1) A solution of lime and water in a pit was used by tanners to facilitate the removal of hair from the hides, also causing them to swell in readiness for tanning.
1422 ‘took two pits called lez lympittes, late in the tenure of William Barker’, Bradford
1542 Also so muche ledes in the lymme pytts as draweth xix marks, vjs viijd, Beetham. In 1660, a Selby tanner had 13 hors skinnes in the lymes. Tanners who had no pits were quite often indicted for illegally using local wells. William Farrand of Kirkheaton was a persistent offender: in 1595, he was ordered to clean Ladywell and remove his quick lime viva. calc. and hides: in 1605 a by-law ordered him to dresse the well called the Ladywell and take away his lyme and not occupie the same any more. At Leeds manor court in 1670, Isaac Blackburne was fined 13s 4d ‘for fouling the waters at the common stath by washing his lymed skins where the people take water for preparing their victuals’.