HER 5866 DESCRIPTION:-

Drying sheds and other buildings are in a field at Collow opposite Underhill Farm. A tannery existed on this site from at least 1645 and closed c1918 {Source Work 79.}

Tannery at Collow on the south-west of the town (in sheds now part of Underhill Farm), where in the 19th century 'many women workers in cotton sunbonnets carried the bark to the leather-aproned men in the odorous tannery'. Bark was brought from Dean by packhorses. John Swayne Taylor was a tanner in the district in 1858, and AJ Shiles in 1902. Closed in c1918. Near Station Road in the town is 'Curriers Lane'.{Source Work 134.}

A tannerty at Underhill, on the road between the town and Ruddle, was in use by 1645, when it belonged to the Trigge family, and in the C18 it passed into the ownership of the tanners, William Swayne and his descendants. It was presumably the large tannery referred to in the later C19. Tanning at Underhill ceased c. 1922: the buildings survived in 1968 as farm buildings, with a house which was partly of the C17. {Source Work 894.}

Various buildings shown on 1st, 2nd and 3rd series OS maps, and marked as "Underhill Tannery" {Source Works 5134, 5136 and 5138.}

Marked "Tan House" with "Tan House Orchard" adjacent, on 1839 tithe map of Newnham {Source Work 6634.}