Spinner's End in Real Life (and a trailor tip)

[saraquel_omphale]

No: HPFGUIDX 136653

"potioncat" <willsonkmom at m...> wrote:
> Back when everyone was guessing about Spinner's End, someone came up 
> with a real life location in an industrial area of England. Does 
> anyone recall that? It was possibly an old, no longer used address 
or 
> place name. 
> 
 Hi Potioncat, it might have been me, I know I wrote about the 
possible location of Spinner's End in answer to a post about Hagrid 
taking baby Harry to Snape's house before going to the Dursley's.  
Anyway, the description of the type of houses and the mill chimney are 
classic north of England.  Manchester (in the then county of 
Lancaster) was the centre of the cotton milling industry and was the 
cradle of the industrial revolution. Leeds was the centre of the wool 
industry. The Spinning Jenny (a mechanised loom) was invented in the 
mid to late 18th Century and caused riots, as before that time, people 
had spun cloth in their homes.  But it's invention (plus steam 
technology) brought about the building of mills to process both wool 
and cotton. This originated in the slave trade to the West Indies and 
Southern United States in the 17th/18th century.  As you know, cotton 
was grown, which was then shipped back to England and arrived in the 
port of Liverpool.  It was then taken up the Manchester Ship Canal and 
processed in and around the city.

The wool industry was based on the other side of the range of hills 
that runs up the centre of England (The Pennines)  The centre was 
Leeds, but also towns like Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield (in the 
county of Yorkshire).

The houses which were built for the mill workers all across the north 
of England were small and terraced (meaning a row of houses where the 
side walls are shared).  In fact, in Yorkshire especially, a great 
many back to back houses were built.  Imagine two rows of small 
terraced houses, put them back to back, such that each house has 
neighbours on both side walls and the back wall, with two other 
neighbours at the diagonals.  These houses were really quite small, of 
two or possibly three stories in height, with two rooms on each floor.

The description of Snape's house and the area which the sisters walk 
through, is very much an area of either terraced or back to back 
housing.  In the 1960's these houses were often considered to be 
slums, and many of them were demolished.  Nowdays, they have had 
bathrooms fitted and are the cheapest type of housing you can buy.  
I've lived in one, and as long as the neighbours aren't noisy, they're 
great - really warm!

I was really interested to find out about Snape's house.  It filled in 
a great deal for me.  It means a very working class background for 
Snape.  I could well imagine that this was his parents house, although 
the obvious dereliction of the area spells more of ex-mining village.  
There are still plenty of deserted villages in Yorkshire after 
Margaret Thatcher decimated the coal industry.  But Diggers End, 
doesn't have quite the same ring does it?

Not only would it be likely that Snape came from relative poverty, but 
he would have had a northern accent to boot.  Now James and Sirius 
were most definitely of the middle classes, as is the Weasley family.  
Class sensitivity was greater 25 years ago when Snape was at school, 
than it is now, and it still does exist in England. So add that to the 
mix and you have a Snape with a class resentment chip on his shoulder 
and some middle class 'rich' boys who probably do think that they are 
a cut above our young working class, uncouth, northern lad, Snape.

So many assumptions would be in the mix.  Snape would feel that he was 
an outsider, and if he wanted to make it big, he would have to break 
through the prejudices and class barriers.  He would resent the ease 
and confidence of the Marauders.  I loved finding out what sort of 
house Sanpe lived in.  I hadn't really though about his background 
much, but so much of the rivalry between Snape and Marauders fell into 
place for me.

Hope this helps,
Saraquel