Thackley
Workhouse
As a teenager, I lived with my
parents on Jowett Park Crescent, (Thackley) and later once I married, I moved to 59
Windhill Old Road. At the back of my parent’s house was a lovely old stone
cottage. Always having a fascination with old houses, I investigated, and I found
that this house was once the Thackley Workhouse.
Built around 1765 at a cost of £104,
10s 1d. Thackley Workhouse was built on Windhill Old Road. A stable was added
in 1790 with an additional cost of £34 17s 10d. At the beginning of the
twentieth century this by then ‘quaint old cottage’ was considered to be an
object of interest and curiosity. Described as low and depressing with small
windows some with iron grills on them.
The workhouse was built around
three sides of a large courtyard, the fourth side surrounded by a high wall,
behind which is a fairly extensive garden. (Must have been where Jowett Park
Crescent is now) This garden was considered to be too cheerful a sight for
miserable paupers. The workhouse was divided into cottages and at the time the
workhouse master wanted to portray an image of it been inhabited by prosperous
working people whilst happy children played in the courtyard. The reality was
somewhat different.
The North Bierley Union was responsible for Thackley Workhouse and was founded in 1848. Thackley Workhouse was taken over by a board of guardians (as was the custom at this time), but on 11th March 1852. The board received a scathing report from a local government inspector Mr Farnell, who condemned the building, stating that ‘the building was a most imperfect structure,’ which did not match the requirements expected of a well-conducted workhouse. There wasn’t a single bath on the premises. Arrangements for the sick were inadequate with paupers having to attend to the sick themselves, bedding and clothing were in short supply, and the inmates both children and adults had no shoes. The overall place was dirty, the report further concluded.
Thackley Workhouse was calculated
to hold 100 people and usually reached this capacity. The house was quite
inadequate for the requirements of the new union. Mr Farnell begged the board
to consider building a new workhouse so that the poor who had no other shelter
would be lodged as they deserved, the idle and destitute would be treated with
the inbuilt discipline of the workhouse. The helpless children would be
educated and the sick and poor lodged apart from the healthy and women of good character
set apart from the immoral and the depraved.
Nevertheless, despite accepting
the inspector’s recommendations the board continued to use Thackley (Known as
Idle Workhouse) until 1855, when North
Bierley Union acquired a site at Calverley, unfortunately, these plans were
abandoned as there was insufficient water supply to the premises. A year later a
purpose-built workhouse was erected at Clayton Heights designed to hold 400
people. Due to its location, this site became very unpopular and deemed ‘The
Siberia’ of the North Bierley Union.
In 1948, this workhouse was integrated
into the NHS and renamed ‘Thornton View.’ This hospital closed in 1984, in 1991
it was sold for use as a private Muslim girls’ school. Many of the original
buildings still stand today.
Thackley Workhouse still stands and is now a desirable private property.
