Windows & taxes

The evening sunshine on the south face of Salts Mill, Saltaire makes the honey-coloured stone really glow.

If you look closely, on the left you can see some scaffolding - proof that maintenance work and development of the building continues even now. Keeping such a huge building in good order must be a never-ending task. I wonder if anyone has ever counted the number of windows it has? And who cleans them all?

Salts Mill was opened in 1853. Was it pure coincidence that the Window Tax in England was repealed in 1851? The Window Tax was introduced by William III in 1696 (apparently under the 'Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money' - which must be the most fun title for an Act of Parliament ever dreamed up!) It was charged according to the number of windows your house had. There are still properties in some areas where you can see the bricked-up windows that were a way of avoiding the tax. I don't think the tax was imposed upon buildings other than dwellings - but I suppose by 1853 windows would have become very desirable again. I think the real reason for all the windows in the Mill was that the worsted-making processes demanded very good light. The quality of the light is very noticeable inside the building.

And, whilst this has largely been an 'election-free' blog, today is Polling Day, when things in UK might change - for better or worse. Though as Alan said recently on his brilliant 'News from Nowhere': "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose". Whoever leads the country, I reckon they might need another 'Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money'!