This idyllic snapshot of a father with his two children and a pony was taken in the early l930s up Fell Lane, behind Hoyle's farm on the site of the present Three Horses. The Guard House estate has not yet extended over the background fields, and Holme Mills still stands beside its dam.
Holme Mills, part of which is seen on the right, has been making paper tubes since 1892, when John Stell moved his Keighley business into this "substantially-built worsted mill, with very valuable water power" beside the North Beck. At the time of this photograph, as J Stell and Sons Ltd, it was producing a wide variety of "bobbins, boxes, tubes for bleaching and cop dyeing, spools, etc".
The Holme Mills Ladies' Cricket Team won a "Mrs Sunderland Cup" competition organised by the Keighley Cricket Club twice in succession, in 1931 and 1932, celebrating their second triumph with a whist drive and dance
A disastrous fire early in 1945, described as "the most spectacular blaze in the district for many years", would prove only a temporary setback, and J Stell and Sons Ltd continues under the direction of its fourth generation.
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