Slightly strange to see physical evidence of a place I’ve known about for a very long time. Some of these fixtures and fittings now being briefly exposed belonged to the famed 19th-century textile-engineers Taylor and Wordsworth.
There’s another layer of history beneath that. Somewhere on this site off Water Lane, Holbeck, the earliest textile-machine shop in Leeds was built by John Jubb in 1787-8. There may not be physical evidence now of that early phase.
The site is complicated. The extension of Silver Street is clear, southwards from where it passes through the surviving buildings. Maps and historical records are going to be important in interpreting what the archaeologists find.
