It is very interesting that ground-penetrating radar has shown the outline of a large tannery at Fountains Abbey beside the River Skell (Archaeologists find ‘missing link’ in history of Fountains Abbey, 25 October). It is wonderful that it adds another significant building to what was known to have been a busy abbey.
However, this is not the first known monastic tannery in the north. Rievaulx Abbey had converted the south end of the undercroft of its dormitory block into a tannery by the 16th century, though it is thought by this time nearby buildings were not in use (according to the English Heritage guidebook). Though smaller, one imagines this would have been equally smelly.
I think odours that we would find obnoxious were commonplace in the middle ages. One only has to think of the Shambles in York (and elsewhere) lined with butchers, throwing the offal into the street, with most people emptying their chamber pots and worse into the open gutter. People at that time must have not noticed such smells in the way that we would.
Janet Edmunds
Leeds
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