The Bankfield was envisaged in 1846 by the Lord Mayor of Bradford. The house was erected to plans prepared by the Bradford architects Andrew and Delauney in 1848, the Bankfield is to a great extent of Tudor character with Elizabethan features in the form of shaped gables and bay windows.
A 100 years later (1946) a consortium which formed the Bankfield Residential Hotel Company bought the house to turn it into a hotel, to which it has been ever since and now it is part of the Mercure Hotels.