Sowerby Street, Sowerby Bridge
View of houses in Sowerby Street, showing children and people.
Author: F. Whitaker
Date: 1927
Location: Sowerby Bridge
Format: Glass Slide
Document ID: 101839
Library ID: 23
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. This site is also reputedly where Branwell Bronte stayed when he was clerk at the local railway station in 1840-41. The building to the right, just hidden behind the gas lamp, was the booking office for the original station.
By the white house on the right, is the entrance to Woods Court which 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.
