TAKEN in those more leisurely days when the sight of a photographer with his tripod could draw householders to their doors and children into the street, this was Wheathead Lane looking towards Oakworth Road.
Focus of the old Exley Head community, its Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, out of sight in the right background, could seat 250. Holes in the wall stones on the right – since replaced by houses – were relics of the warp-dressing process when handloom weaving was prevalent here.
Exley Head used to be well known for its pig breeders. Here weaver Joseph Tuley perfected his Large White Yorkshire, winning £10 at the Royal Agricultural Society show at York in 1848.
The Keighley dialect writer Bill o’th’Hoylus End has left us a comical picture of Exley Head’s 1870s pig-breeders gathered on a Sunday, “sum skrachin, sum weshin, and some givin’ t’pigs meyl balls, wal uthers are amusin thersell wi pig argiments an pigology”.
The photograph has been supplied by Mr Kevin Seaton, of Shann Lane, Keighley.
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