Photograph - Mono (Document ID: 100759)
Three exterior shots of Drying Houses, Old Lane, Boothtown, West Yorkshire.
Author: H.C. Morris
Date: 1966
Location: Boothtown
Format: Photograph - Mono
Document ID: 100759
Library ID: 085265
Page 1 shows the Drying Houses from the south east, p2 from the bottom of Mill Lane, and p3 from Broad Tree Lane. Note the almost complete absence of windows on the street side of the building. This unusual design, with its frontage looking across the valley towards Lee Mount and only a single window and door to each house opening onto Old Lane, is thought to derive from its early use as a building for drying pieces of cloth, either the newly woven pieces or cloth which had been brought from local dye-works.
Drying of wool used to take place in the open air, often on tenter-hooks in fields. By the 19th century, buildings were being used specifically for air-drying the cloth, and later included heat or machine-assisted drying facilities.
The OS map grid reference of the buildings is SE085265. The photograph was taken by H C Morris, a member of the Halifax Photographic Society, in 1966.
