Haworth's back streets

It is interesting to wander round some of Haworth's side streets. The village was at one time an agricultural settlement, which then - like so many places round here - grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, as mills took over from domestic handloom weaving. The village has a hodge-podge mix of different ages of buildings, mostly 18th and 19th century. Some parts are quite characterful, like The Fold (above and below) with buildings arranged round a stone-setted square. 

I case anyone wants to be sentimental about the past, in the 19th century Haworth was said to have worse sanitary conditions than London's slums. Rev Patrick Brontë was so concerned that in 1850 he succeeded in getting an inspection by the Board of Health, after which it was agreed to install a proper sewerage system to replace the open sewers that ran through the streets. There were, it's said, just 69 toilets for a population of 2,500. There were frequent outbreaks of disease. Life expectancy was just 25 years and 41% of children died before the age of six! It was grim. 

Shirley Street is now a little private road. Some of the cottages are 18th century handloom weavers' cottages, like those below, characterised by their long rows of mullioned windows on the upper floor, designed to let in as much light as possible for the loom.  

Townend Farm (above) is one of the oldest properties in the area, originally a Tudor (late 1500s) yeoman clothier's house. It has been renovated as a residential property. On Changegate, a doorway is inscribed 1611. I'm assuming it is original to the house but you never quite know whether things have been rescued from older properties and integrated into newer ones. The door itself looks fairly new.