THIS father with his two children and a pony was photographed in the early 1930s up Fell Lane, behind Hoyle’s farm on the site of the present Three Horses public house.
The Guard House estate had not yet extended across the background fields, and a still uncomplicated Holme Mills stood on the right behind its placid dam.
Holme Mills had been manufacturing paper tubes since 1892, when John Stell moved his Keighley business into this “substantially-built worsted mill, with very valuable water power” beside the North Beck.
At the time of this photograph, as J Stell and Sons Ltd, the firm was producing a wide variety of “bobbins, boxes, tubes for bleaching and cop dyeing, spools etc”, including such specialities as sweet tubes from 1908, toilet rolls from 1909 and “boxes for packing flowers” from 1937.
A family firm encouraging social activities, Stell’s promoted a Holme Mills ladies’ cricket team, which won a Mrs Sunderland Cup competition organised by the Keighley Cricket Club twice in succession, in 1931 and 1932, celebrating their second triumph with a whist drive and dance.
If current planning permission is granted, this foreground will become a housing estate.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here