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The Lud, or as it is usually known nowadays, the Luddenden Brook forms the dividing line between Warley and Midgley, which were two of the nine berewicks in the Parish of Halifax, according to the Doomsday Survey of 1086. Warley since 1900 has been a part of the Borough of Halifax, and Midgley is now a part of Sowerby Urban District.
The name Luddenden is a corruption of LUD DENE – a dene (or dean) being a narrow valley or gorge. Therefore a true translation of Luddenden would be the dene of the dene of the Lud.
These corruptions of place names occur in all parts of the country and are to be regretted in that they often obscure the original meanings of the names. There are three others in this valley; Kershaw House which was originally Kirkshaw House, Hullet Hill which was once Owlet Hill and Bullace Trees which is now Bally Trees.
The Luddenden Brook rises by Fly Flat Reservoir, in a wild moorland area some 1300 ft. above sea level ends where it flows into the River Calder at Luddenden Foot at the 300 ft contour. The valley, except from Luddenden village downwards, in which stretch it is almost completely urbanised, is fairly well wooded. At one time the valley bottom, like most others, was densely wooded and as the hilltops were, and still are, bleak and exposed moorlands with a poor thin soil, we find the early settlements along the middle band of either hillside. It is along this middle stretch of the hillside, roughly between the 400 ft. and the 800 ft. contour, that we find most of the old houses. There are modern housing estates at the foot of the valley and apart from these and a little new building at Wainstalls, there has been no development in the urban sense in the past 100 years. Indeed, except for the building of some cottage property at Wainstalls for the benefit of people working in the mills which were established in the second half of the 19th century, no expansion has taken place for 200 years.
As the valley is, in a communications sense, a cul-de-sac, it was never disturbed by the building of a railway, or canal, or turn—pike road and therefore retained its unspoiled natural condition. A railway through the valley, from Luddenden Foot to Keighley was once mooted and a company formed for this purpose but because of the nature of the country, which would have meant most of the way having to be tunnelled and the fact that other lines were planned to serve the Keighley and Craven area, the scheme was dropped.
Because the valley never became what the planners term 'ripe for development', the rich collection of 17th century houses is still preserved. Not many areas can boast so many properties, built 300 years or more ago, still occupied and serving a useful purpose. These houses were built by yeoman—clothiers, men who were engaged in the manufacture of woollen cloth, chiefly as a home industry. The wool was bought in the fleece and combed, spun and more often than not woven on hand looms by employees in their own homes. The only factory process employed at this time was the fulling or finishing of the cloth which was done at fulling mills, built by the stream side and driven by water power.
The yeoman-clothiers who financed and organised this industry also farmed the land around their homes. This dual role of part-time farmer, part-time textile manufacturer accounts for the smallness of the farms in this area compared with those areas in which agriculture was the sole occupation. The yeoman-clothier, when enclosing land to form his farm, would take in from the common fields or "the waste", only as much as he and his family would be able to manage in addition to their other occupation as cloth manufacturers. Most of the original holdings were about 20 to 40 acres in extent, mostly in small fields with very little cultivation of crops. The fields were divided by stone walls, the stone for which was usually quarried from their own land. To this day one can find numerous small depressions which were originally 'delph hoiles' from which stone was extracted for walling.
If history is a tale of kings and battles and major national events, then Luddenden valley has had no part in it except for a minor skirmish at the Hollins during the Civil War. But in the longer course of history, the way people lived is as important as the way they died; the way they worked had a more lasting effect than in the way they fought. The history of this valley is to be found in its buildings and the lives of the people who lived and worked in them
There are in existence records of more than 30 buildings, still in occupation, which in some form or other, have been in use for upwards of 300 years. These range from the original Harley Corn Mill built in 1274 to Little Town built in 1657. If we come up the valley from Luddenden Foot, the first building of note is Magson House, standing on the shoulder of the hill where the Luddenden Valley joins the Calder Valley. The present building erected in 1852 is probably the third on the Bite. It replaced a 16th century house but there was a house here earlier than that, which is shown by an entry in the Greave List for 1491 when a John Oldfield paid his dues for Magson House. In the Court Roll for 1528 is an entry recording that John Oldfield of Magson House paid 5/- to take one rood of land with two well springs. This water supply would be used for the washing and dyeing of wool. The Oldfields remained here until 1595 when it was sold to Richard Midgley whose family occupied the farm until 1715. In 1807 the farm was sold at an auction at the White Swan Inn in Halifax (which would then be in Crown Street) and bought by John Appleyard.
It remained in the Appleyard family until 1920 when it was sold to the Whitworths of Longbottom Mills and is still in their possession. It is alleged that a secret passage leading from the farm in the direction of Camp End was found, and also a number of Roman coins encased in human skulls were discovered during a re—building operation.
On the opposite side of the valley is Kershaw House. The original name, Kirkshaw House, means the house in or by the church wood. This is interesting because no one knows where this church was. There was no church in Luddenden until 1624 but a licence for a priest to say Masses at Luddenden was first granted in 1496 and there must have been some chapel building at which these ceremonies were performed and this was possibly the Kirk from which the house derives its name. The present house was built by James Murgatroyd about 1640. An earlier house on this site was owned, from sometime in the 16th century, by one of the numerous branches of the Oldfield family. A document of 1555 relating to a water supply refers to a Thomas Oldfield of Boggard House (now Ellen Royd) son of Thomas Oldfield of Kershaw House. Those Oldfields were tanners as were a later family at Kershaw House, the Akeds. The present Kershaw House is a very fine example of 17th century domestic architecture — a gabled house with long mullioned windows, a rose window in the front porch and an oratory at the rear.
Almost opposite to Kershaw House, on the Warley side of the valley, is Roebucks, now a farmhouse but once the home of yeomen clothiers, with its loom chamber and tenter field. The first mention of Roebucks is in a Greave List for 1491 when John Oldfield of Magson House is named as the owner of other houses including Roebucks. There was a Thomas Oldfield at Roebucks in 1545 and he was followed by another John Oldfield. In 1592 he sold the property to Michael Foxcroft of Kebroyd and this was the starting point of what is known to local historians as the feud", in the course of which a murder was committed and from which a long legal battle ensued, ending in the Court of Star Chamber, according to the Greave List of 1608 and other records the house was successively in the occupation of Wm. Midgley, Richard Midgley and Abraham Midgley and passed to the Tattersall family at some time between 1624 and 1630. In the latter year Edmund Tattersall encased the house, which was a timber structure, in stone, and his initials and those of his wife, E.T.G. with the date 1633, are over the porch. The house was later occupied by one of the branches of the Murgatroyd family who like previous owners were engaged in the manufacture of cloth. The Murgatroyds were at Roebucks for over 130 years, leaving in 1908. That they were still in the textile trade until into the 19th century is shown by the will of Wm. Murgatroyd of Roebucks, dated 1801, when he had three rooms in the Piece Hall at Halifax.
Further up the hillside above Roebucks is Shepherd House, which dates back before 1624, although there was probably a house on the site before that, and which was the birthplace and home of Lister, the famous clock maker, who built the present house in 1746. Lister made the clock and chimes for St. Paul's Cathedral. Above that again is another old clothier's house, West Royd built in 1624.
To return to the valley we come to Luddenden village with its-narrow streets, now partly demolished and very much in need of the help of the 'clean up campaigner'. Here was built the Warley Mill, or the Lord's Milne as it is termed in most of the old documents. The Warley Mill was one of the oldest in the Parish of Halifax but where it originally stood is not known. The first mention of the Water Corn Mill, where the grain of the tenants of the Lord Of the Manor had to be ground, is in a Wakefield Court Roll for 18th October 1274 when the mill of Sowerby and Warley (then spelled Soureby and Werloweley) was let to Robert the Forester, Philip the Forester, William the Greave, Sayer de Soureby, William do Saltonstall and Roger, his brother at a yearly rent of 73/4, This entry is in the earliest Court Roll in existence and how long the Warley Mill had been in use before that, it is impossible to say.
The custom of tenants having all their corn ground at the Lord's Mill was obligatory and anyone grinding at home by hand querns or at any other mill was punished by a fine. In the middle ages the miller was one of the most important and wealthy men in the district, ranking next to the Lord of the Manor. The Warley Mill became unfit for the work it had to do and we find that in 1379, John Mawde, Thomas de Brokesbank, John de Mergaterode and Thomas de Oldefielde are ordered to demolish and supervise the rebuilding of the mill at Ludingdene, The mill was evidently a lucrative source of income and was owned at different times by some of the most influential families in the area, Murgatroyds, Oldfields, Farrers and Lacies. A later mill and the mill goit are still to be seen behind the High Street.
The Wolf Inn once stood in Luddenden by what are called 'The Broad Flags'. The early title deeds of this property have been lost but it was built in 1653 and was known as the Wolf Inn in the 18th century. It was here that the churchwardens met to transact their business. There is a story that a fugitive Scottish soldier of Prince Charles' army, after the retreat from Derby in 1745, hid at the inn and that one of the maids, herself a Scot, helped him to escape. The building was later to become the Working Hen's Club, and later again a clothing factory. It is now demolished. The only public house now in the village, the Lord Nelson, is also a17th century building which was for a considerable time in the occupation of a well-known Midgley family - the Patchetts.
As already has been mentioned in connection with Kershaw House, about 1496 there was a church in Luddenden licensed for the celebration of Masses but not for baptisms, marriages or burials. In 1624 the inhabitants petitioned King Henry VI 11 and the petition reads "As this part of the Parish of Halifax is up to five miles distance from the Parish Church and the number of inhabitants (being in former years but few) are now much increased and by reason of foul weather, floods and craggy ways, the people are prevented from attending the services and that sometimes some, especially the poorer sort, in those remote places, lie most lamentably three or four days unburied. We plead the King to authorise the Archbishop of York to consecrate and sanctify the desolate church by the name of the Church of St. Mary (at one time St Marie) in as large and ample a manner as Heptonstall and Elland. The petition was granted on 21st May 1624.
In 1662 an arbitration was agreed between halifax and the inhabitants of Warley and Midgley because the latter refused to pay their portion towards the repair of Halifax Parish Church, alleging that they were freed from Halifax by the grant made to St. Mary’s. According to a faculty for the erection of a loft in the church, made in 1703, it was known as a parochial chapel. In 1816 the old building was pulled down because of its dilapidated condition and the present church erected on the site.
Before leaving Luddenden village we might give some thought as to why this is situated where it is. The most probable explanation is that it was at a point where one of the roads into Lancashire crossed the stream, in early times by a ford and later by a bridge. Before the building of the valley turn—pike road there were two ways into Lancashire along the Calder Valley, one via Sowerby, Crag Vale and Mankinholes to Rochdale and the other via Highroad Well, Luddenden, Midgley and Heptonstall to Burnley.
It is thought that this road via Luddenden was first of all a Pilgrim Way as remnants of Saxon crosses have been found at various points along or near to its course from Dewsbury to Whalley. It is also said that the road would be later used and developed by the passage to and fro of the De Lacy entourage whose family seat was at Pontefract Castle but who had another seat at Clitheroe, There is some doubt about this as one cannot envisage De Lacy frequently using a road through the De Warren lands when, by taking a route slightly more to the north, through Bradford, he could keep within his own manors all the way. After the establishment of Whalley Abbey in 1283 the track was developed into a horse road by the traffic in wool between the monks of Whalley, who had immense flocks of sheep, and the weavers of Flanders. The wool would be carried on jagger ponies along this route into Halifax, then by the Magna Via, over the shoulder of Beacon Hill and on to Wakefield and Goole for shipment to the continent. It is sometimes suggested that the village grew up alongside the Church and the Corn Mill but as the road existed, if only as a trackway, before either Church or Mill) it is more likely that they owe their situation to the proximity of the road rather than the opposite.
We must now go back up the Warley slope to take a look at the Hollins, or Murgatroyd which was its original name. We pass on the way, Ive House, which is another old settlement. When the first house was built here is not known but it was certainly before 1494. In that year William Wade helped himself to a slice of land "off the waste" between Hartley Royd and Murgatroyd and another piece between Murgatroyd and Ive House. The Hollins was formerly Murgatroyd or Moor-gate-royd and is the place from which the Murgatroyd family derives its name. In former times the head of the family was known as Murgatroyd of Murgatroyd. A house has existed on this site since about 1350 and for 500 year. It was the home of the Murgatroyds and their descendants, the Deardens.
During the Civil War it was the local centre of operations for the Royalist troops and was attacked in minor skirmishes by the Parliamentarians. The first mention of the place is in the Wakefield Manor Court Rolls in 1371 when John de Morgaterode was appointed Constable of Harley but it is probable that the house was of a much earlier date. Two cinerary urns have been found nearby and Watson in his History of Halifax tells of three silver Roman coins being found here.
The Murgatroyds were an extremely wealthy family and at one period owned most of the farms at the lower end of the valley on the Warley side. But there is evidence that at times they abused their position. James Murgatroyd, in 1625, was granted a pardon by Charles the First, though for what offence is not known, Ten years later he is again granted a royal pardon on behalf of his sons, John, James and Henry for "divers offences and misdemeanours committed in the chapel and chapel yard at Luddenden." The case was heard in 1633 and they were fined a total of £205 which was paid, but they were proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Court for the same offence and were fined £640, excommunicated for 2 years and held to do penance. The record tells that the father paid £500 towards the cost of repairing St. Paul's Cathedral and the King in consideration gave his pardon from the fines and restraints. King Charles offered a Knighthood to James Murgatroyd and to his eldest son John, which they refused md had to pay fines of £40 and £15 respectively for refusing the honours.
This James Murgatroyd had a passion for building and erected a number of very fine houses. The houses, still occupied, built by him are East Riddlesden Hall near Keighley, Kershaw House, Haigh House in Warley and Yew Trees and Long Can in Ovenden. He built Haigh House in 1631 'as a place to retire to whilst the great house at Murgatroyd was being built, This he did in 1632. The present building was erected in 1810 by John Dearden, the son of John Dearden and the grandson of Susan Oates who was the last of the Murgatroyds.
In 1643, during the Civil War, the Parliamentary troops made a raid upon the Royalist garrison at the Hollins. The defenders hurled stones from the roof of the house but after a short fight surrendered end 44 men were taken prisoner. An incident connected with the Hollins recalls one of the old forms of punishment, i.e. a public whipping. The following is a copy of an order made by the Justice of the Peace, 2nd December, 1728. “To the Constable in ye township of Warley. Whereas Dorothy Mawde of Warley, widow, and her son Samuel Mawde were apprehended by you and brought before me for stealing several pieces of wood which they later sold. And whereas they have confessed that they stole the same out of the wood of John Dearden of the Hollins. I did therefore order them to pay 5/— to John Dearden for his satisfaction and damages and to pay 10/— to the Overseers of the poor of the township. Which sums they have refused to pay. I therefore in His Majesty's name, charge and command you publicly to whip them, the said Dorothy and Samuel Mawde, from the bridge parting Midgley from Warley to the smithy at Highroad Well. Herein fail ye not.”
Immediately behind the Hollins is a farm called Causeway. It has recently been rebuilt and although the date of the original structure is not known, it was certainly before 1740 as it appears in a Church Rate Assessment List for that year. The remarkable thing about it is the name which indicates that it was situated on road paved with stone. Roads in many parts of the country at this time were merely dirt roads. Webb in their book, The Story of the King's Highway, say that down to the beginning Of the 19th century, England had nothing but soft dirt roads, at best mended with weak sand and gravel. This was certainly not true of this district when many of the items in the Constables and Surveyors Accounts relate to the money spent on causeways and on quarrying stone for road making, sometimes referred to as “getting and setting”. From the passing of the first Highways Act in 1555, which required each parish or township to appoint a Surveyor of the Highways, this official had to invoke ‘unpaid statute labour’ in the repair of the local roads. In this district it appears that the inhabitants preferred to pay levy or rate rather them provide the labour. Also the availability of stone meant that stone bridges and stone paved roads were provided at a much earlier date than in other less fortunate places.
To the North of the Hollins were old clothiers' houses, Hartley Royd, Stubbings and Eaves House. Hartley Royd was built in 1595 probably by Hartley Murgatroyd who was a relative of the Murgatroyds of Murgatroyd. Part of the original building is still in existence but was enlarged in the 19th century. For over 20 years Eaves House, or Eve House as it appears in old papers, has been unoccupied and is now a ruin though there is on foot a plan to rebuild on the same site. The exact age of Stubbings and Eaves House is not known but both appear in a tax return of 1607 as belonging to James Murgatroyd and in the Greave List for 1624 as being in the possession of William Murgatroyd.
Next we come to Peel House in Stocks Lane. Peel House was built in 1598 by Anthony Wade, a member of a well-known Warley family who gave their name to Wade Wood further up the valley. Externally the house is almost the same today as when it was built but has been greatly altered internally. It is said to have had an oak staircase and a gallery running round the hall or house body. Anthony Wade was the son of Richard Wade of Quickstones and the grandson of William Farrer of Ewood, He was a man of great wealth, paying the second highest rent to the Lord of the Manor, of all the Warley landowners, according to the Greave list of 1608. He took part with his brother Samuel in the fight with the Foxcrofts over the timber at Roebucks.
Succeeding generations of Wades lived at Peel House for nearly 140 years and after several changes of ownership, it was bought by John Ambler in 1356, the founder of the firm of worsted spinners of Peel House Mills, now derelict. It is said that before the building of the railway John Ambler frequently walked from Peel House to Manchester on market days and then home again.
He founded the John Ambler Trust which still provides £50 annually to be expended on the poor people in Warley. His son, James Ambler, J.P., was the builder of Norton Tower, demolished in 1967, and was chairman of the Warley Local Board up to the time when it was superseded by the District Council in 1893.
Before moving on to the next objective, Old Riding, a mention should be made of some relics of the past which are to be found in Stocks Lane, the stocks which were at the bottom of Stocks Lane, the pinfold which can still be seen near the top and nearby a stretchergate. This now looks like a narrow lane between walls but was designed as a place where it was possible to stretch, size and dress a long warp before it went on to the beam of the loom. This 'green lane' runs from Stocks Lane to Sentry Edge which is a name which reminds us again of the occupation of the Hollins by Royalist troops. The sentries were placed here, just below the skyline, from which position they could any movement of Cromwell's troops out of Heptonstall where they were stationed. Unfortunately, for the garrison at the Hollins, the Parliamentary raiders cane from Sowerby and approached by way of the ford at Longbottom Mill unseen by the lookouts at Sentry Edge.
Old Riding, which was built about 1600, possibly by Abraham Wadsworth whose name appears for the house in the 1624 Greave List. The house was occupied by the Wadsworths, who were a very old Warley family - first mentioned as 1305 -– and the Shaw family for about 150 years.
Further along the hillside, on the northern side of a 11tt1e clough which rung down into the Luddenden Brook, is Shaw Booth, the first mention of which is in the title deeds under the date 1619. According to the will of Thomas Oldfield, 1652, there were two dwellings here occupied by Oldfield and Timothy Wadsworth. In 1653 the house was bought by John Colbeck. Samuel Colbeck, John's father was the man from whom 16 yards of russet Kersey was stolen and for which two men were beheaded at the Gibbet. These were the last executions to take place there.
Shaw Booth was bought by Charles Appleyard in 1751 for £350. It remained in their possession for 170 years. Charles Appleyard was Overseer of the Poor for Warley in 1748. His son Samuel, was Constable in 1781 and Overseer in 1787. Samuel’s eldest son was also active in local affairs being successively Churchwarden, Overseer end Surveyor of the Highways. His second son, William, transferred some of the textile business carried on at Shaw Booth, to Wainstalls Mill where he founded the firm of Appleyard & Song. The third son, John, after making a fortune in South America, returned to Shaw Booth where he died. He left over £14000 to charities, including £4000 to Halifax Infirmary - hence the Appleyard Ward in that institution.
Joshua Appleyard, who was the son of William, was one of the first J.P.s for Halifax. He was a member of the first Town Council and was Mayo in 1853. He was also a benefactor to the Infirmary also to the Crossley & Porter Orphanage and to the Parish Church. He built the chancel in Luddenden Church in memory of his father and two uncles.
The Appleyards, with others, were responsible for the making of Cold Edge Dams. When Fly Flat Reservoir wag proposed in 1863, the Wainstalls mill owners opposed the Parliamentary Bill and were awarded compensation water to the amount of 1,440,000 gallons per day to feed their mill streams. Beak House, the next house of note, was built by the Brooksbank family, but when is not known. The first mention of it is in the Poll Tax return of Richard the Second in 1379. Gilbert Brooksbank built the present house in 1650 and his name and the date are carved over the barn door. There are wills and deeds of the family dated 1554, 1566, 1584 md 1606. The name is recorded for this property in the Greave Lists for 1608 and 1624.
Gilbert Brooksbank, in his will dated 1627 left the fulling mills called Dean Mills. They were later occupied end enlarged by Messrs. Brackens as paper mills but are now in ruin. Shortly after 1650 the property was owned by the Briggs, an old Warley family, the first record of whom is in 1379 when Richard del Brig was Constable of the Township of Warley. When the next change of ownership took place is uncertain but in the 1740 Tax Assessment, Jonas Foster appears as owner occupier of Bank House. They held the farm until the middle of the last century and since then it has passed through a number of hands is now owned by one of the Boardalls of Jowler Mills. A few fields is Peacock House, originally called The Archer House. The present house was built about 1812 but the original was a typical Elizabethan gabled yeoman’s dwelling. It was called The Archer House because this was one of the centres at which archery was practised. An Act of 1543 required all men under 60 years of age to possess a bow and arrows and to practice at the Butts which were maintained at the public expense. Other places in the district whose names indicate that they were 16th century 'Home Guard' centres, are Kell Butts, Arrowbutt Lea and Butts Green.
The will of Shaw of Peacock House, dated 1557, indicates that he was the builder of the house, though at what date is not stated. There is a record that in the Chancery Court in 1563 the Bailiff of Halifax lodged a petition against Edward Brooksbank of Bank House and Robert Midgley regarding the lands and tenement of Richard Shaw of Peacock House. It appears that Shaw had been attainted of murder in a duel and the Bailiff – Stansfield - had confiscated his property in the Queen's name. Brooksbank and Midgley had put the Bailiff out and illegally taken possession.
Shaw evidently regained his property for in 1579 his name appears as witness to the will of John Sladen. There was more trouble in 1605 for according to the Wakefield Rolls, Michael Shaw was fined twelve pence for brawling within the chapel garth at Luddenden with Marmaduke Farrar.
In 1649 the house was sold to Timothy Wadsworth, of The Hill in Warley, a member of a family whose name first appears in local records in 1305. From 1760 to 1920 the house was owned by the Sutcliffes of Hebden Bridge, though they never lived in it. From 1760 to about 1850 a family named Foster were tenants.
Almost at the head of Luddenden Dene is Saltonstall, probably the most interesting part of the district to the local historian because there is more known of its history. 700 years ago Warren had his hunting lodge there and vaccaries where cattle were housed and bred. At that period the Lord of the Manor had many rights and perquisites which he could from his tenants. For example when on a journey he could expect lodging and food to be provided for himself his retinue at the tenant’s expense and a tenant had to pay a small fee for permission to plough and sow the land, and a further fee for sharpening his ploughing tackle. In some instances, though apparently not in Warley, a tenant had to pay a noble (6/8) to the Lord of the Manor when he got married.
The Manor Court Rolls at Wakefield contain an immense amount of information about Saltonstall and the Saltonstall family, as does an old manuscript, likewise at Wakefield, with the resounding title of “Notes end Observations of Antiquity concerning the Vaccary of Saltonstall in Warley in the possession of Earls of Warren and Surrey”. The name denotes a vaccary or cattle farm and is to be found in other places, e.g. Heptonstall, Crottonstall, Rawtonstall.
A survey made in the Edward the Second, 1310, records that at Over Saltonstall there is one vaccary and a house in which the farmer Of the vaccary is wont to reside, a fold and a grange and 30 acres of meadow and pasture. One bull and 30 cows with their calves can be kept there. At Saltonstall there is a place which can sustain in winter 24 plough cattle and 30 acres of meadow to mow for the keep of the cattle. The officers of the vaccaries were called Instauratores and they were to render annual accounts of their revenue, as the Greaves did of the rents, to the Earl Warren.
The first grants of land in Saltonstall were made during the reign of Edward the Second when the area was divided into six parts, each part being called a Sextondole of Saltonstall. Several officers of Earl Warren’s, all with the surname of Saltonstall had grants of land. Richard de Saltonstall had 2 oxgangs and paid 6/8 a year; William de Saltonstall had 2 oxgangs and paid 7/6; Robert de Saltonstall had one and paid 5/-. An oxgang (or bovata) was as much land as an ox could plough in a year, about 15 to 20 acres.
There are, in the Tower of London, some old records containing notes on the surrender of these sixth parts of Saltonstall, usually from father to son but always remaining within the Saltonstall family. These are dated 1311, 1405, 1475, 1538 and 1594.
By the sixteenth century the Saltonstalls had become a very notable family, some of whom had moved to Haliax, Hereford, London and to the American colonies. Gilbert Saltonstall was one of the merchant venturers of the East India Co. in the first voyage in 1599. Seven members of the family were knighted and one of these, Sir Richard who went to London about 1560, was Member of Parliament for the City of London in 1586; Sheriff in 1588 and Lord Mayor of London in 1597 when he was knighted. He had nine daughters and seven sons, three of whom received knighthoods, and one, Sir Peter, married the cousin of Oliver Cromwell. Another Sir Richard (1610 - 1694) nephew of the Lord Mayor went over to America with the early colonists and wag one of the founders of Massachusetts, "as a place of refuge for such as are called nonconformists”. A descendant of his, another Richard Saltonstall is the present Senator for Massachusetts. There is a Saltonstall Lake in Connecticut named after the American branch of the family.
After 350 years in occupation the Saltonstalls ended their reign in 1603 when the property was sold for £1240 to the Wades. About this time there were at least three houses (later nine) at Saltonstall in the occupation of the Wades, Sladens and Deanes. The house as Great House was built by Gilbert Deane in 1637.
The adjoining house, the Old Hall, was built by Richard Saltonstall about 1540. It was once known as “Th'owd Church" because it was said to have been used in Elizabethan times as a meeting place by Roman Catholics and it is certain that in their early days the Independents of Booth held services here. The Ridings or Lower Hall, erected on the site of an older house, had a date and initials over the door which were probably I.L 1605, and more than likely was built by John or James Murgatroyd. A beam in the barn had an umclear inscription G.D. or G.B. (Gilbert Deane or Gilbert Saltonstall), and more clearly the date 1508.
Of the prominent families who lived at Saltonstall the last survivors were the Wades, who appear to have followed the Deanes at the Old Hall. The last reference to them is in the Assessment of 1742. At this time the estate embraced what was later to become 16 separate farms the population at the top end of the valley was considerably increased, but with the decline of the cottage textile industry, the numbers decreased again. Whiteley Turner in his book 'Spring Time Saunter' lists 96 houses which had been occupied in 1855 and of which 36 were either demolished or untenanted 50 years later. Since then the number has still further diminished. This community produced its rogues as well as its men who achieved fame. The infamous Yorkshire Coiners who, in the second half of the 18th century, made Crag Vale notorious on account of their activities in clipping and diminishing the coinage, chiefly guineas and half—guineas. They were a lawless band who eventually resorted to murder in an effort to escape detection and among their number were men from Warley and at least two from Saltonstall.
A proclamation was issued for the apprehension of suspected coiners and the following description is given of two of the wanted men. “Nathan Horsfall of Saltonstall, butcher, aged about 30 and about 5ft. 7in. high. Is a broad sett man, wears his own hair which is dark brown and bushy. He is of fresh ruddy complexion and much marked with the small pox. Also Isaac Dewhirst of Owle Nook in Luddingden Dene, about 35 or 36 years of age and 5ft. 8in. high; is a stout made, broad man, wears his own hair, which is black and is black complexioned. When he went off he had two suits of cloaths, the worst was of light coloured drab cloth and the better was of a sad blue colour. This man is said to have instructed others on how to clip coins and make new ones from the clippings.” In 1770 a William Varley, who, was described as the miller of Luddenden Mill, was tried with others at York assizes and sentenced to death for clipping gold coins.
There is also a sad legend that, when the Halifax district was afflicted with the plague in 1631 evidence of which can be found in the Parish Registers at Halifax and Heptonstall, almost the whole population at Saltonstall was wiped out and the victims were buried in the field immediately below Lower Saltonstall which is still known as the Grave Field. Lower Saltonstall has recently been restored in traditional style but at Upper Saltonstall, both Great House and the Old Hall are in ruins.
Just beyond Saltonstall stood Luddenden Dean Methodist Chapel, built in 1828. One is surprised to find a chapel in so remote a spot until it is remembered that at the time when it was built, the population was about three times the size that it is today. Even after the local community declined in number, the chapel flourished because of an intense loyalty which was felt by people who had some association with it. For a very long period a 'Dean Chapel Anniversary' was an event which drew a congregation from miles around. Unfortunately the church was destroyed by fire a few years ago, though services are still held in the Sunday School.
From Holme House Bridge to Lowe Farm, a distance of a mile and a half or more, the valley bottom is all woodland and is familiarly known as Wade Wood, although Wade Wood is the name given to the lower portions and other stretches bear other names, Spa Wood, Booth Wood, Catherine House Wood etc. The trees are almost entirely deciduous; Booth Wood having a good proportion of beeches. Catherine House Wood was despoiled by tree—felling some twenty years ago and it will probably take another twenty to obliterate the scars, and much longer to replace the timber.
In a field above Catherine House Wood stood an example of the local 'bothy', a one—roomed single storey dwelling, which was never common, but has not entirely disappeared. We are told that this one, which was called Hutton, was roofless and in ruins in the latter part of the last century and it has now disappeared completely. Similar cottages were Lamb Hill and Head House.
At the upper end of the dene, beyond the point where the public road turns sharply to lead down the opposite side of the valley, stood one of the architectural anachronisms of the district, a pseudo Scottish baronial hall, called Castle Carr, said to be the “Frender's Folly” of Halliwell Sutcliffe's ‘Man of the Moors’ . The house was built by a Captain Edwards who obtained the land at the time of the Warley Enclosure Act 1852, when he acquired 693 acres of Saltonstall Moor and 77 acres of common land. There was an older building of the same name here as early as 1649 and possibly for some time before that. Edwards also acquired 350 acres of farmland, together with the farms to complete his estate. With the property went the sporting rights of "hawking, hunting, coursing, fishing and fowling" over some 1500 acres of moorland.
Castle Carr took seven and a half years to build and at one time nearly 100 men were employed on the site, many of whom had to be lodged there because of the remoteness of the situation. Captain Edwards died before it was completed but his son, L. P. Edwards, carried on with the project and lived in the house from 1873 to 1876 when it was sold to Joseph Laycock. In 1895 it came in to the possession of the Murgatroyds of Broadfold in Midgley, who used it chiefly as a shooting lodge in the season.
A full description of Castle Carr is given by T. Sutcliffe in the Halifax Antiquarian Papers for 1921. Sutcliffe, who knew it in the time of the Edwards and the Laycocks, considered it to be a splendid illustration of a fourteenth century baronial hall, but others, with possibly more architectural knowledge, have called it a monstrosity. It certainly embodied almost all the styles of architecture from Yeoman door—heads and arches, through Gothic to 17th century domestic. During the war (1939—45) the Castle, which is now demolished, was used as a store place by a Government Department.
Beyond Castle Carr lie Dean Head Reservoirs. As the name implies, these are situated where the valley runs out into the moors, and a farm, Dene Head Farm, was cleared when the reservoirs were built. Beyond again we come to Warley Moor Reservoir or, as it is better known, Fly Flat. It is said that in the hollow where the reservoir now is, was a forest of white birch through which ran an old track connecting Lowe Farm with Nab Water in Oxenhope. This path is now obliterated and lost. For the statistically minded, Warley Moor Reservoir is almost 1400 ft. above sea level and has a capacity of 193 million gallons. It was built in 1863 by Halifax Corporation and the conduit from it passes down Luddenden Valley and is tunnelled under the hill to Ramsden Wood Reservoir. Ventilator shafts to this tunnel to be found just above Booth and near Moor End Road at Mount Tabor.
At one time there was considerable stone quarrying on this hill top, the extent of which can be seen from the spoil heaps which still disfigure the area. When the Luddenden Valley Railway was mooted in 1864, one of the reasons advanced was that between 30,000 and 40,000 tons of stone passed down the valley to Luddenden Foot every year and this had to be carried on horse-drawn wagons. To protect the road from the excessively heavy wear of the stone waggons, a double iron track of flanged plates was laid along the road from Fly Delves, where there was a public house, The Delvers Arms, almost down to Wainstalls and the last of these was removed 20 years ago. In 1860 it is recorded, there were 15 quarries in operation here employing 300 men and 50 to 60 horses.
Across the moor between the Oxwenhope Road and Castle Carr is the Warley Moor Rocking Stone which is said to resemble the Cornish Tolman Stones. Watson in his History of the Parish of Halifax, says “On a common called Saltonstall Moor is what is called a rocking stone which is 3½ yards high. It is a piece of rock, one end of which rests on another and between the two is a pebble of different grit, seemingly put there for a support but so placed that it could not be taken out and in all probability these stones have been laid together by art. By form and position it could never be a rocking stone. The true rocking stone lies some distance from it. The other part of the stone is laid upon a kind of pedestal, bored at the bottom but narrow at the middle and around this pedestal is a passage, formed by art, but for what purpose is the question. Borlase gives an account of similar stones, found in Cornwall, called Tolman or hallowed stones, conjecturing that whoever passed through these acquired a kind of Holiness and that such were Druidical in origin and were intended and used for introducing proselytes. The Tolmans have rock basins cut into them and there are a few worked into this rocking stone which helps to prove that the Druids used it.”
As to how much of Watson's conjectures we can accept, there is some doubt, but there is no doubt of man's existence if not actual settlement in this area in prehistoric times. In 1874 James Binns and James Spencer found both flint and stone implements along the edge of Warley Moor where the peat had been eroded. A stone head, now in Bankfield Museum was found near Lumb Mill in Wainstalls in 1872. Other flints and flint knappings have been found in various places on Warley Moor and are usually found where some erosion reveals a stratum of grey sand lying below peat and stones.
Whilst we are dealing with the distant past it is worth noting that on the way back from Fly Flats to Wainstalls there are a number of sites on which stood farms which were demolished when Mixenden Reservoir was built. Between two of these farms, which bore euphemistic names of Solomons Temple and Noahs Ark, there can be traced the course of a Roman Road, running almost due north-west towards Ogden. Watson in 1775 does not appear to have known of this road but it is mentioned in Crabtree's History of Halifax published in 1836 and is marked on Ordnance Survey Maps.
Cold Edge Dams, which we come to on our way back to Wainstalls, were constructed to provide water power for the mills at Wainstalls. There are three dams, Haigh Cote, Leadbeater and Blackfield with a total capacity of 22,682,000 gallons. The first reference to them is in 1806 when the mill owners at Wainstalls formed a company to construct Haigh Cote Dam which was enlarged in 1831. Previous to this the mills had relied on the natural flow of the stream and frequently in dry weather they experienced periods of idleness.
Haigh Cote Dam depends entirely upon the streams feeding into it from the moor but the other two are fed by a conduit which carries the compensation water, partly underground, partly in open channel, from Fly Flat Reservoir.
Leadbetter Dam was constructed in 1835 when other mill-owners lower down the valley elected to join the company. The Wainstalls Mills, Spring, Square, Lumb and Wainstalls, were at one time in several ownerships, but later became the property of I. & I. Calvert who are still in business (occupied since 1973 by Rowntree Mackintosh Ltd) at Wainstalls in the only mill that now operates. A poignant reference to the mills and of the employment of children is to be found in the records of Wainstalls School. Between January 1890 and April 1903, 72 girls, aged 11 or 12 years, were imported into the district from Kirkdale Industrial School, Liverpool. They were brought to work half-time in the Mills and in the admission register of the school, the mill owner is given as ‘guardian’ and the address of many of them is entered as ‘Spring Orphanage’ which later became a row of cottages known as Spring Terrace. The records of Wainstalls School reveal hints of a closely knit isolated community in the names of the children. Of 1100 children who had passed through the school, almost a quarter shared between them six surnames; Hoyle, Murgatroyd, Smith, Binns, Tattersall and Greenwood. The children's Christian names are rich in Biblical associations — Zillah, Tabitha, Rebecca, Deborah, Isaac, Jonathan, Joshua, Esau, Jonas md Jacob. Perhaps the influx of some Merseyside blood was not a bad thing after all.
Wainstalls School, built by the Warley School Board, was opened in 1885 and before that the only education available to children in this district was that provided the ‘Dame Schools’. These were private schools, run by persons, infrequently without training or qualification, in their own homes and available to offer some elementary instruction to the children of parents who were able and willing to pay a small sum each week for this provision. In Wainstalls there were three such establishments. Betty Rothery’s School at Sandy Fore which is almost midway between Wainstalls and Mount Tabor; her nephew Sammy Rothery’s School at Kell, later St. Aiden’s Mission, an offshoot, first of Luddenden and then of Pelion Church; and Ebenezer Cockroft’s at Lumb in a house now known as Rose Cottage.
We are told that at Betty Rothery’s School a meal was provided at noon. Three long forms were placed parallel to each other and the middle one was the table. Sometimes the meal was of currant cakes, preserve cakes, pasties and tea. The punishment room was the coal cellar, into which boys were thrust when they misbehaved. One such miscreants who escaped by way of the cellar grate, recalled being placed, on a subsequent occasion, in an inner-prison from which escape was not possible. Sammy Rothery's establishment was for older scholars who had graduated from his aunt's school at Sandy Fore, and was conducted on similar lines.
Ebenezer Cockroft had a school on the road which leads to Cold Edge Dams. He had an earlier establishment in a long low building which stood on the site on which Bridge Terrace was built, and separated only by the beck, from the premises occupied by Sammy Rothery's School later in the century. Tom Sutcliffe writes of the first school which he went to in Warley which was a Dame School. ”Nothing was taught. The children just sat on the benches swinging their feet and varying this exercise from time to time by falling off. The chief feature of the establishment was a pot of very sweet bread and milk, which was kept simmering on the hob, of which the best behaved scholars were treated to a spoonful or two according to merit.” It is not suggested that this was a typical example of a Dame School but it does reveal how appallingly inadequate some of these places were and how desperate were the needs for which the Warley School Board, when it was set up in 1870, had to provide.
This survey of the Luddenden Valley, a number of reasons, has been restricted to the eastern or Warley slope with one or two exceptions such as Castle Carr and Kershaw House. A similar story could have been told of the Midgley hillside. On that side a collection of farms such as Hawks Clough, Arrowbutt Lea, Mytholm, Catherine House, Goose Nest, Dean House, Oats Royd, The Greave and Ellen Royd could have revealed a folk—history different in detail but similar in pattern. The tides of fortune and misfortune benefited or afflicted families on whichever side of the brook they lived. In the times of busy looms and clacking shuttles, the yeomen clothiers of Midgley were also making their fortunes, rebuilding their houses and extending their estates. And in the last century when unemployment and sheer poverty drove people into the towns to seek work in the mills, the West side of the valley suffered no less than the East and carries the scars of derelict and abandoned farms and farm buildings.
The final chapter of this survey could be headed “Decline and Fall” but this would suggest a dramatic change whereas the situation which today exists has been brought about almost imperceptibly over two hundred years. First the cottage based industry of spinning and hand—loom weaving was superceded by machinery driven by water power in the valley bottom. Then in the last century when the new means of communication came to the Calder Valley, the trunk road, the canal and the railway, these made it more difficult for the mills in the tributary valleys, such as Luddenden, to compete and one by one they either went out of business or moved to premises where the means of transport was more readily accessible. Industry transferred to places like Sowerby Bridge, Luddenden Foot and Hebden Bridge, which in the 17th century had scarcely existed other than as a huddle of houses where there was a river crossing by bridge or ford. Of eleven mills which once operated on the stream from Cold Edge to Luddenden, only three are now working.
The same sad story can be told of the quarries. It has already been mentioned that the quarries at Fly employed 300 men a century ago and when to this is added the number working at the quarries on the hillside between Wainstalls and Mixenden and those at Scotland Quarries in Midgley, it will be appreciated how important was this industry to the local community. Today not one quarry is working. The only industry left was agriculture. The farms as they existed would not yield a living for a family because, having been deliberately restricted in size to enable the farmer to combine his weaving and his agricultural activity, with no other source of income, these smallholdings could not maintain a family. As a result we find many instances of two or three farms being combined into one holding or alternatively, farms being completely abandoned. This is particularly noticeable in the upper reaches of the valley where houses and farm buildings have disappeared or are empty and derelict. Dairy farming, up to quite recently, was the main-stay of the local farming community but this is now unprofitable and more and more farmers have gone over from milk production to cattle rearing.
The drift toward the urban areas of the farm workers and the quarrymen appears to have been accompanied by the disappearance of families of wealth and standing such as the Murgatroyds, the Wades, the Oldfields or the Saltonstalls. True there is still a Murgatroyd family but this is only a cadet branch of the once powerful clan at the Hollins. The more substantial houses are now occupied by people who commute between Luddenden and Halifax or elsewhere and whose interests are very much bound up with the 'elsewhere'.
But the valley with its considerable natural beauty remains, not unspoiled, because it will take time to obliterate all the traces of its industrial history and the abandoned farms. But even the lost and derelict houses have added an interest, possibly a poignancy for the local historian. The valley cannot boast of any deserted village such as Goldsmith wrote about, but one can find quite a number of quiet corners “where once a garden smiled”. C.H.T. 9.12.69