Glass Slide (Document ID: 101826)
Picture of street and housing on Sowerby Street, Sowerby Bridge, W Yorks. Shows the Pear Tree Inn.
Author: F. Whitaker
Date: 1927
Location: Sowerby Bridge
Format: Glass Slide
Document ID: 101826
Library ID: 33
The building to the left of the white one has a sign saying "Pear Tree Inn, John E Cockroft, Licensed Retailer, Ale & Porter". In Kelly's 1922 Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire there is an entry for a John Edward Cockroft, beer retailer, at 22 Sowerby Street, Sowerby Bridge. The Pear Tree Inn closed in 1927.
A plaque on the right hand wall of the white house above the yard entrance says Woods Court and leads through to inner courtyards of housing. This area around West End had lots of 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 17th century Quaker meeting house and graveyard which was later replaced by 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.
