55-56 West End

Situation
The buildings lie behind 55-56 West End, Witney and are reached through an archway from the street.

Physical structure

55-56 West End, Witney - former weaving shop at the rear of the premises.

This is one of the largest and most complete surviving groups of traditional buildings for cloth production in Witney. There are a range of structures here that have grown up over time between the late 17th Century and the early 19th century. Most are made of stone with stone or Welsh slate roofs; there are a few brick buildings within the complex. Around 1910 we know that the site consisted of yarn rooms, offices, wool stores, weaving shops, a mop room, a stable and a cart shed [1]. A large part of the original buildings are still standing and have now been converted to office or business use.

Owners
Edward Early owned the factory here from about 1840. Edward Early and Sons was taken over by Charles Early and Co. in the late 1890s, which retained the factory. By 1967 West End, like Worsham and New Mills, had been sold to concentrate production at Witney Mill where new offices and warehouses had been built.

What was the site used for?

55-56 West End, Witney - crane at the top of one of the former mill buildings.

The West End factory of Edward Early and Son produced blankets, mops, wadmill (fabrics for lining horse collars) and tilts (coarse, heavy cloths with water resistant qualities). By 1949 there were still two or three male handloom weavers working here who produced horse collar check and tiltings; the latter were used by ICI for floor covering in its ammunition magazines [2]. Sydney Taylor was one of the last handloom weavers working for Early's; he was still making traditional horse collar checks at West End in 1957 at the same time that Early's first electric blankets began to be produced here [3]. None of the buildings at West End seem to have been equipped with any form of power for operating spinning or weaving machinery [4].

Clare Sumner