Tanning - A Vanishing Leeds Industry
Extracts from the WYAS Newsletter, Issue ? 19??
Until the 1920s, leather production was one of Britain's most important industries. Leather was essential in the manufacture of horse harness, factory belting and footwear. Few people realise that Leeds Borough was a national centre of this vital trade. During the 19th century, there were nearly seventy tannery sites in the Borough; further sites for the processing and finishing of the tanned leather probably numbered in the hundreds. Today, fewer than twenty tannery complexes survive of which only one, at Sheepscar, is still in active use as a tannery. The condition of these complexes ranges from almost complete, as at Buslingthorpe Tannery at Sheepscar, to very fragmentary, as at Joppa Tannery on Kirkstall Road near the city centre. All of the surviving tanneries, however, retain features that can help us to understand better the workings of this essential and poorly documented technology. The County Sites and Monuments Record has recently carried out a rapid survey of all the surviving sites, and compiled a collection of records, photographs and secondary material relating to tanning in the Leeds area. Details of this material, and of other industrial sites in the Leeds region, can be obtained by contacting Helen Gomersall .
Kirkstall Hall tannery, Leeds (above) and tan pits at Meanwood tannery, Leeds (below)
