4 SMEATON'S BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION. PART VI. 



experience, eventually carried him to the very highest 



eminence as an engineer. 



John Smeatoii was born at Austhorpe Lodge, near 

 Leeds, on the 8th of June, 1724, his father being 



SMEATON'S NATIVE DISTRICT [Ordnance Survey.] 



a respectable attorney practising in that town. The 

 house in which the future engineer was born was built 

 by his grandfather John Smeaton, who is described on. 

 the tablet to his memory erected in the neighbouring 

 parish church of Whitkirk, as " late of York." Leeds 

 was then a place of small importance, compared with 

 Avhat it now is. The principal streets were those still 

 known as Briggate, leading to the bridge ; Kirkgate, 

 leading to the parish church ; and Swinegate, leading to 

 the old castle. Beyond those streets there lay a wide 

 extent of open fields. Boar Lane, now nearly the centre 

 of the town, was a 'kind of airy suburb, in w r hich the 

 principal merchants resided ; and the back of the houses 

 in the upper part of Briggate, now the main street, 

 looked into the country, 1 or " the Park," on which Park 

 Square, Park Row, and Park Lane (now containing the 

 principal architectural ornament of the place, the new 

 Town Hall), have since been built. There were also green 

 fields, with pleasant footpaths, between the parish church 



1 Whitaker's Thoresby, ' Loidis and Elmete,' p. 89. 



