It could be that readers will be aware of information not included in this article and, if so, I would be pleased to hear from them.

There are a number of clues as to where we are, but consideration of what you can see in the foreground of today's picture might not be all that useful. It should be acknowledged, however, that the inclusion of an early steam locomotive from Burnley's tram system dates the picture to the period 1881 to 1900 and that the location can be narrowed down to a site served directly by the tram system in its earliest incarnation.

As demolition took place in 1888 the main building in the picture will not be helpful unless you happen to know where it was, but the buildings in the background are a different matter. They are still with us; large Victorian properties, mostly built as houses in the 1880s, not far from the town centre and very near to one of our better parks.

Of course, if you take the trouble to stand where the photographer stood the scene today would be very different. The stone setts have been replaced by asphalt, the wall behind the woman (left) has gone and the views of the houses in the background would be obscured by buildings which have gone up since the photo was taken.

So now we come to where we are. I have said, in the past, one of the most important things to determine in locating where old Burnley photos were taken is to note whether the road in the picture (if there is one!) is level or not. Here, the road is indeed level and that, bearing in mind the steam locomotive, limits us to sections of St James's Street and Church Street.

If I tell you the houses in the background are in Ormerod Road you will be able to work out that the road in the foreground is Church Street.
The houses on the left of the picture are now obscured by Burnley College and, possibly, by the houses a building has been demolished, though remains appear to have been left behind. The site could be only that of the old Talbot Hotel which, when it was standing, was on the westerly corner of a long forgotten street, namely Talbot Lane.

In fact it might be interesting to take up the subject of former street names. Imagine that you are the photographer taking today's picture. It might surprise you to learn you would be standing on Burnley Higher Bridge. Immediately behind you, at one time, would not have been Colne Road, but Fenkin Street. To your right would have been Cuckstool Lane (not as it is now, School Lane) and in the area of the main building there would have been, when the picture was taken, Shorey Place and Shorey Street.

Strictly, Shorey Place was not a street name. It applied (probably only to the rear) of the somewhat mysterious main building in the picture which consisted of at least nine dwellings although there were possibly more. For the sake of simplicity I will refer to the building as Shorey Place.

We are fortunate John Lowe, who worked for Burnley Council in 1980s before he left the town, undertook an artistic reconstruction of these buildings. It can be consulted in his "Burnley", page 142, where he describes the building as "weavers' cottages of the late 18th Century".

It may be that Shorey Place was earlier but, if you get the opportunity to look at Lowe's reconstruction, it will not take you long to realise it does not entirely accord with the photo published today. The first thing you will notice is that Lowe has only four chimney stacks when our photo shows five. Similarly, I am not sure he has got the windows right. Lowe shows, in the upper floor, three sets of windows each of which has two mullions and one set of windows, which has four mullions. He has not quite got the spacings between the windows correct and there may be other differences.

Lowe's picture does, however, remind us the gable at the Church Street end of Shorey Place was offset at an angle to the rest of the building, something which is only hinted at in the photo. In addition, Lowe's reconstruction shows us what the low wall and steam locomotive hides – a steep flight of steps to a balcony which gave access to the dwellings on this elevation.

Shorey Place was, in reality, a short row of back-to-back cottages situated on the left-hand bank of the River Brun. There is another, older drawing, though from a different angle, which Lowe published, at least in part, on page 162 of his book. A better copy exists in Hall and Spencer's "Burnley: A Pictorial History", (illustration 6) and there you will see that, on the elevation that is shown in the picture we publish today, there were four floors, but that the other elevation (which was in Shorey Street) had only three. John Lowe's reconstruction shows four floors on both sides.

Whatever was the case, Shorey Place was demolished in 1888, at just about the same time the Talbot Hotel was rebuilt in the form that we know it today. What is important to note is that Shorey Place was just about the most significant row of weavers' cottages in Burnley centre, an area which one contained many examples of these structures. What made Shorey Place significant is that it conformed to a number of regional principles about weavers' cottages which are lacking in other buildings used for the same purposes in Burnley. Perhaps we will look at this subject in a future article?

Photo published by kind permission of Mr and Mrs T. Sutcliffe.