Ordnance Survey Characteristic Sheet for the Engraved Six-Inch Maps of Great Britain - 1897 (cropped - Tenter Ground)

A tenterground, tenter ground or teneter-field was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after

fulling Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking (Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...

. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called "

tenter Tenterhooks or tenter hooks are hooked nails in a device called a ''tenter''. Tenters were wooden frames which were used as far back as the 14th century in the process of making woollen cloth. The phrase "''on tenterhooks''" has become a met ...

s" and stretched taut using " tenter hooks", so that the cloth would dry flat and square. It is from this process that some have the expression " on tenterhooks", meaning in a state of nervous tension. There were tentergrounds wherever cloth was made, and as a result the word "tenter" is found in place names throughout the United Kingdom and its empire, for example several streets in

Spitalfields Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The area is formed around Commercial Street (on the A1202 London Inner Ring Road) and includes the locale around Brick Lane, Christ Church ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and Tenterfield House in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, which in turn gave its name to Tenterfield in New South Wales, Australia.

London

The Spitalfields Tenterground was established in the 17th century by

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium ...

weavers, who were

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s fleeing

religious persecution Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or their lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within societies to alienate o ...

. Their weaving industry led to the area becoming a centre of the garment industry (the rag trade as it became known colloquially), with names such as

Fashion Street Fashion Street refers to a cluster of over 385 street side clothing shops on MG Road near Azad Maidan and is opposite to Bombay Gymkhana, in South Mumbai, India. The market is located just opposite VSNL Tata Communications Limited (prev ...

and Petticoat Lane still extant. It was originally an area of open ground about 150 yards square, surrounded by the weavers' houses and workshops in White's Row, Wentworth Street, Bell Lane and Rose Lane (the last of which no longer exists). By the 19th century, the Flemish weavers had dispersed, and in 1829 the Tenterground was developed for housing. From about 1850, it was populated by

Dutch Jews The history of the Jews in the Netherlands began largely in the 16th century when they began to settle in Amsterdam and other cities. It has continued to the present. During the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in May 1940, the J ...

(see

Chuts Chuts is the name applied to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands during the latter part of the 19th century. They typically came from Amsterdam and practised trades they had already learned there, most notably cigar-, cap- and sl ...

), to be joined later by

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

refugees fleeing persecution in

eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...

(see

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...

). During the early part of the 20th century, the Tenterground was largely demolished for redevelopment, but some old buildings remain in and around the area, including Flemish weavers' houses and an early Dutch synagogue which was formerly a Huguenot

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common typ ...

. Another former Huguenot chapel is now a

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a Place of worship, place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers (sujud) ...

. Rocque's 1746 map shows further tenter grounds between Bishopsgate and Moorfields, adjoining "Mr Witanoom's Vinegar Yard" (''i.e.'' Cornelius Wittenoom''The London magazine; or, Gentleman's monthly intelligencer, Volume 25'', London, 1756, p.564
/ref>), and also covering large areas of

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

. Lower Moor Fields, east of Finsbury, connected to Long Alley northwards, was a cloth washing area with cloth pegged to the ground to be stretched and dried.

References

{{reflist Dutch-Jewish culture in the United Kingdom History of clothing Textiles Industrial history of London