Cloth Hall

Cloth Market and Cloth Halls

Leeds Cloth Markets – 17th & 18th Centuries

Old Leeds Bridge

The Civil War (1642-51) interfered with the production of cloth in West Yorkshire, particularly in the early years, when Halifax, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield became garrison towns for the opposing sides of the conflict.

After the wars, Leeds became a principle market for the sale of woollen cloth. In the 17th Century, the Leeds Cloth Market became a major centre in the area for marketing cloth of all kinds. It was held every Tuesday and Saturday from 6 am and was held on Leeds Bridge, a historic crossing point on the River Aire. By 1684, it had outgrown its site and moved to Briggate, where it remained until the Leeds Cloth Halls were established.

By the early 1700s, woollen textiles accounted for 26% of all English manufacturing output, though the cotton industry of Lancashire was now beginning to outstrip wool in growth. Cotton textiles such as calico, imported by the East India Company, became popular with British consumers and began to threaten the traditional woollen trade and only legislation protected the woollen producers, for a time, from the onslaught of cotton.

Nevertheless, huge amounts of woven wool cloth were changing hands and Leeds became dominated by merchants and trading with its traditional outdoor cloth market. The saying goes that “Leeds was built on wool”.

Old Leeds Coat of Arms on Leeds Bridge
Oosoom [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

On Market days there were strict codes of conduct. The following text has been transcribed by the author from Daniel Defoe’s “A tour thro’ the whole Island of Great Britain, Volume III”, published in 1753:

From Aberford (note: 10 miles north east of Leeds) we turned West, and went to Leeds, which is a large, wealthy, and populous Town, standing on the North Side of the River Aire, with great Suburbs on the South Side, and both joined by a stately, strong, Stone Bridge, so large, and so wide, that formerly the Cloth-market was kept upon it; and therefore the Refreshment given the Clothiers by the Inn-keepers (being a Pot of Ale, a Noggin of Pottage and a Trencher of boil’d or roast Beef, for two-pence) is called the Brigg-shot to this Day.

The Increase of the Manufactures, and of the trade, soon made the Market too great to be consigned to the Brigg; so that it is now kept in the High-street, beginning from the Bridge, and running up North almost to the Market-house, where the ordinary Market for Provisions begins; which also is the greatest of its kind in all the North of England. You may judge of the Plenty of it, when 500 Load of Apples have been numbered by the Mayor’s Officers in a Day.

But the Cloth-market is chiefly to be admired, as a Prodigy of its Kind, and perhaps not to be equalled in the World. The Market for Serges at Exeter is indeed a wonderful Thing, and the Money returned very great; but it is there only once a Week, whereas here it is every Tuesday and Saturday.

Early in the Morning, Tressels are placed in two rows in the Street, sometimes two Rows on a Side, across which Boards are laid, which make a kind of temporary Counter on either Side, from one End of the Street to the other.

The Clothiers come early in the Morning with their Cloth; and, as few bring more than one Piece, the Market-days being so frequent, they go into the Inns and Public-houses with it, and there set it down. At about Six o’Clock (am) in the Summer, and about seven in the Winter, the Clothiers being all come by that Time, the Market Bell at the old Chapel by the Bridge rings; upon which it would surprise a Stranger, to see in how few Minutes, without Hurry, Noise, or the least Disorder, the whole Market is filled, and all the Boards upon the Tressels covered with Cloth, as close to one another as the Pieces can lie longways, each Proprietor standing behind his own Piece, who form a Mercantile Regiment, as it were, drawn up in a double Line, in as great Order as a Military one.

As soon as the Bell has ceased ringing, the Factors; and Buyers of all Sorts enter the Market, and walk up and down between the Rows, as their Occasions direct. Some of them have their foreign Letters of Orders, with Patterns sealed on them, in their Hands, the Colours of which they match, by holding them to the Cloths they think they agree to. When they have pitched upon their Cloth, they lean over to the Clothier, and, by a Whisper, in the fewest Words imaginable, the Price is stated; one asks, the other, bids; and they agree or disagree in a Moment.

The Reason of this prudent Silence is owing to the Clothiers standing so near to one another; for it is not reasonable, that one Trader should know another’s Traffick. If a Merchant has bidden a Clothier a Price, and he will not take it, he may go after him to his House, and tell him he has considered of it, and is willing to let him have it; but they are not to make any new Agreement for it, so as to remove the Market from the Street to the Merchant’s House.

The Buyers generally walk up and down twice or each Side of the Rows, and in little more than an Hour all the Business is done. In less than half an Hour you will perceive the Cloth begin to move off, the Clothier taking it up upon his Shoulder to carry it to the Merchant’s House. At about half an Hour after Eight the Market Bell rings again, upon which the Buyers immediately disappear, the Cloth is all sold; or if any remains, it is carried back into the Inn. By Nine o’Clock the Boards and Tressls are removed, and the Street left at Liberty for the Market-people of other Professions, the Linen-drapers, Shoemakers, Hardwaremen, and the like. Thus you see 10 or 20,000 pounds worth of Cloth, and sometimes much more, bought and sold in little more than an Hour, the Laws of the Market being the most strictly observed that I ever saw in any Market in England.

If it be asked, How all these Goods at this Place, at Wakefield, and at Halifax, are vended and disposed of? I would observe;

First, That there is an Home-consumption; to supply which, several considerable Traders in Leeds go with Droves of Pack-horses, laden with those Goods, to all the Fairs and Market-towns almost over the whole Island, not to sell by Retail, but to the Shops by Wholesale; giving large Credit. ’Tis ordinary or one of these Men to carry a thousand Pounds worth of Cloth with him at a time; and, having sold that, to send his Horses back for as much more; and this very often in a Summer; for they travel chiefly at that Season, because of the Badness of the Roads.

There are others, who have Commissions from London to buy, or who give Commissions to Factors and Warehouse-keepers in London to sell for them, who not only supply all the Shop-keepers and Wholesale Men in London, but sell also very great Quantities to the Merchants, as well for exportation to the English Colonies in America, which take off great Quantities of the coarse Goods, especially New England, New York, Virginia, etc and also to the Russia Merchants, who send exceeding great Quantities to Petersburg, Riga, Dantzick, Narva , Sweden, and Pomerania; tho’ of late the Manufactures of this kind set up in Prussia, and other Northern Parts of Germany, interfere a little with them.

The third Sorts are such as receive Commissions from abroad, to buy Cloth for the Merchants chiefly in Hamburgh and in Holland, etc. These are not only many in Number, but some of them very considerable in their Dealings, and correspond with the farthest Provinces in Germany.

A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain; Daniel Defoe 1753

Cloth Halls

The Leeds First White Cloth Hall

Eventually, the outdoor cloth market could no longer cope with the volume, requiring the establishment of the white cloth halls. A site was found in Leeds at Kirkgate to erect the first cloth hall. Financed by merchants and clothiers, a “White Cloth Hall” was opened in 1711. It was described as “a stately hall, built on pillars on arches in the form of an exchange, with a quadrangular court within and a cupola, and bell on the top”. In the White Cloth Hall, the pieces of un-dyed cloth were displayed on stalls for the inspection of the merchants, providing the first secure and sheltered building for the sale of un-dyed cloth in the town.

Daniel Defoe reported:

At the Well End of the Town formerly stood a Castle, wherein King Richard II was imprisoned before he was carried to Pontefract. And on the Site thereof now stands the ancient Manor-house, with the Park, etc. lately belonging to Mr. Richard Sykes. Here are two magnificent Halls, both built about the Year 1714; one for White Cloths, supported by Pillars and Arches, which form a Quadrangle like the Royal Exchange, with a handsome Cupola, and Bell on the Top, to give Notice when the Market for these Sort of Goods begins. The other is the Guild or Moot Hall, the Front of which is built likewise on Arches, with rustic Coins and Tabling; where, in a Niche, is placed a fine Statue of Queen Anne, done by Mr. Carpenter, at the Expense of Alderman Milner.

A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain; Daniel Defoe 1753

Not long after this, the First Hall became too small. The first White Cloth Hall remained standing but was much altered in character and use over the years, becoming endangered in the early 21st Century. By 2010 it was empty and derelict and a major project was planned to restore it.

Second White Cloth Hall

A replacement, the Second White Cloth Hall was built between Hunslet Lane and Meadow Lane. The three-storey building was 70 yards long and 10 yards deep. The building was opened in 1756 but only used for 20 years and was demolished in 1786, only 30 years after it had been built.

Third White Cloth Hall

Leeds Third White Cloth Hall early 1900s

The Third White Cloth Hall in Leeds was built as output and trade continued to increase with the introduction of mechanised mills. Most of the money for the third hall came from the wealthy Leeds merchants, and a site was found on a piece of land, which was previously the Tenter Ground, in the Calls.

The hall was built around a large central courtyard, and at the northern end it was two storeys high, with adjacent assembly rooms. The Hall was built at a cost of £4,300, and opened on 17th October 1775.

Fourth White Cloth Hall

In 1868, the Fourth White Cloth Hall was built by the North Eastern Railway company, on King Street, to replace the 3rd White Cloth Hall, that they had had to partly demolish in 1865 to make way for the building of a viaduct. This fourth White Cloth Hall was never fully used, and was demolished in 1895. The Metropole Hotel on King Street re-used its cupola.

The Leeds Coloured (Mixed) Cloth Hall

After the building of the Second White Cloth Hall, the mixed or coloured cloth makers were still using the open-air cloth market in Briggate and they wanted a cloth hall of their own. A piece of land at “the ‘Parks’ was bought from Richard Wilson, the Recorder of Leeds. He had inherited the land from his Sykes ancestors and agreed to sell a plot for the building of the new Coloured Cloth Hall.

The building of the Coloured Cloth Hall was financed by the clothiers themselves, who contributed between £2:10s and £7:10s each. (£2:10s was the cost of a stand). The brick built hall, the largest ever built in Leeds, was U-shaped in plan, 127 yards long and 66 yards wide. It cost £5,300 and opened in 1758.

Images – Coloured Cloth Hall

Rotunda Coloured Cloth Hall

The Coloured Cloth Hall, used for mixed dyed cloth, became one of the City’s two major textile trading centres in the 18th and 19th centuries. Each wing of the building was divided into two ‘streets’, each street having two rows of stands for the clothiers to display their produce. On market days it was used by up to 2,500 clothiers. The central courtyard accommodated up to 20,000 people for public meetings. 

A small octagonal building, the ‘Exchange’ or ‘Rotunda’ was a later addition and was used as an office by the trustees who were responsible for the running of the property. In 1834 a first floor, designed by R.D. Chantrell, was also added. The Coloured Cloth Hall was demolished in 1891 and the Post Office building in City Square occupies the site.

Tom Paine’s Hall

Clothiers who had not served an apprenticeship in the trade were not allowed to use the cloth halls. These clothiers were known as “irregulars” and had to use a separate building, in Meadow Lane. “Tom Paine’s Hall” was built on Albion Street in 1793, making 5 white cloth halls in total.

Briggate on Market Day 1872

The Leeds Cloth Halls Today

The First White Cloth Hall is a Grade II listed building. After it was closed, the Hall was converted into an alehouse then into shops. In the early 19th Century, two houses were built across the open front of the courtyard and the Hall itself converted to dwellings. Most recently it was used as shops again. By 1999, the Hall was derelict and endangered and was placed on Historic England’s “Heritage at Risk Register” as one of the most significant historic buildings in Leeds.

At the time of this update (2020), renovation has begun. This will involve dismantling the later additions, rebuilding the west wing and creating a large assembly room. The public courtyard, once revealed and restored, will be enclosed. After a very stop-start process, work eventually began and, as of September 2020, is at the stage as shown. More with photographs here.

Partially restored First Leeds White Cloth Hall, Sept 2020
[Rcsprinter123, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons]
First White Cloth Hall
Restored First White Cloth Hall March 2022
[Warofdreams, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons]
A feature in the Yorkshire Post in January 2021 described the discovery of ancient oak timbers found during the restoration of the First White Cloth Hall. These were in the form of wooden trusses that had been used in the building of the original hall in 1710. However, the timbers had been "recycled" from an earlier building which was built from trees felled in 1470. Carbon dating shows that the timbers came from trees that were 200 years old when felled so could have been planted as early as 1200 AD.

The Leeds Coloured Cloth Hall is now also a Grade II listed site and in 2017 work was begun to restore the building and convert it to a major conference centre.

The Third White Cloth Hall, in Crown Street, still exists in part, including the cupola and the adjacent Assembly Rooms have been re-developed.

Assembly Rooms (left), Third White Cloth Hall (centre) and Corn Exchange, (right).
Crown Street, Leeds, cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Mark Stevenson – geograph.org.uk/p/5441409
The Assembly Rooms, Assembly Street, Leeds
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Rich Tea – geograph.org.uk/p/1411010

Wakefield’s Tammy Hall

Tammy is made from mixed fibres of combed wool, was often heavily glazed and was used in the manufacture of linings and underwear. Originally these cloths would be traded at local inns until the building of a first cloth hall in 1710. As trade increased, a group of “stuffmakers” (manufacturers of “stuff” or woollen fabric without a pile) bought a piece of land on which they would erect a new hall. By 1778, the town had a new piece hall built for trading woollen cloth, which was called “Tammy Hall”. It cost £367 and was paid for by subscriptions raised from 140 clothiers, who paid 5 guineas each for the privilege of having a stall there. Tammy Hall was a two-storey building, 230 feet long and 33 feet wide, with 60 windows on each side. Each storey was a trading room that stretch the full length of the building. The traders had their stalls down the centre of the building.

The market bell rang to begin selling at 10 am each Friday and the bell rang to end trading at noon.

The Tammy Hall rather quickly fell into disuse and was sold in 1820 to Marriott’s who converted it into a factory. It later became a fire station and police offices. In due course it was used as Magistrate’s courts, though it had been partly demolished to accommodate the Town Hall. Part of the building still exists on Tammy Street.

The Huddersfield Cloth Hall

Huddersfield Cloth Hall and White Hart Inn
Huddersfield Exposed published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Huddersfield held weekly markets from the 1670s, but as it became too overcrowded, the clothiers set up their trestles along the Parish Church walls. The Cloth Hall was built in red brick in 1766, on an area of land off Westgate, with its entrance on Market Street. It comprised a grand entrance with clock tower and cupola, from which ran a straight gallery. On each side of this gallery was a semi-circular wing, first just a single storey then a second storey was built on top as the building became outgrown. It was the largest building in Huddersfield.

The manufacture of woollens and fancy goods, which is carried on to a very great extent, both in the town and in the adjacent villages, consists of broad and narrow cloths, kerseymeres, serges, and cords, shawls, waistcoatings, and other fabrics of cotton, worsted, and silk, in various combinations, and of the most elegant patterns. For the better accommodation of the manufacturers and purchasers, a Cloth Hall was erected by Sir John Ramsden in 1765, and, from the great increase of business, enlarged by his son in 1780. The present Hall, which is two stories high, incloses (sic) a circular area 880 yards in circumference, divided into two semicircles by a range of building one story high, forming a diameter; and the semicircles are subdivided into streets of shops, or stalls. Above the entrance is a handsome cupola, with a clock and bell for regulating the opening and shutting of the Hall, which is wholly lighted from within the area, and on market-days is open from an early hour in the morning, for the transaction of business, till half past twelve, when it is closed till three o’clock, and again opened for the removal of the various articles exposed for sale. Some hundreds of manufacturers attend the Hall on the market-days, mostly from the country.

From “A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848)”

However, as mechanised mills took the place of small clothiers, the cloth began to be sold direct from the mills and the Cloth Hall fell into disuse.

The Hall was then used for various purposes until it was demolished in 1930. The Ritz Cinema was built on the site in 1935. Parts of the entrance and the clock tower were re-erected in Ravensknowle Park in 1932 and are still standing today.

Halifax Piece Hall

The first mention of a textile hall in Halifax is the Cloth Hall at Hall End in 1572 and a Linnen Hall is mentioned in a deed in 1629. In 1708 there were both Linen and Woollen Halls. Whatever happened to these halls, they were presumably outgrown. By 1774, plans were drawn up to build a most impressive new Manufacturers’ Hall, the Piece Hall. It would be built on Talbot Field, would be suited to the importance of the town and rival anything in the area. A proposed plan for a circular building was rejected as being expensive and impractical. The present hall’s plans were approved in January 1774.

The Halifax Manufacturers’ Hall (Piece Hall)

Built between 1774 and 1779, the Piece Hall was built as a series of 315 rooms on three stories arranged around an open (almost square) courtyard. The two upper colonnades were used for the trading of “pieces” of broadcloth.

The three levels were named “Rustic” (Ground Floor) “Arcade” (First Floor) and “Colonnade” (Top Floor). Trading hours were between 10am and noon and were controlled by the ringing of a bell. Penalties were imposed for trading outside these hours. This meant that traders who had a long distance to travel would have to put up overnight at a nearby inn.

Halifax Piece Hall © John Widdall 2019

Each trader had his own room or “shop” in the hall. So, with only two hours of trading allowed, how did a purchaser find his preferred trader? Well, the traders had their business invoices and letterheads printed with their unit number and lodging. For example, a John Murgatroyd of Warley had Room No.18 in the “Rustic” (Ground Floor) and put up at “The Old Cock Inn”.

Like other cloth halls, it became redundant after the Industrial Revolution. From the 1860s to the 1970s it was operated as a mixed wholesale market.

Halifax Piece Hall is still one of the most important buildings of its type in the area. It reflects the wealth of the town in the 18th Century and its importance as a centre for cloth making and export of woollen cloth. After a £20 million refurbishment, it was re-opened in 2017 with shops, restaurants and a museum and art gallery. It is now a major heritage destination and focal point for the town.

Skeletons near the Piece Hall

Alongside the Piece Hall all is the red-brick Non-Conformist Square Chapel, which was built in 1772 and is now a centre for the arts. During the renovation of the Piece Hall, 217 skeletons were exhumed from the cemetery at Square Chapel dating from 1772 to 1860. 203 underwent analysis.

The analysis revealed many children who died in their early years and young women, who were likely to have died in childbirth. But there were also adults who lived to a ripe old age. The diets of the subjects included plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables plus sugary foods (the latter shown by the amount of tooth decay). Men were prone to traumatic injuries and women to infectious diseases. Many of the burials were of middle class people and tradesmen. The remains were re-interred at Stoney Royd Cemetery.

The Story of Shoddy and Mungo

Throughout the 19th century, fierce competition from West Yorkshire drove almost every other English woollen manufacturing area out of business, aided by the development of the Shoddy and Mungo processes…the next part of the story of wool.

beenhere

Stories of People of the Woollen Industry

Martha Arnold of Woolwich and Mirfield and a Possible Luddite Connexion
The story of the Luddite rebellion near Huddersfield and Mirfield. A story of riot, murder, hanging and a possible link to the author’s family.

Thomas Sheard, a 16th Century Woolman…and the Sheard dynasty of West Yorkshire.

A Case of Industial Espionage (Archer of Ossett, textile machinery maker)
The story of George Archer and his involvement in a case of industrial espionage during a break in the Napoleonic Wars.

The Hemingways of Southowram and Earlsheaton
The Hemingway family came from Halifax in the 16th century to settle in Gawthorpe, Ossett and Earlsheaton, where they made their living weaving woollen blankets.

Richard Wilson’s Long Walk (Northern dozens)
About the year 1736, Richard Wilson, a clothier from Ossett, near Wakefield, made two pieces of broadcloth. This is the story of how he sold those cloths at Leeds market.


Christine Widdall © 2020 All rights reserved.