Saltaire

Sir Titus Salt was a wealthy mill owner in Bradford. Over a period of time he began to realise that the working conditions in the city were so poor that his workforce was often unable to function properly. Many of the workers were ill, they were unhappy with the dirt and noise in the factories and living in slum conditions in which many people were dying an early death due to disease. Salt chose to build a new factory outside of Bradford. At this site, now called Saltaire, he built a massive mill which could perform all of the necessary functions in processing alpaca wool for sale. The mill itself is unusual in that it has built into it several features designed to improve conditions for the workers. For example the chimney for this factory was much higher than most Bradford mills and had a filter on it to reduce the amount of smoke entering the air. salt went further still though. He not only built a state of the art mill, but a new village for his workers to live in. This village had parks, a hospital, school, meeting rooms and a library. Salt even provided Almshouses for the elderley or those recovering from illness. Many of his workers even had gardens! For workers the main differences between Salt's new village and the Slums of Bradford must have been the space they had. The roads are wide, the houses are not crammed on top of each other and there are many grassed areas built into the design of the village. Disease was less likely as the air was cleaner and sanitation was provided: saltaire had gutters and much more hygenic toileting facilities than other towns and cities.

Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale is famed for it's iron works. The site was developed by Abraham Darby who recognised the potential of the location. It lay close to the River Severn and so was ideal for exporting goods, had Iron mines close by and so could receive the raw materials with ease and had a good supply of Coal to keep his furnaces burning. his developments were built upon by his son and grandson who developed the technologies used within the Iron works and improved the quality of the iron produced.