Today the role of almshouses, traditionally modest yet well-designed and solidly-built homes funded by charity, has largely been superseded by modern alternatives. The nearest equivalent, I suppose, are sheltered-housing complexes or Flower Fund Homes.

The stigma which was attached to almshouses, largely because people confused them with workhouses, has gone from those which survive.

However, in years gone by and right up to the start of the 20th century, almshouses provided essential accommodation for the poor and the destitute in a world before welfare and council housing.

The essential difference between the workhouse and the almshouse is explained by Helen Caffrey in a detailed book looking at the history of the latter in the West Riding from 1600.

"In a workhouse inmates of whatever age worked for their keep; in an almshouse they received alms, that is charitable support," she explains. "To go further, the workhouse was the bottom line, the last resort of the destitute; the almshouse residents were selected to benefit from the particular charity, and arguably gained a certain status in so doing.

"Almshouses were not an official or state response and did not represent any form of government attempt to cope with social problems. Each almshouse charity was, and indeed is, an individual private charity."

One of the earliest example in this part of the world is Beamsley Hospital, near Bolton Abbey, which was founded in 1593 by landowner's wife Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland and added to by her daughter, the admirable Lady Anne Clifford, in the 1620s or thereabouts.

Like Fountain's Hospital at Linton, near Grassington, this wasn't a hospital in the modern sense. It was a place where hospitality was given.

Helen Caffrey explains that the role of these institutions in the middle ages "was to look after those in need of care, whether travellers, the sick, infirm or elderly".

Beamsley Hospital was initially home to seven women, each living in a segment of the circular building where they could sleep, cook and eat privately while sharing the other facilities. The "new" building added by Lady Anne had six more rooms in two rows of three linked by an archway through which the first building was reached.

As the 19th century drifted into the 20th, Beamsley's popularity declined largely because of its relatively isolated location and lack of modern facilities. Increasingly, the almswomen allocated space there accepted it and collected their pension from the charity but lived elsewhere. Now Beamsley Hospital is holiday accommodation.

There was a tremendous growth in almshouse building during the Victorian era when industrialists, awash with money and no doubt keen to ease their consciences while at the same time making a public demonstration of their altruism, had them built and set up charities to administer them.

A whole raft of local ones are listed in this 2006 book, which has been loaned to me by Dr Peter Corry, of Guiseley, whose hobby is researching the old almshouses of Yorkshire. In fact he tells me that he had intended to write a book about them when he retired from the NHS and had a bit more time to spare. He's been pipped to the post by Helen Caffrey, at least as far as the West Riding part of the county is concerned, but generously concedes that her book seems very good.

"There are plenty of books about old churches, abbeys and castles but almshouses are often overlooked," he says. Not any more, it seems.

One of the finest examples of Victorian almshouses in Bradford is the Bradford Tradesmen's Home at Lilycroft, off Heaton Road, which was founded in 1875 with additions in 1877 and is still a thriving community administered by the Tradesmen's Benevolent Fund and Spinsters' Endowment Fund.

There are 42 residents living independently in smart Gothic-style two-storey houses around a rectangular courtyard with immaculately-maintained lawns and flower beds, along with a former chapel (which is now used as a reading room and community centre) and a secretary's house.

Titus Salt, who laid the foundation stone for the Tradesmen's Home, had in 1868 built his own almshouses in Victoria Road as part of his model village. Constructed in the Italianate style of Saltaire, they form an open courtyard around three sides of a public green with the fourth side being across the road and attached to the former Salts Hospital, which is now private apartments.

A decade earlier Edward and Hannah Ripley had built the Bowling Dyeworks almshouses on New Cross Street near Bowling Park to provide accommodation for ten pensioners. They're now privately owned, as are Rand's Almshouses off Whetley Street, Manningham, which were founded in 1876 by Elizabeth Rand in accordance with the wishes of her late husband, manufacturer John Rand, who had died three years earlier. They provided accommodation for eight people, with employees given first choice. Rules included a curfew, no trade to be carried out from the premises and no washing to be hung out.

A similar-sized development was the Melbourne Almshouses in Sawrey Place, off Little Horton Lane, where the eight Quaker residents were instructed to be kind and obliging to their neighbours. In Bingley the Rhodes Charity, founded in 1784 by Sarah Rhodes, built almshouses off Priestthorpe Lane for five local "ancient poor persons".

Says Helen Caffrey: "For several hundred years almshouses have provided models of accommodation and service tailored to identified needs, offering independent living and the peace of mind arising from security and a sense of permanencePresent residents comment appreciatively on the special character of the homes and the good condition of house and garden. The almshouse building is a continuing monument to founder and residents and a reminder to both local and wider community of the values they embody."

l Almshouses in the West Riding of Yorkshire 1600-1900, by Helen Caffrey, is published by Heritage Marketing & Publications Ltd of King's Lynn, Norfolk at £12.99.