Beverley End tenter ground, apiary and ruined weavers' cottage, Todmorden, Calderdale

Summary

A site of C18 cottage industries combining bee-keeping using bee boles set into retaining walls, these walls forming narrow terraces used for tentering woollen cloth that was produced on hand looms at the associated cottage.

Description

Terraces and walls forming tenter grounds, incorporating bee boles and other alcoves along with the ruins of an associated weavers’ cottage and other features, C18.

MATERIALS: local gritstone, generally squared and laid roughly to courses.

DESCRIPTION: the terraces are generally 2-3m wide, formed with drystone revetment walls that range in height from less than 0.5m to over 2m high, the site being enclosed by drystone boundary walls. Various sets of stone steps provide access between levels, including one set of steps formed from stones protruding from the face of a particularly high revetment wall, this being to the north-east of the cottage, beyond a public footpath that crosses the site.

Incorporated into the terrace walls are a number of rectangular alcoves with stone slab lintels and sills. Five of these alcoves, incorporated into two low revetment walls to the north-east of the cottage ruins, range between about 0.3-0.9m wide by 0.3-0.7m high and 0.3-0.7m deep and are identified as bee boles, each designed to hold a single skep. Further, larger recesses lie to the north and north-west of the cottage ruins, the largest being approximately 1.6m by 1.5m by 1m, these larger recesses possibly representing bee shelters, for keeping multiple skeps.

The ruined cottage lies central to the south-west side, and is reduced to low wall lines except for a single room that is roofed over with corrugated iron sheeting*. The front wall of this room appears to be rebuilt, but incorporates a two-light mullioned window. To its north-west is an outbuilding built into rising ground with a stone slab floor and roof, which incorporates very substantial dressed stone blocks in its construction, one being about 1m by 3.2m, with a drain hole passing beneath. Uphill and to the north of this is a stone built platform that appears to have been formed from partly truncating and then infilling another outbuilding. To the south-east of the cottage ruins there are the footings of a smaller outbuilding interpreted as a privy.

The listing includes the drystone walls that define the trackways immediately adjacent to the cottage and associated enclosures forming the site.

* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 the corrugated sheet roofing is not of special interest.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 15/05/2018

History

The complex at Beverley End is interpreted as the remains of a cottage industry combining weaving and tentering with bee keeping, probably established in the early C18. Built on a steep south-west facing slope is a now ruined weavers’ cottage that an early-C20 photograph shows to have been a two-storey, two-celled building with a central, single-flued chimney, with a further, unheated single-storey later addition to the south-east. Being built into the hillside, it is possible that the upper floor, thought to have been used for handloom-weaving, was accessed externally from the higher ground to the rear. Despite only having a single fireplace, the photograph shows the cottage as being well lit with mullioned windows. The general proportions of the windows and their distribution point to an C18 date. In comparison, early-C19 weavers’ cottages typically had even more windows, being more regularly spaced, generally with wider individual lights. The 1841 census, the first to collect data about occupations, records that Beverley End was occupied by a family of weavers: that is people weaving woollen cloth on hand looms, normally at home. By the following census, 1851, they are recorded as cotton power-loom weavers indicating that this aspect of their cottage industry had ceased, being replaced by factory work. The cottage is believed to have been abandoned by 1930.

Extending up the steep hillside behind the ruins of the cottage is a series of narrow terraces formed by drystone revetment walls. These are identified as being tenter grounds, space in which woollen cloth was stretched on frames as part of the finishing process for the fabric, bringing the cloth to its final dimensions and allowing the sun to bleach it to an even colour. Tentering was typically suspended over the winter months and at Beverley End the terraces are thought to have been turned over to another use, becoming an apiary where bee skeps were gathered from their summer foraging sites to overwinter under closer supervision of the bee-keeper. Five small alcoves built into two terrace walls to the north-east of the cottage ruins are identified as bee boles, each designed to hold a single skep (a traditional round hive made of straw or dried grass) their form being similar to other bee boles identified nationally dating to the C18 and earlier. The terraces that these bee boles overlook are slightly larger than the others and may have been used for fruit and vegetable growing. These alcoves, like similar bee boles in gardens elsewhere nationally, may have been used year round. The larger alcoves built into the terraces to the north and north-west of the cottage may also have been for overwintering bees (each holding a number of skeps), but may have served a different function. The purpose of the stone-built outbuilding to the north-west of the cottage is also uncertain, but it represents a significant investment considering the substantial size of the stone blocks used in its construction. Other features of the site, such as the stone built platform which appears to have been adapted from another outbuilding, are also enigmatic.

Reasons for Listing

Beverley End tenter ground, apiary and ruined weaver’s cottage, of C18 date, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:
* As a rarely identified site retaining legible evidence for a combination of small-scale C18 cottage industries undertaken on the same site: bee-keeping, weaving and tentering.

Architectural interest:
* The impressive set of terraces incorporating utilitarian-style bee boles, the structures being good illustrations of local vernacular building of the C18.

External Links

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