CONTEXT 187 : MARCH 2026 29 INFRASTRUCTURE WESSEX Far left: The furnace and flue A converted drying house in nearby Justice Lane of considerable disrepair. It was bought by the current owners from BritishTelecommunications in 1990, when it was part of the neighbouring telephone exchange. It was listed as a scheduled Eliza Gray, a Somerset based garden designer, has recently received a distinction in her postgraduate certificate in the conservation of the heritage environment from Birmingham City University. monument in 1981 and is currently on the Heritage at Risk Register (2025). The current owners have started to clear deposits of soil and rubble, which had been shifted into the tower area during the construction of the BT site and, while there is a desire to preserve the historic structure of the building, there is no formal management plan in place. The remains of many other buildings of woollen industry in the south west have disappeared or been adapted for other uses. A selection of known drying towers in Wiltshire and Somerset are listed, with their current status, in the table, along with known Frome dyehouses, which potentially also had drying stoves. As one of the last remaining unaltered, round drying houses in Somerset and Wiltshire, the building illustrates a period in the industrial history of Frome and the West Country when the dyeing of wool, within the local textile industry, was key to the development of the region. In spite of its current roofless state, the unmodified remaining structure of the building provides a unique opportunity for exploration of historic methods of dyeing cloth in the 18th and 19th centuries. The site provides an opportunity to further understand the methods used historically for industrial dyeing, and to record, stabilise and reuse the tower in a way that engages and informs the local community. Further archaeological exploration of the site and the relatively undisturbed setting could help us to understand the building’s previous construction within the context of the wider complex of buildings on Willow Vale. Post holes give an insight into the building’s original configuration.
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