Glass Slide (Document ID: 101821)
Picture of Woods Court, off Sowerby St, Sowerby Bridge, showing children and adults.
Author: F Whitaker
Date: 1927
Location: Sowerby Bridge
Format: Glass Slide
Document ID: 101821
Library ID: 38
A view of Woods Court, a yard off Sowerby St, looking west. The entrance to Stansfield Court is through the passageway with the washing line. This court was typical of others in the area around West End, with tightly packed houses, alleys and passages, giving way to the local name of Bogden.
This photo is part of a series, commissioned in 1927 by the council surveyor, James Eastwood, from photographer F Whitaker, to show unhealthy housing conditions in the Sowerby St area. This was the first area of town to be designated for a major slum clearance. The "Sowerby Bridge Official Guide" for 1927 reported that 'most of the older buildings have disappeared before the march of progress and reform - some remain, particularly in Sowerby Street and Wharf Street".
Sowerby St lay along the old packhorse route from Cheshire and Lancashire through to Leeds and York, and contained some of the oldest residences in town. Some houses dated from the 17th century with mullion windows and stone-flagged roofs. The street was referred to as Pyghill St in 16th century documents.
Higher up the street were a Quaker meeting house from 1679 and a Quaker burial ground. The graveyard was later converted to stables and a slaughterhouse.
This information is taken from "Sowerby Bridge in Old Photographs" by John Hargreaves (Smith Settle, Otley, 1994). Hargreaves is a member of Halifax Antiquarian Society. The glass slide is from the John Bates Slide Collection held at Sowerby Bridge Public Library.
