Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #3

The Noble Comb:

The sorted wool was scoured and washed to get rid of dirt and impurities. It was then prepared (the equivalent of carding, which couldn't be used because it would break the long fibres needed for fine worsted). By this means the fibres were disentangled and aligned more or less parallel, in long 'slivers' of wool. These were then ready for combing, a process which further straightened the fibres and sorted out the long ones (tops) used for worsted, from the short ones (noils) which couldn't be used. There were various types of combing machine. The one in my photo is called a Noble comb and Salts Mill would have had many of these.

Funnily enough, the Shipley pub where we sometimes used to have get-togethers from work is called The Noble Comb. Until I went to the museum, I hadn't realised where the name originated. I think there must be a lot of pubs in this area whose names relate to the wool industry. There is, of course, the famed Woolpack in the TV soap Emmerdale. (Maybe I'll go on a pub name hunt one day!)

When Salts Mill was opened in 1853, a grand banquet took place in the Combing Shed - there were over 3,500 guests, so you can imagine how big the room is. 

Snow melt

With temperatures jumping from below freezing to just under 10ºC (50ºF) virtually overnight, the snow melt came quickly. Hooray... at least in many ways. I made it to the supermarket on Monday to replenish my food stocks, though at that stage there was still plenty of snow and ice lying about. Even the supermarket car park was a bit tricky to negotiate in parts. By Tuesday morning, however, all the snow had virtually disappeared, a welcome, if rather surprising, sight when I opened my curtains. 

Rapid snow melt does, however, lead to rapid rises in river levels. The Aire was churning over Hirst Weir and just beginning to flood the riverside footpath. A couple walking ahead of me turned back, saying the path was underwater further along, at the bridge where a small stream joins. So I only ventured as far as the Rowing Club HQ. I think it will get worse before it gets better, though I don't think much rain is forecast. Snow melting off the fell sides in the Dales will no doubt make its way down to us in the next few days. 

 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #2

Wool sorting:

The processes of producing worsted cloth in a factory are essentially the same as those carried out by the local cottage producers - preparing and cleaning the wool, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing the cloth. The difference lies in the industrial scale of the operation and the huge size of the machinery used. Bradford's Industrial Museum has examples of many different types of machine with displays explaining the processes. Since the museum building, Moorside Mill, was once a small worsted spinning mill, it's easy to imagine how Salts Mill might have looked inside - though Salts was massive in comparison.

But even in the big mills, until as recently as the second half of the 20th century, the initial processing was done by hand. When the raw wool fleeces were brought in, the wool was first hand-sorted by quality and condition. The sorted fleece was tossed into huge wicker skips beneath the workbench. Wool sorting was a highly skilled trade using sight and touch. Woolsorters were proud to pass their unique knowledge down from father to son, often through several generations.

The wool textile trade locally has diminished significantly since the latter part of the 20th century, but there are a handful of mills still producing specialist cloths. A few years ago I worked near a mill and noticed these large sacks of raw wool still being delivered. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #1

Given the weather recently, I haven't been getting out to take photos. It seems a good opportunity to revise and repost a series I compiled in my early days of blogging, about the history of the wool textile trade, which underpins the creation of Saltaire.

A history lesson:  

When I was wandering round Salts Mill recently, I got thinking that - much as I love the mill and Saltaire in its present incarnation, and enjoy uncovering its history - I really know very little about the processes that went on in the mill during its time as a worsted manufacturer. There are the paintings by Henry Carr (see HERE) which give some idea, but hardly the full picture. In the interests of research therefore, I took myself off one day to visit Bradford's Industrial Museum, to find out more about the woollen and worsted industry, upon which the fortunes of this area rose and fell. Their displays are fascinating and I learned a lot.

Bradford was originally a small town, granted a charter in 1251 by King Henry III that enabled it to have a weekly market. This was an important development as it became a meeting place where people could buy and sell cloth. Poor conditions in the area for growing crops meant that local farmers subsidised their income by weaving cloth. People could now buy local wool to card, spin and weave it into cloth to be sold for a profit at the market. Initially this was a cottage industry carried out in people's homes. Many of the old weavers' cottages hereabouts have large windows in the upper storey, as good light was important for handloom weaving. The area is criss-crossed with packhorse routes along which people from the moorland villages would carry their cloth down to the markets. Eventually some of the local corn mills, powered by streams coming down from the moors, were adapted into small mills for making cloth.

Snow days

It's beginning to feel a bit like lockdown, since this last week of snow, ice and below freezing temperatures have made me disinclined to venture out of my cosy little apartment. I've run out of chores. (It doesn't take a lot of effort to keep this place clean and tidy.) I've been feeling incredibly blessed that I don't have to go anywhere and have nothing better to do than play. 

I have books, of course, and time to process a few photos on my computer. I completed an incredibly detailed and therefore absorbing jigsaw (below) called 'London from Above', which included most of the major London landmarks. I thought it would be easy (not much blank, blue sky) but, although I didn't have to source pieces just from the shape like you sometimes do, it did require meticulous attention to tiny details like lamp-posts. It took me all week, on and off, so it was most enjoyable. 

Then I decided I'd get out my watercolours. It's a long time since I did any painting and I'm still learning how to use them - to mix colours, get the right amount of water versus pigment and so on. It is another of those 'whole brain' activities that are so good at keeping one's mind off the dreadful state of the world. I was just playing with random patterns and these are not 'keepers', just experiments - but I really had fun messing about. 

Now the snow appears to be melting a little. I was able to go out and clear the dumped snow off my car without too much effort. It may freeze again overnight but hopefully I'll be able to drive to the supermarket and stock up. I've been living off what I have in the freezer and cupboards - thankfully plenty of stored home-cooked meals, as when I cook I usually make a few more portions than I need and then freeze them. I nearly always keep some bread and milk in the freezer too. I am so fortunate. 

Lister Lake abstract

I enjoy noticing reflections and trying to find a balanced composition. Rather liked the colours here. It was Lister Park's lake, on my last visit, quite a while ago now (when the trees still had leaves!)

I'm going stir-crazy being confined to home. Since it snowed last weekend it has barely got above freezing so there is sheet ice everywhere, on the side roads and pavements (though the main routes have been gritted). I can't get the car out as our drive slopes uphill and is icy. I've been reluctant to go out on foot in case of a fall. Our NHS is in a bad way. They've been on a shaky footing since Covid and now there's a winter flu surge. Ambulances, hospitals and Emergency Departments are struggling so, if you do have an accident, the prospect is a long wait for an ambulance (even if you're lying in the snow!) and then an hours long or even days long wait in A&E. So the best option is not to take risks, I feel! 

Elsecar village

This surprisingly tranquil scene was just a few hundred yards from Elsecar Heritage Centre. It is the beginning of the Elsecar Canal, a branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal. The canal network was created to carry coal and other cargo (including pig iron) from the mines and ironworks. The coming of the railways and subsidence from the mining meant that their viability was short-lived. It is only in recent years that they have been restored. 

Across the canal, the spire of Holy Trinity Church stands tall over the village. Built in the early 1840s, it was part of Earl Fitzwilliam's investment in the area. Like Sir Titus Salt in Saltaire, his Christian paternalism meant that he wanted his workforce to have good housing and facilities like schools and a church. 

I wondered if it might be the church that my ancestors attended but I've since researched some of their children's baptisms and it seems they were non-Conformist chapel-goers. The church itself was locked up but there was a pretty angel on a grave in the churchyard. (I love to see Victorian angel statues.) 

From the churchyard you could see an old corn mill, now a craft centre, at the side of the canal. Through a gap in some houses, there was a good view over the lower part of Elsecar village. 

Old Row (below) appears to be one the few remaining terraces of houses that Earl Fitzwilliam had built for his coal miners in the late 1700s. Plain but substantial, stone-built with slate roofs, they must have been rather superior dwellings in those days, each with a private walled yard at the front and back, and an allotment. They are now Grade II listed, reflecting their importance to the history of this area.  I bet they're still quite nice houses to live in. 

Newcomen engine

Elsecar is proud to have the oldest steam engine in the world that is still in its original location - the Newcomen Beam Engine. Built in 1795, it was designed to extract water from Elsecar New Colliery, to allow exploration of the deeper coal seams. Apparently Henry Ford, the car maker, twice tried to persuade Earl Fitzwilliam to let him buy it and ship it to America, but was refused. It ran until 1923, when it was replaced by electric pumps. It was restored back to working order in 2014 by Barnsley Museums, who offer tours and the opportunity to see it in action on selected dates. 

On the lane leading to the beam engine, a metal sculpture of a horse reminds how important 'horse power' was in Victorian times: for transport, for pulling carts, for hauling loads down the coal mines. (One of my great grandfathers, who married Annie, daughter of my great great grandfather Benjamin James (see Wednesday's post), made a good business for himself in Sheffield, supplying hay and straw for working horses.)

Elsecar ironworks

I'm pretty sure my great great grandfather was employed at the Milton Ironworks, which were at Hoyland, not far from Elsecar. Little trace of them now remains, but many of the ironworks buildings at Elsecar are still standing, now used for other purposes. The huge rolling mill (below) can be hired for corporate events and weddings, with a capacity of 900 people! (See HERE) 

 

A few signs and artefacts hint at the past, and I understand that renovation is still ongoing. They are hoping to secure funding to reopen the heritage railway that runs alongside.

Elsecar Heritage Centre

Elsecar Heritage Centre, near Barnsley, has been on my list of places to visit for a while and I finally made it, just before Christmas. Similar in concept to Saltaire (though completely different in style), Elsecar is an industrial estate village that grew up around ironworks and collieries built for the Earls Fitzwilliam from nearby Wentworth Woodhouse. It's now a collection of independent shops, studios, galleries and cafés in the New Yard, the former Victorian workshops that housed the blacksmiths, engineers, carpenters and joiners that supported the ironworks and coalmines. Its heyday was the 1850s to 1880s. 

I am particularly interested in it because I've discovered that my great great grandfather, Benjamin James, brought his new wife Hannah up to Elsecar/Hoyland from Staffordshire in 1851. He was a iron moulder, a skilled job making sand moulds for metal castings. He moved up to Yorkshire as these ironworks were undergoing a rapid expansion and there must have been good jobs on offer. In fact, there were two foundries in close proximity and I think he probably worked in the other one, the Milton works - of which there is now little trace. The family had eleven children while they lived in Hoyland, though four died as infants. One daughter was my great grandmother, Annie, born in 1864. By the 1880s, these works were in trouble and they all moved to Sheffield, to the foundries around Kelham Island. 

There is still some conservation going on around the site and, whilst the buildings are being preserved, little remains of the actual machinery of the works. There's a useful AV introduction in the Visitors Centre and various sign boards around the site, though it didn't tell you specifically what each building was. It was all quite interesting and I'm really glad such places are being preserved and their history told. 

Three in mono

What with moving house, redecorating and 'getting everything straight' this past year, I've rather lost my mojo for 'proper' photography, resorting instead to the easy option of going out just with my phone and not my camera. That's fine at one level but for 2025 I really want to change that and find some projects to enthuse me. 

We had our Christmas get-together at my camera club and were treated to a presentation by members of our mono enthusiasts group, before we broke for refreshments. They had been doing a project where they chose a patch of about 100sq metres, close to home, and found three different mono compositions within that area - an exercise designed to encourage 'seeing' and experimenting within a relatively limited focus of attention. It really inspired me to get out and try the same exercise. Here are the results, all taken in a small area at the side of Saltaire's URC church. 

Dreich

The weather on the day I took these photos could only be described as 'dreich', a Scottish word for the dull, damp, dreary weather that Scotland, in particular, but also the North of England does so well! Nevertheless, there's a certain beauty, I think, in these views of the old mills and chimneys that still grace our local landscape. 

The first photo is a view of Shipley Wharf on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, looking towards Saltaire. The second's a view down the hill from Shipley Kirkgate towards Salts Mill. 

(Now we have snow, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go out to take photos! Our hospitals are in crisis with a flu surge so, if anyone falls on the ice, they could be waiting hours for rescue and treatment.) 

RSPB Sightings

As I said yesterday, there wasn't really a great deal of wildlife to see at RSPB Fairburn Ings, certainly not without a telescope, even though I enjoyed the walk and the general views. There was some neon yellow lichen on some of the little shrubs. They do say lichen is a sign of healthy air and, if so, that does indicate quite graphically how far this former industrial area has come in the last 50 years or so. 

Lichens are a lot more interesting than they look. They are actually two organisms living together - a fungus and an alga existing in symbiosis. This yellow one seems to be a form of Xanthoria. That's as much as I know. I once had a learned friend who was a lichen expert and even had a few named after him. (He went on to become a vicar, which was a sad loss for the lichen world and a great gain for the CofE!)  

As for birds, there were numbers of ducks - tufted, pochard, shelduck and probably others; moorhens and coots; cormorants; mute swans; geese; lapwings; some waders (too far away to identify); black-headed and herring gulls; magpies; crows; and a red kite. I also saw a little egret and a little grebe, on the dyke beyond the 'kingfisher screen'... though no kingfisher apparent. On my way out the little egret was hiding, but was a little more visible on my way back. 

RSPB Fairburn Ings

With all the kerfuffle of moving house last year, I didn't get out and about as much as I might have done. In the winter, too, I always seem to slow down and feel like I want to hibernate! I am, however, determined to motivate myself to have a few more outings this year. Between Christmas and New Year, I decided to take advantage of the one day that promised a bit of sunshine - no fog, no rain, little wind. I took myself off to the RSPB nature reserve at Fairburn Ings, midway between Leeds and Wakefield. 

It's many years since I last went and it has been expanded, so that it's now a sprawling and rather scrappy place of wetlands, bogs, reedbeds and scrubby woodland. It was, about 60 years ago, a mining and industrial area. Subsidence of old mine workings, combined with flooding from the adjacent River Aire (pictured below), formed several lakes and the associated spoil heaps are now being reclaimed as grassland and woods.  

The promised sunshine, didn't develop (at least, not until I was having a coffee in the visitor centre at the end of my walk!) It was brighter than it has been though, and there was some blue sky, but the sun itself stayed hidden behind a stubborn bank of cloud. 

As for birds, there really wasn't much about, at least not that I could see with my ancient binoculars. What there was - ducks, cormorants, gulls - sat on islands and mudbanks in the lakes, and I would have needed a telescope to identify them properly. That's one reason why I prefer smaller reserves like Rodley, where there are more hides and you can get much nearer to the wildlife. 

I did, however, enjoy a good walk, followed by coffee and a highly calorific flapjack (which undoubtedly negated the exercise!)  In the visitor centre they had an array of secondhand books too, so I scored, in very good condition, a book titled 'The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs' by Tristan Gooley - a bargain at £1. That should educate me to enjoy my walks even more.