Broadbottom, Broadbottom Lane, Hebden Royd, West Yorkshire: An Historical And Architectural Survey
Author(s): David Cant, Colum Giles
Broadbottom is a timber-framed aisled house dating, on the evidence of dendrochronological analysis, to 1464. Surviving from this phase is the aisled housebody, open to the roof and retaining, virtually complete, the truss at the upper (dais) end of the room and, less complete, the open truss over the fire area. Documentary evidence indicates that the house was subdivided in the late-16th century, and it is unlikely that it ever again functioned as a single dwelling. From the late-16th century, new work was in stone. First, part of the lower (southeast) end of the aisled house was rebuilt, probably to form an independent household following the division. This phase was followed closely by the construction of a porch and the casing of the housebody in stone. An important aspect of the house’s history is its long-standing association with families engaged in the wool textile industry on a substantial scale. The significance of the house lies principally in the survival of the timber-framed aisled housebody, making it one of the finest representatives of the historically and architecturally important group of aisled houses in the Halifax area. There is a direct line between this early-capitalist or ‘protoindustrial’ phase of the Yorkshire textile industry and the later development of mass production in West Yorkshire’s textile mills.
- Report Number:
- 29/2018
- Series:
- Research Report
- Pages:
- 62
- Keywords:
- Medieval Standing Building Aisled building Architectural Investigation
