Loewijer's Tannery

Loewijer's Tannery

Loewijer’s is one of the many small tanneries in the leatherworking district of Luydenhoek. It is set a little way behind Tanner’s Alley, in the maze of side-streets and alleyways. One end of the building stands on Canal Street, but it is without doors or windows - instead, it has a colourful mural of a stack of leather hides and a sign reading "LOEWIJER’S TANNERY - Entrance at Side". The sign doesn’t say which side the entrance is on, but it doesn’t matter since there are doors on both sides of the building.

Beside each door is a pit, 5ff square and 5ft deep and covered over with planks. The pits are used for storing the tanning mixture, an evil-smelling concoction made from the bark of certain trees, sour wine and other, less pleasant substances.

Anton Loewijer

The building itself consists of two large rooms connected by a narrow passage. The front room on the ground floor is used for scraping, trimming and cleaning hides, and the back room - which has a deliver door facing towards Tanners’ Alley - contains three tanning pits like those outside, except that they now contain hides in various stages of tanning. A ladder leads up the upper floor from here, as does a ramp from the front room. There is no passage on the upper level - the space is occupied by a rope drying rack for hanging hides when they c
ome out of the pits.