Bradford & District | Archive | 2005 | November | 18
From the archive, first published Friday 18th Nov 2005.
This was the cottage at Buckley Green, Stanbury, which served both as home and workplace for Timmy Feather, the last handloom weaver in the area, until his death aged 85 in 1910.
In his later years he became a popular postcard subject, but this photograph is unusual in showing the whole premises.
Most outside views concentrate on old Tim with his bobbin-winder, but here he is an incidental figure in the doorway.
On the left are some of the hens which used to strut about inside.
A bachelor, Timmy's staple diet was porridge.
His loom shared an upstairs room with his bed and tubs of meal, while his downstairs kitchen was crammed with chests, pots, treacle-tins, empty bird-cages, clocks and cases of stuffed birds.
Over the decades he is estimated to have woven 234,780 yards of cotton cloth, pressing the treadles of his loom 540 million times.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008