject to sulphureted hydrogen (hydrogen sulphide) bubbling up to the surface (especially in summer) and this condition made it very dangerous with at least one occasion when the canal was