A surviving nineteenth-century tannery at Toberanierin Upper, Co. Wexford
On the southern edge of a farm at Toberanierin Upper, beside the Bracken River, survive the remains of a nineteenth-century tannery or Tan Yard, where animal hides were processed to produce leather. The site retains a remarkable collection of physical remains, including ruined buildings, stone tanning vats, cast-iron components of a bark mill and features associated with the supply and movement of water.
The existence of the Tan Yard is also supported by historical records. The buildings appear on nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey mapping, while Griffith’s Valuation of 1853 specifically records a Tan Yard and forge in Toberanierin Upper. Family memories preserved by local man Thomas Hill provide a further link with the later history of the tannery and its operation around the end of the nineteenth century.
Together, the historical records, surviving structures, machinery, landscape features and local family recollections provide an unusually detailed picture of a rural industry that once formed an important part of everyday life in the Ballyoughter area.
A Rural Tannery at Tubberneering
It can be difficult today to appreciate why a tannery operated in a rural community such as Tubberneering during the nineteenth century. At that time, communities relied heavily on local trades, crafts and industries to provide many of the goods required for everyday life.
Leather was an extremely important material. It was used to make harnesses, shoes, boots, items of clothing, bags, machinery belts and many other products. A local tannery could therefore perform an important economic role by transforming animal hides into a durable and useful material.
The Tan Yard at Toberanierin Upper occupies a secluded site beside the Bracken River, in a field on the southern edge of the farm of local man Thomas Hill. The surviving buildings and associated features remain in a remote and atmospheric setting, where substantial evidence of the site’s former industrial use can still be seen.
According to family history preserved by Thomas Hill, the tannery operated as a thriving family business during the nineteenth century. Thomas Hill recalls his uncle, who was born in the late 1890s, reminiscing about the tannery from memories of his early childhood on the farm.
The tannery appears to have ceased operating around the turn of the twentieth century. The precise reason for its closure is not known. Its disappearance, however, coincided with a wider decline in traditional tanning in Ireland during the nineteenth century, as smaller producers faced changing markets, increased industrialisation and competition from cheaper imported leather.
Historical Evidence and Location
The location of the Tan Yard at Toberanierin Upper is shown on the first-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1837–1842. The tannery buildings stand close to the Bracken River, a particularly important feature for an industry that required substantial quantities of water for soaking, washing and processing animal hides.
The surviving site lies on the southern edge of the farm now associated with the Hill family. An access route from the farm leads for approximately 100 metres towards the tannery and the river, providing a practical means by which hides, oak bark and other materials could have been transported to and from the site.
Photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
Documentary evidence for the tannery survives in Griffith’s Valuation of County Wexford, published in 1853. The valuation specifically records a Tan Yard and forge in Toberanierin Upper, providing clear evidence that tanning was established at the site by the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Griffith’s Valuation records also show that Solomon A. Richards was the principal landowner in Toberanierin and that Robert Hill leased a number of holdings in Toberanierin Upper, including plots identified as 6A, 6B and 6C on the associated valuation map. Henry Hill leased plot 8 and John Hill leased plots 7A and 7B, which include the site of the Tan Yard. These records help place members of the Hill family within the same nineteenth-century landscape in which the Tan Yard operated.
The documentary evidence is complemented by local family history preserved by Thomas Hill, whose uncle, born in the late 1890s, remembered the tannery from his childhood on the farm. Together, the historical maps, Griffith’s Valuation, surviving remains and family recollections provide a strong body of evidence for the existence and later history of the Tubberneering Tan Yard.
Location of the Tan Yard
The Tan Yard is highlighted on the Ordnance Survey map below. Its proximity to the Bracken River is particularly significant and becomes clearer when the various stages of the leather-making process are considered later on this page.
Viewing note: The Tan Yard at Toberanierin Upper is circled on the first-edition Ordnance Survey map. For best results, view the map full screen and use the zoom controls.
Source: Ordnance Survey Ireland/Government of Ireland. Reproduced under Copyright Permit No. MP 005821.
Griffith’s Valuation, 1853
Griffith’s Valuation provides the clearest surviving written evidence for the industry. The valuation records for Toberanierin Upper identify a Tan Yard and forge, while the accompanying maps allow the nineteenth-century holdings to be related to their physical location.
Click or tap the image to enlarge it.
Source: Griffith’s Valuation of County Wexford, 1853. National Library of Ireland.
The Tannery Buildings
Historical tanneries varied considerably in size and layout, but the tanning process required areas for storing and grinding bark, preparing and fleshing hides, tanning them in pits or vats, and drying and finishing the resulting leather. In smaller rural tanneries, some of this work could take place in open yards and pits, while buildings provided covered space for machinery, storage and the working of hides.
At Tubberneering, the first-edition Ordnance Survey map shows two principal buildings at the core of the Tan Yard. Their surviving fabric, together with machinery and other features found around the site, provides important evidence about how the tannery may have operated.
Photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
The Bark Mill House
One of the surviving buildings is interpreted as the bark mill house. Cast-iron components of a bark mill remain within its ruins, while both the northern and southern walls incorporate a distinctive outward curve.
Bark mills were used to crush dried oak bark into smaller pieces so that its tannins could be more readily extracted for use in the tanning process. In Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bark mills were commonly powered by horses. Circular or curved mill buildings provided the space required for an animal to walk around the central machinery while driving the mill.
The combination of the surviving cast-iron mill components and the curved walls at Tubberneering strongly suggests that this building housed a horse-powered bark mill. The outward curves would have provided additional room for the horse or other draught animal to follow its circular path around the mill.
The preparation of oak bark and the surviving bark-mill machinery are explored in greater detail later on this page.
The Second Building
A second principal building survives beside the bark mill house. This structure is likely to have been used for fleshing and other work associated with preparing and processing the hides, although its precise internal arrangement and function have not been documented.
Historical tanneries required covered working areas where hides could be scraped, fleshed and otherwise prepared before and after immersion in the tanning solutions. The surviving building at Tubberneering is consistent with such a use, but it is best regarded as an interpretation based on the physical remains and what is known about traditional tanning rather than as a function established by documentary evidence.
Outside the buildings are a number of surviving stone vats, which appear to have formed part of the tanning process itself. Their location demonstrates that significant parts of the work could take place in the yard outside the principal buildings.
Other ruined structures survive elsewhere on the site, including buildings with louvred openings that have been interpreted as drying houses. These are discussed later under Drying and Finishing.
The two buildings shown prominently on the early Ordnance Survey map should therefore be regarded as the principal buildings at the core of the tannery, rather than necessarily representing every structure that existed or was used at the site during its working life.
Tubberneering photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
How Leather Was Made
Tanning is the process of treating animal skins or hides to produce leather. The process alters the protein structure of the hide, making it more durable and much less susceptible to decomposition. A place where tanning was carried out was known as a tannery or tan yard.
The Irish word súdaire means a tanner, while súdaireacht refers to the craft or process of tanning. Traditional leather manufacture was a lengthy and physically demanding process involving repeated soaking, scraping, washing, tanning and drying. It was also notoriously unpleasant work because of the animal material, alkaline solutions and decomposing organic matter involved.
At Tubberneering, the surviving buildings, pits, stone vats, bark-mill components and possible water-management features allow many of the stages of traditional leather production to be related directly to the physical remains still visible at the site today.
Soaking and Preparing the Hides
Animal hides arriving at a traditional rural tannery first had to be prepared for processing. Hides were commonly obtained from butchers and could be transported to a tannery by horse and cart. A nearby account of the tannery at Ballycanew, recorded in the Schools’ Collection, states that hides there were supplied by butchers from Gorey, Tinahely and other surrounding areas.
Source: “Tanning of Leather”, The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0890, p. 005, Ballycanew, Co. Wexford. Dúchas © National Folklore Collection, UCD. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
The precise suppliers to the Tubberneering Tan Yard are not known. However, the approximately 100-metre access route between the farm and the tannery would have allowed hides and other materials to be transported directly to the site.
If hides arrived salted or dried for preservation, they first had to be rehydrated and washed to remove the salt and other material before further treatment.
A plentiful supply of water was therefore essential to the tanning process. The location of the Tubberneering Tan Yard beside the Bracken River would have provided ready access to water for soaking, washing and rinsing hides.
Several surviving features around the site may also relate to this need for water. Pits close to the tannery buildings may have been used as soaking or lime pits, although their original purpose has not been conclusively established. The remains of what appears to be a water race can also be traced near the tannery. If correctly identified, this feature may have helped channel water to or through parts of the site.
It is possible that hides were soaked in vats supplied with water from the river, or that running water from the Bracken River and any associated water-management system was used during washing and rinsing. The precise arrangements at Tubberneering are not documented and should therefore be regarded as interpretations of the surviving landscape evidence.
Photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
Liming and Hair Removal
Once the hides had been thoroughly soaked and cleaned, unwanted flesh, fat and hair had to be removed.
The flesh side of a hide could be worked over a rounded fleshing beam — usually a log or shaped board — and scraped with specialised knives to remove remaining flesh and fatty material.
The hides were then treated with alkaline solutions to loosen the hair and outer layers of the skin. Lime was widely used for this purpose in traditional tanning. Wood-ash lye and, in some historical tanning processes, urine were also used because their alkaline properties helped loosen hair and assist in preparing the hide.
The length of time required varied according to the process, the strength of the solution and the type of hide being treated. Hides could remain in these solutions for days or weeks rather than following one fixed period.
After treatment, the hides were rinsed and again worked over a beam so that the loosened hair could be scraped away. A particularly interesting local comparison survives in the Schools’ Collection account of the tannery at Ballycanew, where tanning knives are described by a word transcribed as “Shiguers [?]”. The question mark in the transcription indicates that the precise reading of the original term is uncertain.
Removing the hair was laborious work. Hair recovered from hides was itself a useful by-product of the tanning industry and could be sold to plasterers. Animal hair was mixed into traditional plaster to help bind and reinforce it and reduce cracking. It is not known whether the hair produced at the Tubberneering Tan Yard was sold for this purpose, but the practice was associated with historical tanning elsewhere.
After the alkaline treatment and scraping were complete, the hides had to be thoroughly washed to remove the remaining lime or lye. Historical tanning processes could involve repeated rinsing or washing in running water, with the hides regularly moved or turned to ensure that the alkaline material was removed before tanning began.
The amount of water required, together with the unpleasant odours generated by hide preparation, helps explain why tanneries were commonly associated with rivers or other reliable water supplies. At Tubberneering, the tannery’s position beside the Bracken River and at the extreme southern edge of the farm, away from the farmhouse, would have been particularly advantageous. It cannot be established that the location was deliberately chosen to keep smells away from the house, but its distance from the dwelling would certainly have reduced their impact.
Hanns (Hans) Richter, a tanner at work, c. 1609, working a hide over a beam.
Source: Mendel Housebooks of Nuremberg, Vol. 2, Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, via Wikimedia Commons. Rights: Public domain.
Oak Bark and the Bark Mill
The tanning agent used in traditional vegetable tanning was obtained from plant material rich in tannins. Oak bark was particularly valuable for this purpose.
Bark intended for tanning was traditionally stripped when the sap was rising, particularly during the spring, when it could be more readily separated from the wood. Specialised peeling or barking tools were used to remove it. The bark was then dried and stored before being supplied to tanneries.
Before it could be used efficiently, the dried bark had to be broken into small pieces. At many tanneries this was done in a bark mill, where the bark was crushed or ground to increase the surface area from which the tannins could be extracted.
A valuable nearby comparison is provided by the Schools’ Collection account of the tannery at Ballycanew. It records that oak bark was obtained from the Earl of Courtown, Mr Doyne of Wells and Brook’s Estate. The dried bark was stored in packs and was then ground into small pieces in a mill driven by a horse.
There is no surviving record identifying the source of the oak bark used at Tubberneering. Family lore preserved by Thomas Hill suggests that some of it may have come from Courtfoyle Estate in County Wicklow. The Ballycanew evidence shows that large estates in the wider region supplied bark to tanneries, but it does not establish that the Tubberneering tannery obtained bark from the Earl of Courtown’s estate.
The physical remains at Tubberneering provide particularly strong evidence for this stage of the process. Cast-iron components of a bark mill survive within the ruins of the building interpreted as the bark mill house. The curved walls of that building, together with the mill components, strongly suggest that the mill was powered by a horse or other draught animal walking in a circular path around the machinery.
The surviving cast-iron mill insert and mill base show how substantial the machinery was. Comparable horse-powered cast-iron mills demonstrate how separate mill components could work together while a lever or shaft connected the mechanism to the animal providing the power.
Source: R. H. Pease, Wilson del., in Nahum Capen, Biography of Zadock Pratt, of Prattsville, N.Y. (1852), via Wikimedia Commons. Rights: Public domain.
Photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
Source: Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 41 (1892), via Wikimedia Commons. Author unknown. Rights: Public domain.
Tanning in the Vats
Once the hides had been cleaned, dehaired and thoroughly washed, the tanning itself could begin.
Traditional oak-bark tanning involved immersing the prepared hides in water containing tannins extracted from crushed bark. One method involved placing crushed bark in a tanning pit or vat with water and hides, sometimes arranging the bark and hides in alternating layers.
At Tubberneering, several stone tanning vats survive outside the principal buildings. These provide some of the clearest physical evidence for the tanning process at the site.
The hides would have remained in contact with tannin-rich liquid for an extended period while tannins penetrated the hide and altered its protein structure. The strength of the tanning liquor could be increased during the process, and the hides could be moved between vats or solutions.
Traditional vegetable tanning was slow. The time required varied considerably according to the type and thickness of the hide, the concentration of tannins and the type of leather required. Historical tanning could take weeks or many months, so it would be misleading to assume that every hide at Tubberneering was tanned for one fixed number of weeks.
Once tanning was complete, the hides were removed from the tanning liquor and washed to remove excess tanning material before being prepared for drying and finishing.
Source: F. M. Lupton, The Popular Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge (New York: F. M. Lupton, 1888), via Internet Archive/Wikimedia Commons. Rights: Public domain.
Photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
Drying and Finishing
After tanning and washing, the leather had to be dried gradually. It could also be treated with oils or fats to soften and condition it, while colouring or other surface treatments could be applied where required by the final product.
Ruined structures at the Tubberneering site have been interpreted as drying houses. One retains original louvred openings at first-floor level. Such openings would have encouraged the movement of air through the building while keeping the leather under cover, allowing hides to dry more effectively.
Family and site interpretation suggests that the skins were stored on the upper floor of this building while drying, with the louvred openings helping to increase ventilation.
The ruins of a second possible drying house also survive. Its first floor has collapsed and the louvred openings are no longer visible, making its original arrangement more difficult to interpret.
These additional structures demonstrate why the two principal buildings visible most clearly on the early Ordnance Survey map should not necessarily be understood as the only buildings associated with the tannery throughout its working life.
Photographs: Shane Eivers. Taken with the permission of Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper.
Did you know?
The word tan has long been associated with the use of tree bark in leather-making. Oak bark was especially valued because of its high tannin content.
In Irish, súdaire means a tanner, while coirt means tree bark and can also specifically mean tanner’s bark.
Language source: Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Teanglann.ie.
Sources and Further Reading
- Griffith’s Valuation of County Wexford, 1853.
- Ordnance Survey first-edition mapping, 1837–1842.
- “Tanning of Leather”, The Schools’ Collection, Vol. 0890, p. 005, Ballycanew, Dúchas.
- F. M. Lupton, The Popular Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge (1888).
- Procter, H. R. The Principles of Leather Manufacture. London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1903.
- Riordan, E. J. Modern Irish Trade and Industry. London: Methuen, 1920.
- Teanglann.ie entries for súdaire and coirt.
- Oral history: Thomas Hill, Toberanierin Upper; family recollections communicated to the website author, [2021].