Task 1 Water Supply

On the 1850 map of the area (F), find and colour in blue the waterways, including:

Red Beck (a stream), running from the River Calder and the Calder & Hebble Navigation Canal northwards past Brookfoot dyeworks.

Find the answers to these questions using your two maps and the newspaper article:

1. Where did the water come from to supply the mill and how did it reach the mill site?
2. Can you find two places where natural watercourses have been changed by people? Why were they changed?
3. Which buildings does Red Beck flow past? Why were they built there?
4. Find a place where water was deliberately gathered. Why do you think this was necessary?
5. How was water used in the mill? Make a list and explain each one.
6. How important was this supply to the work of the mill?
7. Apart from the useful water supply, how many other reasons can you find for choosing to develop this mill site in the 1870s? (Think about the methods of transport the mill would need to use.)
8. What do you think happened to the waste water from the dyeworks in the 19th century? Do you think it might be different today? Why?

Task 2 Routes

On the 1894 map of the area, (E), marked with the site of Brookfoot Dyeworks, colour in red the routes which might have been taken by the horsedrawn waggons between Brookfoot and Manchester, and Brookfoot and Bradford.

[Remember that motorways are modern roads and that lanes are often very narrow; roads are usually wider.]

The Brookfoot Dyeworks needed good routes from their suppliers who made the woollen cloth for them to dye, good routes from the coalmines for fuel and good routes to their customers who were going to make the cloth into clothes.

All the towns marked on the modern map, (C), with a large dot are part of the Halifax Coalfield:
Ovenden, Northowram, Shelf, Hipperholme, Brighouse, Southowram, Elland, Halifax and Rastrick.

If you had been the dyeworks manager in 1894, where would you have brought coal from, to power the mill?

Choose three places that could supply coal to the dyeworks. Mark in orange on the 1894 map the possible routes for bringing coal from these places to the site by road or canal.

Can you find and mark in green a third method of transport nearby which could have been used by the company to carry goods quickly to and from the mill?

Task 3 Company Development

Read the newspaper article again and highlight information that tells you:

1. How the company started
2. How the company changed over the years.
   
   Now complete this chart, using the information you have highlighted:

Task 4 Power Report

Read the newspaper article again to find the following information:

What three different sources of power were used in the mill during its existence?

How did each method work and why did they change methods over the years?
Write a report on the changes in the way the mill was powered over the years and what the power was needed for, in the dyeworks. Include each power source in your report.

Task 5 Range of Fabrics

The mill has dyed and finished a large range of fabrics over the years.

Read the newspaper article again to find the following information:

How many different kinds of fabric can you identify which were processed at the mill?

Which of these fabrics are made of natural fibres and which ones are synthetic or manmade?

Find samples of synthetic and natural fibres or fabrics to add to your display.

(Fabric names on labels inside some of your clothes might help)

Task 6 Diary

Read again the story of "dad's dinner" towards the end of the newspaper article.. Find the scene of this event by looking at your old map, (D), and use it to help you in this activity.

Where do you think the boy and his family lived?
Find the route he (and his dad) might have taken to the mill.
Do you think he went to a local school? Why?
Do you think his friends would live nearby? Why?

Imagine you are the boy who was sent to the mill every day with his father's dinner.
Write his diary entry for the day he fell over.

Task 7 Brookfoot dyeworks site

On the 1920 map, (D), colour in the roads, lanes, watercourses and buildings following the instructions below. Provide a key for the map so that other people can understand it.

Find the roads and lanes which surround Brookfoot Dye Works and colour them brown.

Colour the watercourses blue.

Find the mill buildings, colour them grey and colour Brookfoot House red.

Task 8 Brookfoot dyeworks, Brighouse

Make a list of questions which could be answered by studying the postcard of Brookfoot Dyeworks and the 1920 map, (D). Make a separate list of answers to these questions.

For example, Compare the photograph with the map. What do you think the large building in the trees is?

Now compare the postcard with the modern photograph taken from almost the same position to answer these questions:

What clues are there to suggest that both pictures show the same place?
What seems to have changed completely?

In order to challenge other children, make a display of the postcard, the modern photograph and the questions.