World War Two Commemoration

2025-10-27T11:16:35Z

TonyHillyard: /* TROOPER THOMAS LISTER d 1st February 1943 aged 32 */

The names of eighteen World War Two Servicemen are listed on the Midgley and Luddenden War Memorial.
A Brief history of each of these men follows:
===ASSISTANT STEWARD PHILIP JOSEPH GORMAN d 2nd May 1942 aged 17 ===

Philip was born in Sculcoates, Hull in July 1925.
His parents John Gorman and Martha (nee Younger, born in 1904) were married in Hull in September 1924. In 1939 Martha was still living in Hull, carrying out Unpaid Domestic Duties. John was a Chief Steward in the Merchant Navy. They moved to 8 Riding Head Lane, Luddenden around 1940. 
Philip served in the Merchant Navy on SS Cape Corso and was lost, presumed drowned, on 2nd May 1942 when it was sunk by torpedo from German bombers. The Cape Corso set sail as part of the convoy PQ15 taking munitions to Russia. She was to have been part of PQ14 but bad weather forced her to return to Reykjavik and become part of the next convoy. 
Of the crew 44 and 12 Gunners, 39 crew and 11 gunners were lost at 73 2N 19 46E. The Cape Corso was built at Lithgows, Glasgow in 1929 and was called the Knight of St George until 1934 and owned by Lyle Shipping Co Ltd.
Philip is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial.
===CORPORAL GEORGE GREENWOOD d 22nd February 1942 aged 28===
[[File:George greenwood colourphoto.jpg|thumb]]
George was born on 10th January 1914 at 21 Duke Street to Thomas, a former soldier, Motorman (Paper Mill) and then Steward at Midgley Working Men’s Club, who gave his life in Belgium in August that year, and Annie (nee Smyth, and born in Ireland) who, as a widow was later working as a screwer at Lindley’s. He was brought up at Goitside, Booth and Spring Bank. In 1939 he was living with his mother in Wadsworth Street, Halifax and working as a pattern cutter and stock keeper at John Mackintosh and Son, Albion Mills, Halifax. He married Kathleen Alice Watson in February 1941 at St Michaels’ Mytholmoroyd and moved to Spring View, Luddendenfoot.They already had a child, Henry, born in 1938, who had been adopted by the Sellars family. 
He signed up for the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment in June 1940 and went out to the Far East in Spring 1941. 
He died in Burma and is remembered on the Rangoon Memorial in the Tukkyan War Cemetery, Yangon, Myanmar.

===REV JOHN FOSTER HAIGH d 23rd September 1943 aged 42===
[[File:Johnfosterhaighphoto.jpg|thumb]]John Foster was born in May 1901 and was brought up in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales. His father was a coal miner. 
He trained as an architect but after a few years he decided to train for the ministry at Edinburgh University and Airedale Theological College, Bradford.
In 1930 he became the Minister at Booth Congregational Church 
In January 1933 he married Annie Farrar, aged 36, from 2 Mill House, Luddenden, daughter of Joseph Pickles Farrar a retired Mill Mechanic. 
In 1934 he moved to Heywood Chapel, Northowram, 
He was a very good musician and at 16 conducted a choir. He was also an organist, played the piano, had a tenor voice of rare quality and was very successful at the Welsh Eisteddfods. At Booth he organised several music festivals, and performed with Halifax Amateur Operatic Society with great success. 
He enlisted in June 1940 was made a Chaplain and sent to Singapore with the 4th Suffolk Regiment and he was captured by the Japanese and sent to Niki-Niki POW Camp where he died on 23 September 1943 of beri-beri (thiamine deficiency). He is buried at Thanbyuzatyat War Cemetery in Burma (Myanmar). 
The cemetery sits a stone’s throw from the end of the infamous death railway. This cross-country route was built by forced labour, including prisoners of war, during the Second World War, in often gruelling conditions. It has been said that a man died for every sleeper laid across the 415-kilometre (258 mi) route of the railway. Many of those who died lie at rest in CWGC’s care. 
And as a reminder of what they went through, visitors to Thanbyuzayat will see a handmade wooden cross in the cemetery’s entrance, assembled out of those infamous railway sleepers by prisoners. 
Rev J Foster Haigh is remembered with a bronze plaque in that cemetery, behind the cenotaph in Luddenden and also in: 
Halifax Civic Books of Remembrance 
Heywood Congregational Church, Northowram 
St Matthew’s Northowram 
His widow Annie had returned to Mill House and she passed away aged 100 years in 1997.

===TROOPER THOMAS LISTER d 1st February 1943 aged 32===
[[File:Thomaslisterphoto2.jpg|thumb]]Thomas was born on 16th August 1911 and lived in Hebden Bridge. His parents Sam (a Carter at the Railway Station, and later a Road Sweeper) and Phoebe (nee Chadwick, a mill hand) lived at 5 Buttress Bank. He went to Central Street Council School and attended Salem Methodist Church, before joining Messrs R Sutcliffe and Co, Melbourne Works, Hebden Bridge. In 1939 he was single, living with his parents and working as a Seam Presser for a Wholesale Clothier. 
He signed up in 1940 with the 9th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. The 9th Battalion was converted to the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in 1941 and was based in India. He was listed as missing in Burma in March 1943. 
Thomas is buried at the Taukkyan War Cemetery, Rangoon and is commemorated in Heptonstall Churchyard, the Hebden Bridge Methodist Churches Book of Remembrance and on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.

===PRIVATE SAMUEL LONGBOTTOM d 22nd March 1941 aged 28===
Samuel served in the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment (The Prince of Wales Own) and died on 22nd March 1941.
He is buried in the Keren War Cemetery and is commemorated on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.
===ABLE SEAMAN DANIEL MAGUIRE d. 17th November 1942 aged 20===
Daniel was born on 14th July 1922 in Luddenden and baptised at St Walburga’s church in Luddendenfoot (this building has been demolished and the site is now a care home Aachen Brook).

His parents John H Maguire and mother Catherine (nee Flood) were from Liverpool. John H is in Liverpool in the 1901 and 1911 census returns and we can also find Catherine Flood in the 1901 and 1911 census. The couple married in Liverpool in 1921 (Q2,8b,84). We can see that John H was living on Providence Place in the 1921 census shortly before Daniel was born but can’t at present find Catherine in the 1921 Census.

In 1939, the family is living at 8 Halifax Lane. The 1939 voters register shows the names of three of the family (John H and Catherine plus one child Joseph P, three names of other family members are redacted on this document).

After joining up Daniel did his Royal Navy training at HMS President III on the north bank of the Thames near Wapping, He then served on a Merchant ship the SS Widestone as a DEMS gunner. The Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) was an initiative started in 1939 to try and protect merchant vessels from enemy attack by placing anti aircraft guns and anti submarine depth Chargers on merchant vessels. These were manned by the Royal Navy.

In November 1942, the SS Widestone left Cardiff docks laden with 3,400 tonnes of Coal and headed north to Oban to join a convoy across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then onwards to New York. The ship was one of 33 vessels that linked up to form Convoy ONS 144, many were empty (loaded with ballast) and were going to pick up more supplies from America before returning to the UK. They were supported by one Royal Navy Corvette and four Norwegian Corvettes. ONS 144 was the 144th Outward bound from Great Britain to North America

The Convoy was intercepted by a U-boat wolf pack (with the code name Kreusotter, Viper) on 15th November, but the U-boats soon lost contact. The wolf pack consisted of thirteen U-boats. They attacked again on 17th November and SS Widestone and a Greek Vessel Mount Taurus were both sunk with no survivors. The following day another four allied ships were lost.

The SS Widestone went down with all 42 hands including Daniel Maguire, he was one of seven Royal Navy Gunners who lost their lives on this vessel.

The six ships in the convoy that were sunk including one of the Norwegian Corvettes. A total of 86 allied sailors died in these attacks.

The torpedo that sank SS Widestone was fired by U 184 on it's first active patrol. U 184 was reported missing 5 days later on 21st November. There was no indication of it's fate and the crew of 50 men all perished.

There is a lot of information about Convoy ONS144 and on the Viper Wolf Pack at the following websites: 
[https://www.uboat.net/ops/convoys/convoys.php?convoy=ONS-144 Convoy ONS-144] 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_ON_144 ONS 144]

And information about DEMS here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensively_equipped_merchant_ship Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships]

===DRIVER HARRY NOBLE d. 29th January 1942 AGED 24===
Harry was born in on 27th July 1917. Harry's families were both local to the Village. His parents George and Annie Maria Cook were both living at Benns when they married in 1900. His father's family were farmers and Harry's grandparents lived in various houses around Luddenden during their married life, including Yellow Birch and Shepherd House.

Harry's father George was a painter and decorator, the family lived at Green Royd, Midgley for a while and Cleveley Gardens in Mytholmroyd. When his father died in 1936 and the family moved to 4 Riding Head Lane.

Harry worked as a Grocery Assistant at the Co-op in Halifax. He was engaged to Maud Eastwood (of Mytholmroyd).

In 1940, he enlisted as a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. This was the Logistics part of the British Army and dealt with the supply of food, water, fuel, clothing, stationary in fact anything and everything the Army needed to keep fighting. They recruited tradesman, butchers, bakers and office clerks to help keep the war efforts moving.

We do not know a lot about Harry’s time in the Army as the WW2 Service Records have not yet been released. He was killed in Action in Libya on 29th January 1942 aged 24.

He is buried at the Benghazi War Cemetery and is remembered here on the Luddenden War Memorial and also at the Wainsgate Methodist Chapel in Hebden Bridge.

===PRIVATE RONALD ROYSTON d. 24th April 1944, aged 26===
[[File:Ronald Royston.png|left|200px]]
Ronald was born at Linthwaite on 1st October 1917, the eldest of four children parents Herbert Royston and Mary Cruddas.

In 1921 the family has moved slightly closer to Huddersfield and is living in Milnsbridge, Ronald is the eldest child, he has a younger brother Jack and a sister Elsie. Brother Kenneth and sister Mary followed.

By 1939 the family was living at 29-33 Chapel Street in Luddenden and Ronald was working as a weaver.

Ronald joined the 5th Seaforth Highlanders but we are not sure of the date as the WW2 service records have not been released yet.

But we know that Compulsory Conscription was introduced in September 1939 for all men aged between 18 to 41. Ronald would have been 21 at the time, so he would almost definitely have been conscripted early in the war.

In which case he saw action with the 5th Seaforth Highlanders in North Africa (including El Alamein in October/November 1942 and the Battle of Wadi Akarit in April 1943) and later in 1943, he would have been fighting in Sicily, both campaigns under the control of Field Marshall Montgomery.

After the surrender of Italy on 3rd September 1943, the Battalion returned to the UK (in October) for training in preparation for the Normandy landings.

They were initially billeted at Gorhambury Park in Herfordshire and then moved to East Anglia in March 1944. 

[[File:R Royston gravestone.jpg|left|100px]]
Ronald was accidentally killed whilst on the second day of a two day training exercise in the UK on 24th April just a few weeks before the Battalion embarked for Normandy (The Regiment landed on Juno Beach near Ornemouth as the second wave of troops on the afternoon of D Day).

His body was returned to the family and he is buried here in the village Cemetery. 

===PRIVATE CECIL TISSON d. 29th June 1944 aged 29===

Cecil Tisson was born in St Helier 18th December 1914, his parents were Charles William and Gertrude Florence Tisson, both from St Helier. His parents married on New Year’s Day 1913.

By 1915 the family was living in London, Cecil’s father is listed as a Trunk Maker, in WW1 he served in the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver until he was demobbed in 1919.
In 1921, the family was living in Pimlico, his father was working as a carpenter at The Palace Hotel in Bloomsbury and there is a younger child, Constance Fortune.

By 1939, Cecil is working as a Painter's Labourer in Southampton.

At some point after this, a link is made with the Crilley family in Luddenden, but how this link was made is a mystery.

The Crilley's were originally from Liverpool. The 1921 Census, shows them living on Tarbock Street, Margaret's Mother is listed as a Widow and has five children living with her. By 1939 the family is living in Luddenden at 15 Halifax Lane.

Cecil married Margaret Crilley Q4 in 1942 in the Halifax area.

John Crilley who became Cecil's brother-in-law was a Royal Marine Commando. He was Killed in Action in Burma in 1945.

Cecil was in the 7th Battalion Hampshire Regiment and took part in the D Day landings. The 1st Battalion landed on D Day, the 7th Battalion were in reserve and landed on 22nd June. The Regiment landed on Gold Beach at Manvieux near Arromanches.

The War diaries follow the regiments advance through France towards Caen, but there are no mention of casualties in the diary. The diaries are a fascinating insight into the detail of the planning that went into the D Day landings and are well worth having a look at.

We do know that Cecil was killed in action on 29th June 1944 aged 29 years as the Regiment pushed towards the strategic Town of Caen.

He is buried a Hottot les Baugues cemetery which is about 10 miles outside of Bayeux. 
===GUNNER CLIFFORD UTTLEY d. 3 June 1944 AGED 34===

[[File:Clifford Uttley.png|left|100px]]
Clifford was the second son of Fred and Minnie Uttley. Fred was born at 4 Upperfoot on 12th May 1909. In 1911, the family is listed as parents Fred (25 years old, Dyer’s Labourer), Minnie (30 years old) and sons James William (aged 5) and Clifford (aged 1). 
By the time of the 1921 census, the family had moved up the road to Paradise on Ellen Royd Lane. Three more children had arrived Ada Mary and the twins Fred and Marjorie. Their father was working as a motor transport assistant (drayman) for a local brewery, Richard Whitaker in Halifax.

Clifford married Eveline Lawton in Grimethorpe in August 1932 and the couple had 2 children. They were living at Tillotson Buildings on Burnley Road, Luddendenfoot in 1939, Clifford was working as a warehouse man for H Helliwell's (worsted spinners). There are three names redacted on this document (probably their children), but we can look on the UK birth Register for children’s whose surname is Uttley and whose mother’s maiden name is Lawton. Two hits are George W Uttley born Q2 1934 in Hemsworth (near Grimethorpe) and Peter G born Q2 1935 also in Hemsworth.

We are not sure when Clifford joined up as the WW2 Service records have not yet been released. He was a member of the 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Regiment was formed in 1939 to defend the British Fleet at Scapa Flow from Air Attack.

The Regiment was posted to India in 1943, firstly to Avadi in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) and later to Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

Clifford died of burns in hospital on 3 June 1944 aged 34 and is buried at the Kirkee War Cemetery in Pune (formerly Puna).

After his death, his wife Eveline moved back to Grimethorpe. She died in 1999 aged 88 in the Chester /Ellesmere Port area.

2025-10-18T15:55:54Z

TonyHillyard:

File:George greenwood colourphoto.jpg

2025-10-18T15:48:05Z

TonyHillyard:

World War Two Commemoration

2025-10-18T15:46:43Z

TonyHillyard:

The names of eighteen World War Two Servicemen are listed on the Midgley and Luddenden War Memorial.
A Brief history of each of these men follows:
===ASSISTANT STEWARD PHILIP JOSEPH GORMAN d 2nd May 1942 aged 17 ===

Philip was born in Sculcoates, Hull in July 1925.
His parents John Gorman and Martha (nee Younger, born in 1904) were married in Hull in September 1924. In 1939 Martha was still living in Hull, carrying out Unpaid Domestic Duties. John was a Chief Steward in the Merchant Navy. They moved to 8 Riding Head Lane, Luddenden around 1940. 
Philip served in the Merchant Navy on SS Cape Corso and was lost, presumed drowned, on 2nd May 1942 when it was sunk by torpedo from German bombers. The Cape Corso set sail as part of the convoy PQ15 taking munitions to Russia. She was to have been part of PQ14 but bad weather forced her to return to Reykjavik and become part of the next convoy. 
Of the crew 44 and 12 Gunners, 39 crew and 11 gunners were lost at 73 2N 19 46E. The Cape Corso was built at Lithgows, Glasgow in 1929 and was called the Knight of St George until 1934 and owned by Lyle Shipping Co Ltd.
Philip is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial.
===CORPORAL GEORGE GREENWOOD d 22nd February 1942 aged 28===

George was born on 10th January 1914 at 21 Duke Street to Thomas, a former soldier, Motorman (Paper Mill) and then Steward at Midgley Working Men’s Club, who gave his life in Belgium in August that year, and Annie (nee Smyth, and born in Ireland) who, as a widow was later working as a screwer at Lindley’s. He was brought up at Goitside, Booth and Spring Bank. In 1939 he was living with his mother in Wadsworth Street, Halifax and working as a pattern cutter and stock keeper at John Mackintosh and Son, Albion Mills, Halifax. Following a child with Kathleen Alice Watson (Henry, born in 1938, who was adopted), he married Kathleen in February 1941 at St Michaels’ Mytholmoroyd and moved to Spring View, Luddendenfoot. 
He signed up for the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment in June 1940 and went out to the Far East in Spring 1941. 
He died in Burma and is remembered on the Rangoon Memorial in the Tukkyan War Cemetery, Yangon, Myanmar.

===REV JOHN FOSTER HAIGH d 23rd September 1943 aged 42===
John Foster was born in May 1901 and was brought up in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales. His father was a coal miner. 
He trained as an architect but after a few years he decided to train for the ministry at Edinburgh University and Airedale Theological College, Bradford.
In 1930 he became the Minister at Booth Congregational Church 
In January 1933 he married Annie Farrar, aged 36, from 2 Mill House, Luddenden, daughter of Joseph Pickles Farrar a retired Mill Mechanic. 
In 1934 he moved to Heywood Chapel, Northowram, 
He was a very good musician and at 16 conducted a choir. He was also an organist, played the piano, had a tenor voice of rare quality and was very successful at the Welsh Eisteddfods. At Booth he organised several music festivals, and performed with Halifax Amateur Operatic Society with great success. 
He enlisted in June 1940 was made a Chaplain and sent to Singapore with the 4th Suffolk Regiment and he was captured by the Japanese and sent to Niki-Niki POW Camp where he died on 23 September 1943 of beri-beri (thiamine deficiency). He is buried at Thanbyuzatyat War Cemetery in Burma (Myanmar). 
The cemetery sits a stone’s throw from the end of the infamous death railway. This cross-country route was built by forced labour, including prisoners of war, during the Second World War, in often gruelling conditions. It has been said that a man died for every sleeper laid across the 415-kilometre (258 mi) route of the railway. Many of those who died lie at rest in CWGC’s care. 
And as a reminder of what they went through, visitors to Thanbyuzayat will see a handmade wooden cross in the cemetery’s entrance, assembled out of those infamous railway sleepers by prisoners. 
Rev J Foster Haigh is remembered with a bronze plaque in that cemetery, behind the cenotaph in Luddenden and also in: 
Halifax Civic Books of Remembrance 
Heywood Congregational Church, Northowram 
St Matthew’s Northowram 
His widow Annie had returned to Mill House and she passed away aged 100 years in 1997.

===TROOPER THOMAS LISTER d 1st February 1943 aged 32===
Thomas was born on 16th August 1911 and lived in Hebden Bridge. His parents Sam (a Carter at the Railway Station, and later a Road Sweeper) and Phoebe (nee Chadwick, a mill hand) lived at 5 Buttress Bank. He went to Central Street Council School and attended Salem Methodist Church, before joining Messrs R Sutcliffe and Co, Melbourne Works, Hebden Bridge. In 1939 he was single, living with his parents and working as a Seam Presser for a Wholesale Clothier. 
He signed up in 1940 with the 9th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. The 9th Battalion was converted to the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in 1941 and was based in India. He was listed as missing in Burma in March 1943. 
Thomas is buried at the Taukkyan War Cemetery, Rangoon and is commemorated in Heptonstall Churchyard, the Hebden Bridge Methodist Churches Book of Remembrance and on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.

===PRIVATE SAMUEL LONGBOTTOM d 22nd March 1941 aged 28===
Samuel served in the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment (The Prince of Wales Own) and died on 22nd March 1941.
He is buried in the Keren War Cemetery and is commemorated on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.
===ABLE SEAMAN DANIEL MAGUIRE d. 17th November 1942 aged 20===
Daniel was born on 14th July 1922 in Luddenden and baptised at St Walburga’s church in Luddendenfoot (this building has been demolished and the site is now a care home Aachen Brook).

His parents John H Maguire and mother Catherine (nee Flood) were from Liverpool. John H is in Liverpool in the 1901 and 1911 census returns and we can also find Catherine Flood in the 1901 and 1911 census. The couple married in Liverpool in 1921 (Q2,8b,84). We can see that John H was living on Providence Place in the 1921 census shortly before Daniel was born but can’t at present find Catherine in the 1921 Census.

In 1939, the family is living at 8 Halifax Lane. The 1939 voters register shows the names of three of the family (John H and Catherine plus one child Joseph P, three names of other family members are redacted on this document).

After joining up Daniel did his Royal Navy training at HMS President III on the north bank of the Thames near Wapping, He then served on a Merchant ship the SS Widestone as a DEMS gunner. The Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) was an initiative started in 1939 to try and protect merchant vessels from enemy attack by placing anti aircraft guns and anti submarine depth Chargers on merchant vessels. These were manned by the Royal Navy.

In November 1942, the SS Widestone left Cardiff docks laden with 3,400 tonnes of Coal and headed north to Oban to join a convoy across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then onwards to New York. The ship was one of 33 vessels that linked up to form Convoy ONS 144, many were empty (loaded with ballast) and were going to pick up more supplies from America before returning to the UK. They were supported by one Royal Navy Corvette and four Norwegian Corvettes. ONS 144 was the 144th Outward bound from Great Britain to North America

The Convoy was intercepted by a U-boat wolf pack (with the code name Kreusotter, Viper) on 15th November, but the U-boats soon lost contact. The wolf pack consisted of thirteen U-boats. They attacked again on 17th November and SS Widestone and a Greek Vessel Mount Taurus were both sunk with no survivors. The following day another four allied ships were lost.

The SS Widestone went down with all 42 hands including Daniel Maguire, he was one of seven Royal Navy Gunners who lost their lives on this vessel.

The six ships in the convoy that were sunk including one of the Norwegian Corvettes. A total of 86 allied sailors died in these attacks.

The torpedo that sank SS Widestone was fired by U 184 on it's first active patrol. U 184 was reported missing 5 days later on 21st November. There was no indication of it's fate and the crew of 50 men all perished.

There is a lot of information about Convoy ONS144 and on the Viper Wolf Pack at the following websites: 
[https://www.uboat.net/ops/convoys/convoys.php?convoy=ONS-144 Convoy ONS-144] 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_ON_144 ONS 144]

And information about DEMS here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensively_equipped_merchant_ship Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships]

===DRIVER HARRY NOBLE d. 29th January 1942 AGED 24===
Harry was born in on 27th July 1917. Harry's families were both local to the Village. His parents George and Annie Maria Cook were both living at Benns when they married in 1900. His father's family were farmers and Harry's grandparents lived in various houses around Luddenden during their married life, including Yellow Birch and Shepherd House.

Harry's father George was a painter and decorator, the family lived at Green Royd, Midgley for a while and Cleveley Gardens in Mytholmroyd. When his father died in 1936 and the family moved to 4 Riding Head Lane.

Harry worked as a Grocery Assistant at the Co-op in Halifax. He was engaged to Maud Eastwood (of Mytholmroyd).

In 1940, he enlisted as a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. This was the Logistics part of the British Army and dealt with the supply of food, water, fuel, clothing, stationary in fact anything and everything the Army needed to keep fighting. They recruited tradesman, butchers, bakers and office clerks to help keep the war efforts moving.

We do not know a lot about Harry’s time in the Army as the WW2 Service Records have not yet been released. He was killed in Action in Libya on 29th January 1942 aged 24.

He is buried at the Benghazi War Cemetery and is remembered here on the Luddenden War Memorial and also at the Wainsgate Methodist Chapel in Hebden Bridge.

===PRIVATE RONALD ROYSTON d. 24th April 1944, aged 26===
[[File:Ronald Royston.png|left|200px]]
Ronald was born at Linthwaite on 1st October 1917, the eldest of four children parents Herbert Royston and Mary Cruddas.

In 1921 the family has moved slightly closer to Huddersfield and is living in Milnsbridge, Ronald is the eldest child, he has a younger brother Jack and a sister Elsie. Brother Kenneth and sister Mary followed.

By 1939 the family was living at 29-33 Chapel Street in Luddenden and Ronald was working as a weaver.

Ronald joined the 5th Seaforth Highlanders but we are not sure of the date as the WW2 service records have not been released yet.

But we know that Compulsory Conscription was introduced in September 1939 for all men aged between 18 to 41. Ronald would have been 21 at the time, so he would almost definitely have been conscripted early in the war.

In which case he saw action with the 5th Seaforth Highlanders in North Africa (including El Alamein in October/November 1942 and the Battle of Wadi Akarit in April 1943) and later in 1943, he would have been fighting in Sicily, both campaigns under the control of Field Marshall Montgomery.

After the surrender of Italy on 3rd September 1943, the Battalion returned to the UK (in October) for training in preparation for the Normandy landings.

They were initially billeted at Gorhambury Park in Herfordshire and then moved to East Anglia in March 1944. 

[[File:R Royston gravestone.jpg|left|100px]]
Ronald was accidentally killed whilst on the second day of a two day training exercise in the UK on 24th April just a few weeks before the Battalion embarked for Normandy (The Regiment landed on Juno Beach near Ornemouth as the second wave of troops on the afternoon of D Day).

His body was returned to the family and he is buried here in the village Cemetery. 

===PRIVATE CECIL TISSON d. 29th June 1944 aged 29===

Cecil Tisson was born in St Helier 18th December 1914, his parents were Charles William and Gertrude Florence Tisson, both from St Helier. His parents married on New Year’s Day 1913.

By 1915 the family was living in London, Cecil’s father is listed as a Trunk Maker, in WW1 he served in the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver until he was demobbed in 1919.
In 1921, the family was living in Pimlico, his father was working as a carpenter at The Palace Hotel in Bloomsbury and there is a younger child, Constance Fortune.

By 1939, Cecil is working as a Painter's Labourer in Southampton.

At some point after this, a link is made with the Crilley family in Luddenden, but how this link was made is a mystery.

The Crilley's were originally from Liverpool. The 1921 Census, shows them living on Tarbock Street, Margaret's Mother is listed as a Widow and has five children living with her. By 1939 the family is living in Luddenden at 15 Halifax Lane.

Cecil married Margaret Crilley Q4 in 1942 in the Halifax area.

John Crilley who became Cecil's brother-in-law was a Royal Marine Commando. He was Killed in Action in Burma in 1945.

Cecil was in the 7th Battalion Hampshire Regiment and took part in the D Day landings. The 1st Battalion landed on D Day, the 7th Battalion were in reserve and landed on 22nd June. The Regiment landed on Gold Beach at Manvieux near Arromanches.

The War diaries follow the regiments advance through France towards Caen, but there are no mention of casualties in the diary. The diaries are a fascinating insight into the detail of the planning that went into the D Day landings and are well worth having a look at.

We do know that Cecil was killed in action on 29th June 1944 aged 29 years as the Regiment pushed towards the strategic Town of Caen.

He is buried a Hottot les Baugues cemetery which is about 10 miles outside of Bayeux. 
===GUNNER CLIFFORD UTTLEY d. 3 June 1944 AGED 34===

[[File:Clifford Uttley.png|left|100px]]
Clifford was the second son of Fred and Minnie Uttley. Fred was born at 4 Upperfoot on 12th May 1909. In 1911, the family is listed as parents Fred (25 years old, Dyer’s Labourer), Minnie (30 years old) and sons James William (aged 5) and Clifford (aged 1). 
By the time of the 1921 census, the family had moved up the road to Paradise on Ellen Royd Lane. Three more children had arrived Ada Mary and the twins Fred and Marjorie. Their father was working as a motor transport assistant (drayman) for a local brewery, Richard Whitaker in Halifax.

Clifford married Eveline Lawton in Grimethorpe in August 1932 and the couple had 2 children. They were living at Tillotson Buildings on Burnley Road, Luddendenfoot in 1939, Clifford was working as a warehouse man for H Helliwell's (worsted spinners). There are three names redacted on this document (probably their children), but we can look on the UK birth Register for children’s whose surname is Uttley and whose mother’s maiden name is Lawton. Two hits are George W Uttley born Q2 1934 in Hemsworth (near Grimethorpe) and Peter G born Q2 1935 also in Hemsworth.

We are not sure when Clifford joined up as the WW2 Service records have not yet been released. He was a member of the 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Regiment was formed in 1939 to defend the British Fleet at Scapa Flow from Air Attack.

The Regiment was posted to India in 1943, firstly to Avadi in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) and later to Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

Clifford died of burns in hospital on 3 June 1944 aged 34 and is buried at the Kirkee War Cemetery in Pune (formerly Puna).

After his death, his wife Eveline moved back to Grimethorpe. She died in 1999 aged 88 in the Chester /Ellesmere Port area.

World War Two Commemoration

2025-10-08T16:24:42Z

TonyHillyard: /* TROOPER THOMAS LISTERd 1st February 1943 aged 32 */

The names of eighteen World War Two Servicemen are listed on the Midgley and Luddenden War Memorial.
A Brief history of each of these men follows:
===ASSISTANT STEWARD PHILIP JOSEPH GORMAN d 2nd May 1942 aged 17 ===

Philip was born in Sculcoates, Hull in July 1925.
His parents John Gorman and Martha (nee Younger, born in 1904) were married in Hull in September 1924. In 1939 Martha was still living in Hull, carrying out Unpaid Domestic Duties. John was a Chief Steward in the Merchant Navy. They moved to 8 Riding Head Lane, Luddenden around 1940. 
Philip served in the Merchant Navy on SS Cape Corso and was lost, presumed drowned, on 2nd May 1942 when it was sunk by torpedo from German bombers. The Cape Corso set sail as part of the convoy PQ15 taking munitions to Russia. She was to have been part of PQ14 but bad weather forced her to return to Reykjavik and become part of the next convoy. 
Of the crew 44 and 12 Gunners, 39 crew and 11 gunners were lost at 73 2N 19 46E. The Cape Corso was built at Lithgows, Glasgow in 1929 and was called the Knight of St George until 1934 and owned by Lyle Shipping Co Ltd.
Philip is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial.

===REV JOHN FOSTER HAIGH d 23rd September 1943 aged 42===
John Foster was born in May 1901 and was brought up in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales. His father was a coal miner. 
He trained as an architect but after a few years he decided to train for the ministry at Edinburgh University and Airedale Theological College, Bradford.
In 1930 he became the Minister at Booth Congregational Church 
In January 1933 he married Annie Farrar, aged 36, from 2 Mill House, Luddenden, daughter of Joseph Pickles Farrar a retired Mill Mechanic. 
In 1934 he moved to Heywood Chapel, Northowram, 
He was a very good musician and at 16 conducted a choir. He was also an organist, played the piano, had a tenor voice of rare quality and was very successful at the Welsh Eisteddfods. At Booth he organised several music festivals, and performed with Halifax Amateur Operatic Society with great success. 
He enlisted in June 1940 was made a Chaplain and sent to Singapore with the 4th Suffolk Regiment and he was captured by the Japanese and sent to Niki-Niki POW Camp where he died on 23 September 1943 of beri-beri (thiamine deficiency). He is buried at Thanbyuzatyat War Cemetery in Burma (Myanmar). 
The cemetery sits a stone’s throw from the end of the infamous death railway. This cross-country route was built by forced labour, including prisoners of war, during the Second World War, in often gruelling conditions. It has been said that a man died for every sleeper laid across the 415-kilometre (258 mi) route of the railway. Many of those who died lie at rest in CWGC’s care. 
And as a reminder of what they went through, visitors to Thanbyuzayat will see a handmade wooden cross in the cemetery’s entrance, assembled out of those infamous railway sleepers by prisoners. 
Rev J Foster Haigh is remembered with a bronze plaque in that cemetery, behind the cenotaph in Luddenden and also in: 
Halifax Civic Books of Remembrance 
Heywood Congregational Church, Northowram 
St Matthew’s Northowram 
His widow Annie had returned to Mill House and she passed away aged 100 years in 1997.

===TROOPER THOMAS LISTER d 1st February 1943 aged 32===
Thomas was born on 16th August 1911 and lived in Hebden Bridge. His parents Sam (a Carter at the Railway Station, and later a Road Sweeper) and Phoebe (nee Chadwick, a mill hand) lived at 5 Buttress Bank. He went to Central Street Council School and attended Salem Methodist Church, before joining Messrs R Sutcliffe and Co, Melbourne Works, Hebden Bridge. In 1939 he was single, living with his parents and working as a Seam Presser for a Wholesale Clothier. 
He signed up in 1940 with the 9th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. The 9th Battalion was converted to the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in 1941 and was based in India. He was listed as missing in Burma in March 1943. 
Thomas is buried at the Taukkyan War Cemetery, Rangoon and is commemorated in Heptonstall Churchyard, the Hebden Bridge Methodist Churches Book of Remembrance and on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.

===PRIVATE SAMUEL LONGBOTTOM d 22nd March 1941 aged 28===
Samuel served in the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment (The Prince of Wales Own) and died on 22nd March 1941.
He is buried in the Keren War Cemetery and is commemorated on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.
===ABLE SEAMAN DANIEL MAGUIRE d. 17th November 1942 aged 20===
Daniel was born on 14th July 1922 in Luddenden and baptised at St Walburga’s church in Luddendenfoot (this building has been demolished and the site is now a care home Aachen Brook).

His parents John H Maguire and mother Catherine (nee Flood) were from Liverpool. John H is in Liverpool in the 1901 and 1911 census returns and we can also find Catherine Flood in the 1901 and 1911 census. The couple married in Liverpool in 1921 (Q2,8b,84). We can see that John H was living on Providence Place in the 1921 census shortly before Daniel was born but can’t at present find Catherine in the 1921 Census.

In 1939, the family is living at 8 Halifax Lane. The 1939 voters register shows the names of three of the family (John H and Catherine plus one child Joseph P, three names of other family members are redacted on this document).

After joining up Daniel did his Royal Navy training at HMS President III on the north bank of the Thames near Wapping, He then served on a Merchant ship the SS Widestone as a DEMS gunner. The Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) was an initiative started in 1939 to try and protect merchant vessels from enemy attack by placing anti aircraft guns and anti submarine depth Chargers on merchant vessels. These were manned by the Royal Navy.

In November 1942, the SS Widestone left Cardiff docks laden with 3,400 tonnes of Coal and headed north to Oban to join a convoy across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then onwards to New York. The ship was one of 33 vessels that linked up to form Convoy ONS 144, many were empty (loaded with ballast) and were going to pick up more supplies from America before returning to the UK. They were supported by one Royal Navy Corvette and four Norwegian Corvettes. ONS 144 was the 144th Outward bound from Great Britain to North America

The Convoy was intercepted by a U-boat wolf pack (with the code name Kreusotter, Viper) on 15th November, but the U-boats soon lost contact. The wolf pack consisted of thirteen U-boats. They attacked again on 17th November and SS Widestone and a Greek Vessel Mount Taurus were both sunk with no survivors. The following day another four allied ships were lost.

The SS Widestone went down with all 42 hands including Daniel Maguire, he was one of seven Royal Navy Gunners who lost their lives on this vessel.

The six ships in the convoy that were sunk including one of the Norwegian Corvettes. A total of 86 allied sailors died in these attacks.

The torpedo that sank SS Widestone was fired by U 184 on it's first active patrol. U 184 was reported missing 5 days later on 21st November. There was no indication of it's fate and the crew of 50 men all perished.

There is a lot of information about Convoy ONS144 and on the Viper Wolf Pack at the following websites: 
[https://www.uboat.net/ops/convoys/convoys.php?convoy=ONS-144 Convoy ONS-144] 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_ON_144 ONS 144]

And information about DEMS here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensively_equipped_merchant_ship Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships]

===DRIVER HARRY NOBLE d. 29th January 1942 AGED 24===
Harry was born in on 27th July 1917. Harry's families were both local to the Village. His parents George and Annie Maria Cook were both living at Benns when they married in 1900. His father's family were farmers and Harry's grandparents lived in various houses around Luddenden during their married life, including Yellow Birch and Shepherd House.

Harry's father George was a painter and decorator, the family lived at Green Royd, Midgley for a while and Cleveley Gardens in Mytholmroyd. When his father died in 1936 and the family moved to 4 Riding Head Lane.

Harry worked as a Grocery Assistant at the Co-op in Halifax. He was engaged to Maud Eastwood (of Mytholmroyd).

In 1940, he enlisted as a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. This was the Logistics part of the British Army and dealt with the supply of food, water, fuel, clothing, stationary in fact anything and everything the Army needed to keep fighting. They recruited tradesman, butchers, bakers and office clerks to help keep the war efforts moving.

We do not know a lot about Harry’s time in the Army as the WW2 Service Records have not yet been released. He was killed in Action in Libya on 29th January 1942 aged 24.

He is buried at the Benghazi War Cemetery and is remembered here on the Luddenden War Memorial and also at the Wainsgate Methodist Chapel in Hebden Bridge.

===PRIVATE RONALD ROYSTON d. 24th April 1944, aged 26===
[[File:Ronald Royston.png|left|200px]]
Ronald was born at Linthwaite on 1st October 1917, the eldest of four children parents Herbert Royston and Mary Cruddas.

In 1921 the family has moved slightly closer to Huddersfield and is living in Milnsbridge, Ronald is the eldest child, he has a younger brother Jack and a sister Elsie. Brother Kenneth and sister Mary followed.

By 1939 the family was living at 29-33 Chapel Street in Luddenden and Ronald was working as a weaver.

Ronald joined the 5th Seaforth Highlanders but we are not sure of the date as the WW2 service records have not been released yet.

But we know that Compulsory Conscription was introduced in September 1939 for all men aged between 18 to 41. Ronald would have been 21 at the time, so he would almost definitely have been conscripted early in the war.

In which case he saw action with the 5th Seaforth Highlanders in North Africa (including El Alamein in October/November 1942 and the Battle of Wadi Akarit in April 1943) and later in 1943, he would have been fighting in Sicily, both campaigns under the control of Field Marshall Montgomery.

After the surrender of Italy on 3rd September 1943, the Battalion returned to the UK (in October) for training in preparation for the Normandy landings.

They were initially billeted at Gorhambury Park in Herfordshire and then moved to East Anglia in March 1944. 

[[File:R Royston gravestone.jpg|left|100px]]
Ronald was accidentally killed whilst on the second day of a two day training exercise in the UK on 24th April just a few weeks before the Battalion embarked for Normandy (The Regiment landed on Juno Beach near Ornemouth as the second wave of troops on the afternoon of D Day).

His body was returned to the family and he is buried here in the village Cemetery. 

===PRIVATE CECIL TISSON d. 29th June 1944 aged 29===

Cecil Tisson was born in St Helier 18th December 1914, his parents were Charles William and Gertrude Florence Tisson, both from St Helier. His parents married on New Year’s Day 1913.

By 1915 the family was living in London, Cecil’s father is listed as a Trunk Maker, in WW1 he served in the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver until he was demobbed in 1919.
In 1921, the family was living in Pimlico, his father was working as a carpenter at The Palace Hotel in Bloomsbury and there is a younger child, Constance Fortune.

By 1939, Cecil is working as a Painter's Labourer in Southampton.

At some point after this, a link is made with the Crilley family in Luddenden, but how this link was made is a mystery.

The Crilley's were originally from Liverpool. The 1921 Census, shows them living on Tarbock Street, Margaret's Mother is listed as a Widow and has five children living with her. By 1939 the family is living in Luddenden at 15 Halifax Lane.

Cecil married Margaret Crilley Q4 in 1942 in the Halifax area.

John Crilley who became Cecil's brother-in-law was a Royal Marine Commando. He was Killed in Action in Burma in 1945.

Cecil was in the 7th Battalion Hampshire Regiment and took part in the D Day landings. The 1st Battalion landed on D Day, the 7th Battalion were in reserve and landed on 22nd June. The Regiment landed on Gold Beach at Manvieux near Arromanches.

The War diaries follow the regiments advance through France towards Caen, but there are no mention of casualties in the diary. The diaries are a fascinating insight into the detail of the planning that went into the D Day landings and are well worth having a look at.

We do know that Cecil was killed in action on 29th June 1944 aged 29 years as the Regiment pushed towards the strategic Town of Caen.

He is buried a Hottot les Baugues cemetery which is about 10 miles outside of Bayeux. 
===GUNNER CLIFFORD UTTLEY d. 3 June 1944 AGED 34===

[[File:Clifford Uttley.png|left|100px]]
Clifford was the second son of Fred and Minnie Uttley. Fred was born at 4 Upperfoot on 12th May 1909. In 1911, the family is listed as parents Fred (25 years old, Dyer’s Labourer), Minnie (30 years old) and sons James William (aged 5) and Clifford (aged 1). 
By the time of the 1921 census, the family had moved up the road to Paradise on Ellen Royd Lane. Three more children had arrived Ada Mary and the twins Fred and Marjorie. Their father was working as a motor transport assistant (drayman) for a local brewery, Richard Whitaker in Halifax.

Clifford married Eveline Lawton in Grimethorpe in August 1932 and the couple had 2 children. They were living at Tillotson Buildings on Burnley Road, Luddendenfoot in 1939, Clifford was working as a warehouse man for H Helliwell's (worsted spinners). There are three names redacted on this document (probably their children), but we can look on the UK birth Register for children’s whose surname is Uttley and whose mother’s maiden name is Lawton. Two hits are George W Uttley born Q2 1934 in Hemsworth (near Grimethorpe) and Peter G born Q2 1935 also in Hemsworth.

We are not sure when Clifford joined up as the WW2 Service records have not yet been released. He was a member of the 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Regiment was formed in 1939 to defend the British Fleet at Scapa Flow from Air Attack.

The Regiment was posted to India in 1943, firstly to Avadi in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) and later to Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

Clifford died of burns in hospital on 3 June 1944 aged 34 and is buried at the Kirkee War Cemetery in Pune (formerly Puna).

After his death, his wife Eveline moved back to Grimethorpe. She died in 1999 aged 88 in the Chester /Ellesmere Port area.

World War Two Commemoration

2025-10-08T16:23:27Z

TonyHillyard:

The names of eighteen World War Two Servicemen are listed on the Midgley and Luddenden War Memorial.
A Brief history of each of these men follows:
===ASSISTANT STEWARD PHILIP JOSEPH GORMAN d 2nd May 1942 aged 17 ===

Philip was born in Sculcoates, Hull in July 1925.
His parents John Gorman and Martha (nee Younger, born in 1904) were married in Hull in September 1924. In 1939 Martha was still living in Hull, carrying out Unpaid Domestic Duties. John was a Chief Steward in the Merchant Navy. They moved to 8 Riding Head Lane, Luddenden around 1940. 
Philip served in the Merchant Navy on SS Cape Corso and was lost, presumed drowned, on 2nd May 1942 when it was sunk by torpedo from German bombers. The Cape Corso set sail as part of the convoy PQ15 taking munitions to Russia. She was to have been part of PQ14 but bad weather forced her to return to Reykjavik and become part of the next convoy. 
Of the crew 44 and 12 Gunners, 39 crew and 11 gunners were lost at 73 2N 19 46E. The Cape Corso was built at Lithgows, Glasgow in 1929 and was called the Knight of St George until 1934 and owned by Lyle Shipping Co Ltd.
Philip is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial.

===REV JOHN FOSTER HAIGH d 23rd September 1943 aged 42===
John Foster was born in May 1901 and was brought up in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales. His father was a coal miner. 
He trained as an architect but after a few years he decided to train for the ministry at Edinburgh University and Airedale Theological College, Bradford.
In 1930 he became the Minister at Booth Congregational Church 
In January 1933 he married Annie Farrar, aged 36, from 2 Mill House, Luddenden, daughter of Joseph Pickles Farrar a retired Mill Mechanic. 
In 1934 he moved to Heywood Chapel, Northowram, 
He was a very good musician and at 16 conducted a choir. He was also an organist, played the piano, had a tenor voice of rare quality and was very successful at the Welsh Eisteddfods. At Booth he organised several music festivals, and performed with Halifax Amateur Operatic Society with great success. 
He enlisted in June 1940 was made a Chaplain and sent to Singapore with the 4th Suffolk Regiment and he was captured by the Japanese and sent to Niki-Niki POW Camp where he died on 23 September 1943 of beri-beri (thiamine deficiency). He is buried at Thanbyuzatyat War Cemetery in Burma (Myanmar). 
The cemetery sits a stone’s throw from the end of the infamous death railway. This cross-country route was built by forced labour, including prisoners of war, during the Second World War, in often gruelling conditions. It has been said that a man died for every sleeper laid across the 415-kilometre (258 mi) route of the railway. Many of those who died lie at rest in CWGC’s care. 
And as a reminder of what they went through, visitors to Thanbyuzayat will see a handmade wooden cross in the cemetery’s entrance, assembled out of those infamous railway sleepers by prisoners. 
Rev J Foster Haigh is remembered with a bronze plaque in that cemetery, behind the cenotaph in Luddenden and also in: 
Halifax Civic Books of Remembrance 
Heywood Congregational Church, Northowram 
St Matthew’s Northowram 
His widow Annie had returned to Mill House and she passed away aged 100 years in 1997.

===TROOPER THOMAS LISTER d 1st February 1943 aged 32===
Thomas was born on 16th August 1911 and lived in Hebden Bridge. His parents Sam (a Carter at the Railway Station, and later a Road Sweeper) and Phoebe (nee Chadwick, a mill hand) lived at 5 Buttress Bank. He went to Central Street Council School and attended Salem Methodist Church, before joining Messrs R Sutcliffe and Co, Melbourne Works, Hebden Bridge. In 1939 he was single, living with his parents and working as a Seam Presser for a Wholesale Clothier. 
He signed up in 1940 with the 9th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. The 9th Battalion was converted to the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in 1941 and was based in India. He was listed as missing in Burma in March 1943. 
Thomas is buried at the Taukkyan War Cemetery, Rangoon and is commemorated in Heptonstall Churchyard, the Hebden Bridge Methodist Churches Book of Remembrance and on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.

===PRIVATE SAMUEL LONGBOTTOM d 22nd March 1941 aged 28===
Samuel served in the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment (The Prince of Wales Own) and died on 22nd March 1941.
He is buried in the Keren War Cemetery and is commemorated on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.
===ABLE SEAMAN DANIEL MAGUIRE d. 17th November 1942 aged 20===
Daniel was born on 14th July 1922 in Luddenden and baptised at St Walburga’s church in Luddendenfoot (this building has been demolished and the site is now a care home Aachen Brook).

His parents John H Maguire and mother Catherine (nee Flood) were from Liverpool. John H is in Liverpool in the 1901 and 1911 census returns and we can also find Catherine Flood in the 1901 and 1911 census. The couple married in Liverpool in 1921 (Q2,8b,84). We can see that John H was living on Providence Place in the 1921 census shortly before Daniel was born but can’t at present find Catherine in the 1921 Census.

In 1939, the family is living at 8 Halifax Lane. The 1939 voters register shows the names of three of the family (John H and Catherine plus one child Joseph P, three names of other family members are redacted on this document).

After joining up Daniel did his Royal Navy training at HMS President III on the north bank of the Thames near Wapping, He then served on a Merchant ship the SS Widestone as a DEMS gunner. The Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) was an initiative started in 1939 to try and protect merchant vessels from enemy attack by placing anti aircraft guns and anti submarine depth Chargers on merchant vessels. These were manned by the Royal Navy.

In November 1942, the SS Widestone left Cardiff docks laden with 3,400 tonnes of Coal and headed north to Oban to join a convoy across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then onwards to New York. The ship was one of 33 vessels that linked up to form Convoy ONS 144, many were empty (loaded with ballast) and were going to pick up more supplies from America before returning to the UK. They were supported by one Royal Navy Corvette and four Norwegian Corvettes. ONS 144 was the 144th Outward bound from Great Britain to North America

The Convoy was intercepted by a U-boat wolf pack (with the code name Kreusotter, Viper) on 15th November, but the U-boats soon lost contact. The wolf pack consisted of thirteen U-boats. They attacked again on 17th November and SS Widestone and a Greek Vessel Mount Taurus were both sunk with no survivors. The following day another four allied ships were lost.

The SS Widestone went down with all 42 hands including Daniel Maguire, he was one of seven Royal Navy Gunners who lost their lives on this vessel.

The six ships in the convoy that were sunk including one of the Norwegian Corvettes. A total of 86 allied sailors died in these attacks.

The torpedo that sank SS Widestone was fired by U 184 on it's first active patrol. U 184 was reported missing 5 days later on 21st November. There was no indication of it's fate and the crew of 50 men all perished.

There is a lot of information about Convoy ONS144 and on the Viper Wolf Pack at the following websites: 
[https://www.uboat.net/ops/convoys/convoys.php?convoy=ONS-144 Convoy ONS-144] 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_ON_144 ONS 144]

And information about DEMS here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensively_equipped_merchant_ship Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships]

===DRIVER HARRY NOBLE d. 29th January 1942 AGED 24===
Harry was born in on 27th July 1917. Harry's families were both local to the Village. His parents George and Annie Maria Cook were both living at Benns when they married in 1900. His father's family were farmers and Harry's grandparents lived in various houses around Luddenden during their married life, including Yellow Birch and Shepherd House.

Harry's father George was a painter and decorator, the family lived at Green Royd, Midgley for a while and Cleveley Gardens in Mytholmroyd. When his father died in 1936 and the family moved to 4 Riding Head Lane.

Harry worked as a Grocery Assistant at the Co-op in Halifax. He was engaged to Maud Eastwood (of Mytholmroyd).

In 1940, he enlisted as a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. This was the Logistics part of the British Army and dealt with the supply of food, water, fuel, clothing, stationary in fact anything and everything the Army needed to keep fighting. They recruited tradesman, butchers, bakers and office clerks to help keep the war efforts moving.

We do not know a lot about Harry’s time in the Army as the WW2 Service Records have not yet been released. He was killed in Action in Libya on 29th January 1942 aged 24.

He is buried at the Benghazi War Cemetery and is remembered here on the Luddenden War Memorial and also at the Wainsgate Methodist Chapel in Hebden Bridge.

===PRIVATE RONALD ROYSTON d. 24th April 1944, aged 26===
[[File:Ronald Royston.png|left|200px]]
Ronald was born at Linthwaite on 1st October 1917, the eldest of four children parents Herbert Royston and Mary Cruddas.

In 1921 the family has moved slightly closer to Huddersfield and is living in Milnsbridge, Ronald is the eldest child, he has a younger brother Jack and a sister Elsie. Brother Kenneth and sister Mary followed.

By 1939 the family was living at 29-33 Chapel Street in Luddenden and Ronald was working as a weaver.

Ronald joined the 5th Seaforth Highlanders but we are not sure of the date as the WW2 service records have not been released yet.

But we know that Compulsory Conscription was introduced in September 1939 for all men aged between 18 to 41. Ronald would have been 21 at the time, so he would almost definitely have been conscripted early in the war.

In which case he saw action with the 5th Seaforth Highlanders in North Africa (including El Alamein in October/November 1942 and the Battle of Wadi Akarit in April 1943) and later in 1943, he would have been fighting in Sicily, both campaigns under the control of Field Marshall Montgomery.

After the surrender of Italy on 3rd September 1943, the Battalion returned to the UK (in October) for training in preparation for the Normandy landings.

They were initially billeted at Gorhambury Park in Herfordshire and then moved to East Anglia in March 1944. 

[[File:R Royston gravestone.jpg|left|100px]]
Ronald was accidentally killed whilst on the second day of a two day training exercise in the UK on 24th April just a few weeks before the Battalion embarked for Normandy (The Regiment landed on Juno Beach near Ornemouth as the second wave of troops on the afternoon of D Day).

His body was returned to the family and he is buried here in the village Cemetery. 

===PRIVATE CECIL TISSON d. 29th June 1944 aged 29===

Cecil Tisson was born in St Helier 18th December 1914, his parents were Charles William and Gertrude Florence Tisson, both from St Helier. His parents married on New Year’s Day 1913.

By 1915 the family was living in London, Cecil’s father is listed as a Trunk Maker, in WW1 he served in the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver until he was demobbed in 1919.
In 1921, the family was living in Pimlico, his father was working as a carpenter at The Palace Hotel in Bloomsbury and there is a younger child, Constance Fortune.

By 1939, Cecil is working as a Painter's Labourer in Southampton.

At some point after this, a link is made with the Crilley family in Luddenden, but how this link was made is a mystery.

The Crilley's were originally from Liverpool. The 1921 Census, shows them living on Tarbock Street, Margaret's Mother is listed as a Widow and has five children living with her. By 1939 the family is living in Luddenden at 15 Halifax Lane.

Cecil married Margaret Crilley Q4 in 1942 in the Halifax area.

John Crilley who became Cecil's brother-in-law was a Royal Marine Commando. He was Killed in Action in Burma in 1945.

Cecil was in the 7th Battalion Hampshire Regiment and took part in the D Day landings. The 1st Battalion landed on D Day, the 7th Battalion were in reserve and landed on 22nd June. The Regiment landed on Gold Beach at Manvieux near Arromanches.

The War diaries follow the regiments advance through France towards Caen, but there are no mention of casualties in the diary. The diaries are a fascinating insight into the detail of the planning that went into the D Day landings and are well worth having a look at.

We do know that Cecil was killed in action on 29th June 1944 aged 29 years as the Regiment pushed towards the strategic Town of Caen.

He is buried a Hottot les Baugues cemetery which is about 10 miles outside of Bayeux. 
===GUNNER CLIFFORD UTTLEY d. 3 June 1944 AGED 34===

[[File:Clifford Uttley.png|left|100px]]
Clifford was the second son of Fred and Minnie Uttley. Fred was born at 4 Upperfoot on 12th May 1909. In 1911, the family is listed as parents Fred (25 years old, Dyer’s Labourer), Minnie (30 years old) and sons James William (aged 5) and Clifford (aged 1). 
By the time of the 1921 census, the family had moved up the road to Paradise on Ellen Royd Lane. Three more children had arrived Ada Mary and the twins Fred and Marjorie. Their father was working as a motor transport assistant (drayman) for a local brewery, Richard Whitaker in Halifax.

Clifford married Eveline Lawton in Grimethorpe in August 1932 and the couple had 2 children. They were living at Tillotson Buildings on Burnley Road, Luddendenfoot in 1939, Clifford was working as a warehouse man for H Helliwell's (worsted spinners). There are three names redacted on this document (probably their children), but we can look on the UK birth Register for children’s whose surname is Uttley and whose mother’s maiden name is Lawton. Two hits are George W Uttley born Q2 1934 in Hemsworth (near Grimethorpe) and Peter G born Q2 1935 also in Hemsworth.

We are not sure when Clifford joined up as the WW2 Service records have not yet been released. He was a member of the 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Regiment was formed in 1939 to defend the British Fleet at Scapa Flow from Air Attack.

The Regiment was posted to India in 1943, firstly to Avadi in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) and later to Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

Clifford died of burns in hospital on 3 June 1944 aged 34 and is buried at the Kirkee War Cemetery in Pune (formerly Puna).

After his death, his wife Eveline moved back to Grimethorpe. She died in 1999 aged 88 in the Chester /Ellesmere Port area.

World War Two Commemoration

2025-10-08T16:11:29Z

TonyHillyard:

The names of eighteen World War Two Servicemen are listed on the Midgley and Luddenden War Memorial.
A Brief history of each of these men follows:
===Trooper Thomas Lister d 1st February 1943 aged 32===

Thomas was born on 16th August 1911 and lived in Hebden Bridge. His parents Sam (a Carter at the Railway Station, and later a Road Sweeper) and Phoebe (nee Chadwick, a mill hand) lived at 5 Buttress Bank. He went to Central Street Council School and attended Salem Methodist Church, before joining Messrs R Sutcliffe and Co, Melbourne Works, Hebden Bridge. In 1939 he was single, living with his parents and working as a Seam Presser for a Wholesale Clothier. 
He signed up in 1940 with the 9th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. The 9th Battalion was converted to the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in 1941 and was based in India. He was listed as missing in Burma in March 1943. 
Thomas is buried at the Taukkyan War Cemetery, Rangoon and is commemorated in Heptonstall Churchyard, the Hebden Bridge Methodist Churches Book of Remembrance and on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.

===Private Samuel Longbottom d 22nd March 1941 aged 28===
Samuel served in the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment (The Prince of Wales Own) and died on 22nd March 1941.
He is buried in the Keren War Cemetery and is commemorated on the Luddenden and Midgley War Memorial.
===ABLE SEAMAN DANIEL MAGUIRE d. 17th November 1942 aged 20===
Daniel was born on 14th July 1922 in Luddenden and baptised at St Walburga’s church in Luddendenfoot (this building has been demolished and the site is now a care home Aachen Brook).

His parents John H Maguire and mother Catherine (nee Flood) were from Liverpool. John H is in Liverpool in the 1901 and 1911 census returns and we can also find Catherine Flood in the 1901 and 1911 census. The couple married in Liverpool in 1921 (Q2,8b,84). We can see that John H was living on Providence Place in the 1921 census shortly before Daniel was born but can’t at present find Catherine in the 1921 Census.

In 1939, the family is living at 8 Halifax Lane. The 1939 voters register shows the names of three of the family (John H and Catherine plus one child Joseph P, three names of other family members are redacted on this document).

After joining up Daniel did his Royal Navy training at HMS President III on the north bank of the Thames near Wapping, He then served on a Merchant ship the SS Widestone as a DEMS gunner. The Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) was an initiative started in 1939 to try and protect merchant vessels from enemy attack by placing anti aircraft guns and anti submarine depth Chargers on merchant vessels. These were manned by the Royal Navy.

In November 1942, the SS Widestone left Cardiff docks laden with 3,400 tonnes of Coal and headed north to Oban to join a convoy across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then onwards to New York. The ship was one of 33 vessels that linked up to form Convoy ONS 144, many were empty (loaded with ballast) and were going to pick up more supplies from America before returning to the UK. They were supported by one Royal Navy Corvette and four Norwegian Corvettes. ONS 144 was the 144th Outward bound from Great Britain to North America

The Convoy was intercepted by a U-boat wolf pack (with the code name Kreusotter, Viper) on 15th November, but the U-boats soon lost contact. The wolf pack consisted of thirteen U-boats. They attacked again on 17th November and SS Widestone and a Greek Vessel Mount Taurus were both sunk with no survivors. The following day another four allied ships were lost.

The SS Widestone went down with all 42 hands including Daniel Maguire, he was one of seven Royal Navy Gunners who lost their lives on this vessel.

The six ships in the convoy that were sunk including one of the Norwegian Corvettes. A total of 86 allied sailors died in these attacks.

The torpedo that sank SS Widestone was fired by U 184 on it's first active patrol. U 184 was reported missing 5 days later on 21st November. There was no indication of it's fate and the crew of 50 men all perished.

There is a lot of information about Convoy ONS144 and on the Viper Wolf Pack at the following websites: 
[https://www.uboat.net/ops/convoys/convoys.php?convoy=ONS-144 Convoy ONS-144] 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_ON_144 ONS 144]

And information about DEMS here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensively_equipped_merchant_ship Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships]

===DRIVER HARRY NOBLE d. 29th January 1942 AGED 24===
Harry was born in on 27th July 1917. Harry's families were both local to the Village. His parents George and Annie Maria Cook were both living at Benns when they married in 1900. His father's family were farmers and Harry's grandparents lived in various houses around Luddenden during their married life, including Yellow Birch and Shepherd House.

Harry's father George was a painter and decorator, the family lived at Green Royd, Midgley for a while and Cleveley Gardens in Mytholmroyd. When his father died in 1936 and the family moved to 4 Riding Head Lane.

Harry worked as a Grocery Assistant at the Co-op in Halifax. He was engaged to Maud Eastwood (of Mytholmroyd).

In 1940, he enlisted as a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. This was the Logistics part of the British Army and dealt with the supply of food, water, fuel, clothing, stationary in fact anything and everything the Army needed to keep fighting. They recruited tradesman, butchers, bakers and office clerks to help keep the war efforts moving.

We do not know a lot about Harry’s time in the Army as the WW2 Service Records have not yet been released. He was killed in Action in Libya on 29th January 1942 aged 24.

He is buried at the Benghazi War Cemetery and is remembered here on the Luddenden War Memorial and also at the Wainsgate Methodist Chapel in Hebden Bridge.

===PRIVATE RONALD ROYSTON d. 24th April 1944, aged 26===
[[File:Ronald Royston.png|left|200px]]
Ronald was born at Linthwaite on 1st October 1917, the eldest of four children parents Herbert Royston and Mary Cruddas.

In 1921 the family has moved slightly closer to Huddersfield and is living in Milnsbridge, Ronald is the eldest child, he has a younger brother Jack and a sister Elsie. Brother Kenneth and sister Mary followed.

By 1939 the family was living at 29-33 Chapel Street in Luddenden and Ronald was working as a weaver.

Ronald joined the 5th Seaforth Highlanders but we are not sure of the date as the WW2 service records have not been released yet.

But we know that Compulsory Conscription was introduced in September 1939 for all men aged between 18 to 41. Ronald would have been 21 at the time, so he would almost definitely have been conscripted early in the war.

In which case he saw action with the 5th Seaforth Highlanders in North Africa (including El Alamein in October/November 1942 and the Battle of Wadi Akarit in April 1943) and later in 1943, he would have been fighting in Sicily, both campaigns under the control of Field Marshall Montgomery.

After the surrender of Italy on 3rd September 1943, the Battalion returned to the UK (in October) for training in preparation for the Normandy landings.

They were initially billeted at Gorhambury Park in Herfordshire and then moved to East Anglia in March 1944. 

[[File:R Royston gravestone.jpg|left|100px]]
Ronald was accidentally killed whilst on the second day of a two day training exercise in the UK on 24th April just a few weeks before the Battalion embarked for Normandy (The Regiment landed on Juno Beach near Ornemouth as the second wave of troops on the afternoon of D Day).

His body was returned to the family and he is buried here in the village Cemetery. 

===PRIVATE CECIL TISSON d. 29th June 1944 aged 29===

Cecil Tisson was born in St Helier 18th December 1914, his parents were Charles William and Gertrude Florence Tisson, both from St Helier. His parents married on New Year’s Day 1913.

By 1915 the family was living in London, Cecil’s father is listed as a Trunk Maker, in WW1 he served in the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver until he was demobbed in 1919.
In 1921, the family was living in Pimlico, his father was working as a carpenter at The Palace Hotel in Bloomsbury and there is a younger child, Constance Fortune.

By 1939, Cecil is working as a Painter's Labourer in Southampton.

At some point after this, a link is made with the Crilley family in Luddenden, but how this link was made is a mystery.

The Crilley's were originally from Liverpool. The 1921 Census, shows them living on Tarbock Street, Margaret's Mother is listed as a Widow and has five children living with her. By 1939 the family is living in Luddenden at 15 Halifax Lane.

Cecil married Margaret Crilley Q4 in 1942 in the Halifax area.

John Crilley who became Cecil's brother-in-law was a Royal Marine Commando. He was Killed in Action in Burma in 1945.

Cecil was in the 7th Battalion Hampshire Regiment and took part in the D Day landings. The 1st Battalion landed on D Day, the 7th Battalion were in reserve and landed on 22nd June. The Regiment landed on Gold Beach at Manvieux near Arromanches.

The War diaries follow the regiments advance through France towards Caen, but there are no mention of casualties in the diary. The diaries are a fascinating insight into the detail of the planning that went into the D Day landings and are well worth having a look at.

We do know that Cecil was killed in action on 29th June 1944 aged 29 years as the Regiment pushed towards the strategic Town of Caen.

He is buried a Hottot les Baugues cemetery which is about 10 miles outside of Bayeux. 
===GUNNER CLIFFORD UTTLEY d. 3 June 1944 AGED 34===

[[File:Clifford Uttley.png|left|100px]]
Clifford was the second son of Fred and Minnie Uttley. Fred was born at 4 Upperfoot on 12th May 1909. In 1911, the family is listed as parents Fred (25 years old, Dyer’s Labourer), Minnie (30 years old) and sons James William (aged 5) and Clifford (aged 1). 
By the time of the 1921 census, the family had moved up the road to Paradise on Ellen Royd Lane. Three more children had arrived Ada Mary and the twins Fred and Marjorie. Their father was working as a motor transport assistant (drayman) for a local brewery, Richard Whitaker in Halifax.

Clifford married Eveline Lawton in Grimethorpe in August 1932 and the couple had 2 children. They were living at Tillotson Buildings on Burnley Road, Luddendenfoot in 1939, Clifford was working as a warehouse man for H Helliwell's (worsted spinners). There are three names redacted on this document (probably their children), but we can look on the UK birth Register for children’s whose surname is Uttley and whose mother’s maiden name is Lawton. Two hits are George W Uttley born Q2 1934 in Hemsworth (near Grimethorpe) and Peter G born Q2 1935 also in Hemsworth.

We are not sure when Clifford joined up as the WW2 Service records have not yet been released. He was a member of the 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Regiment was formed in 1939 to defend the British Fleet at Scapa Flow from Air Attack.

The Regiment was posted to India in 1943, firstly to Avadi in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) and later to Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

Clifford died of burns in hospital on 3 June 1944 aged 34 and is buried at the Kirkee War Cemetery in Pune (formerly Puna).

After his death, his wife Eveline moved back to Grimethorpe. She died in 1999 aged 88 in the Chester /Ellesmere Port area.

Local Retail

2025-08-24T09:51:49Z

TonyHillyard: Replaced content with "There are no retail shops in the village any more (2025), but at one time there were 27 shops, 5 inns, 2 blacksmiths, the post office and a fish & chip shop. * * Wormald's Grocery Shop * * Patrick's Greengrocer shop * * Tattersall's Electrical * * Co-operative * * Haberdashery - Operated by Mr.Sayle and Family * * Butchers * * Post Office * * Charlie Campbells Fish & Chip Emporium *"

Local Retail

2025-08-24T09:51:20Z

TonyHillyard:

There are no retail shops in the village any more (2025), but at one time there were 27 shops, 5 inns, 2 blacksmiths, the post office and a fish & chip shop.

*
* Wormald's Grocery Shop
*
* Patrick's Greengrocer shop
*
* Tattersall's Electrical
*
* Co-operative
*
* [[Haberdashery]] - Operated by Mr.Sayle and Family
*
* Butchers
*
* Post Office
*
* Charlie Campbells Fish & Chip Emporium
*
TIMELINE

Around 7000 BCE the ice that had covered large parts of Britain melted to leave a land that was populated by a small number of communities. People wandered around the surrounding hilltops and found food by hunting, fishing and collecting berries and fruits. From around 4700 BCE land began to be cleared for permanent residents and animals began to be grazed. Sheep and cattle were kept as well as pigs. From 2000 BCE onwards, bronze instruments and tools began to appear, originating from Europe. Iron Age people built banked enclosures inside which they built houses, for example at Tower Hill and Moor End. Luddenden received its name from the Anglo-Saxons, who established settlements in the valley during the seventh century. ''Luddingdene'' means clearing ''(ing'') in the valley ''(dene)'' of the loud river ''(Ludd).'' Land was gradually brought into cultivation by clearance of the moorland. Here people kept cattle and grew their own corn. All corn grown had to be ground at the Manorial Corn Mill.

''(Will put National events timeline alongside (like Phil R did for Church))''

1086 Midgley and Warley mentioned in the Doomsday Book, with Luddenden Brook being the dividing line

1274 mentions of Luddenden Corn Mill in Wakefield Manorial Rolls

1345-1353 Black Death (Bubonic plague, originally caused by fleas on rats, but then spread through the air to lungs) killed 40% of people in Luddenden

1440 Dean Mill built

1518 Packhorse routes from Bradford (down Stocks Lane) and Halifax (down Halifax Lane) to and from Lancashire (via Heptonstall and the Long Causeway) meet at the stone bridge built in the centre of Luddenden, partly paid for by a bequest of £10 from Richard Stand….and replacing an earlier wooden bridge. A horse trough was provided at the bottom of Stocks Lane in 1861 for the refreshment of horses using the Bradford route.

C1535 St Mary’s Chapel built

1598 Peel House built

1634 Lord Nelson Inn (then called Newhouse) bought by Gregory Patchett

1643-44 Battle of Luddenden: parliamentary troops attack “The Hollins” and break the church cross and font

1787 First Methodist Preaching House built at the bottom of Halifax Lane

1814 new St Mary’s Church built

1847 first mill at Oats Royd – largest worsted manufacturer in the West Riding by 1890

1973 Luddenden Conservation Area established

1982 Oats Royd Mill closes down

Pictures: map, Old Lane, horse trough

''(adapted from the Luddenden Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan)''

'' 
''

Churches and Chapels

'''St Mary’s Church'''

Sometime before his death on the battlefield in 1460, Richard Duke of York, Lord of the Manor of Wakefield granted permission to build a chapel of ease at Luddenden. During 1535 dispensations were obtained from Archbishop Cramner and Henry VIII to have the chapel consecrated but the Reformation intervened and there are no references to a chapel until 1599 when one was depicted on Christopher Saxon’s map. This is thought to be the second building. In 1624 King James I was petitioned by inhabitant to have the chapel consecrated (so that baptisms, weddings and funerals could be held) and this was done on 5 August 1624. A tower was added during the 18th century but by 1804 it was in a poor state of repair.

The current church was completed in 1817. It had a barn-like interior with box pews, galleries, and a central three-decker pulpit. In 1866 a Chancel was added, with new window tracery, stained glass, false ceiling, font and pulpit. The rear section of the church was partitioned off in 1986 to create the Parish Centre area with kitchen and toilets, and the Upstairs Room was created in 1996.

There are two fonts; the earlier, which looks like a chair probably dates from before 1460. It was broken during the civil war. The 1662 font stood in the graveyard for many years, but is now back inside and used for baptisms.

''(adapted from “A Brief History and Guide” by J.A. Heginbottom)''

Pictures: old church, church inside with galleries, two fonts

The first Methodist place of worship was established in 1787 on the site of the present playground at the bottom of Halifax Lane. The church grew and it was replaced by the '''Ebenezer Wesleyan Methodist Chapel''' on the opposite side of Halifax Lane which opened in 1812, with a Sunday School extension being added in 1864, when membership peaked. It closed in 1961 and members were invited to join '''St James’''' at the top of High Street. It was demolished in 1964 although the graveyard can still be seen.

A group of reformers broke away from Ebenezer and established the '''United Methodist Free Church''' in 1837 on High Street at the bottom of Halifax Lane, generously built by William Thompson, owner of the corn mill. By 1885 the Sunday School had run out of space, and a new Sunday School was built at the top of High Street. After the church closed the building became Luddenden Working Mens Club and eventually flats.

'''St James’ United Methodist Church''' near the top of High Street was opened in 1903, with much of the building work having been done by the men of the Church. This church thrived and changed its name to Midgley and Luddenden Valley Methodist Church when MIdgley Chapel closed in 1994. This remaining Methodist Church closed its doors in 2011.

'''Luddenden Dean Methodist Church''' opened on Christmas Day 1828 but burned down in 1954. The Sunday School, established in 1878 continued to be used for services until 1978. Again, the graveyard is still accessible and it includes a memorial to orphans employed at I and C Calvert, Wainstalls, naming seven girls who died aged from 12 to 17.

'''Booth Congregational Church''' was first opened in 1761. It was replaced in 1828, with a Sunday School added in 1851 and a further Chapel added in 1869. It survived until 1979

Pictures: Ebenezer, United, St James, Ludd Dean, Waifs gravestone, Booth

''(adapted from “Non Conformist Chapels of the Luddenden Valley” by Rodney Collinge)''

Public Houses

A house stood on the site of the '''Lord Nelson Inn''' in the 1599 Christopher Saxton map. In 1643 it was bought by Gregory Patchett, one of the churchwardens at St Mary’s, it was rebuilt in stone and the sign over the door was installed. In 1743 John Patchett acquired the rights to a spring to the rear, and in his will of 1745 mentioned brewing vessels, so it is likely that it was already being used as an alehouse by then. In 1805 after the Battle of Trafalgar, it was given its current name. In 1863 it was sold to the Shibden Head Brewery. Brewing was probably discontinued before this as the Murgatroyd Arms across the brook had a large brewhouse built earlier that century.

The cellar has a window opening onto High Street that was inscribed “Dairy” which meant that window tax did not need to be paid! A ring for the tethering of horses can still be seen on the corner of the inn. The stables connected with the inn were across the road and were developed into a smithy, being demolished when the War Memorial was built in 1922.

In 1781 one of Calderdale’s earliest lending libraries was established at the inn. By 1889 it contained 1,515 volumes. It was disbanded in 1923 and the volumes divided amongst members.

In 1840, Bramwell Bronte, aged 22 was a clerk at the soon to be opened Luddendenfoot railway station. He regularly met friends, such as the sons of mill owners, at the Lord Nelson Inn.

In addition to the Lord Nelson Inn, there were a number of other inns or ale houses in the village. Following the transfer of the '''Murgatroyd Arms''' licence out of the village '''i'''t became Church House and was used as the Church Hall for a number of years before being turned into a house. The '''Wolf Inn''' was located where the village green is now. After it closed in the 1930’s, it became the Working Mens Club for a period and then a business premises. The '''Bridge End Inn''', '''Ship Inn''' and the '''Granby Arms''' were also located in the centre of the village.

Photos: Lord Nelson Inn, Murgatroyd Arms, Wolf

''(Adapted from “A History of the Lord Nelson Inn (Luddenden)” by J A Heginbottom)''

Links

2025-06-12T15:44:18Z

TonyHillyard:

These links will generally open in the same page. Hold down Ctrl and click the link to open the new site in it's own page

'''GENERAL'''

The best local history 'go to'
[http://www.calderdalecompanion.co.uk/ Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion] which references [[Media:Tordoff_-_brief_survey.pdf]] A Brief History of the Luddenden Valley by by C H Tordoff (1969) also available via a [[Link|link]] so it can be searched

[https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_History_and_Antiquities_of_the_Paris.html?id=hDlTAAAAcAAJ&redir_esc=y History of Halifax John Watson 1775] 

[https://midgleywebpages.com/midgleywest.html History of Midgley]

[https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/wtw/index.html Calderdale History]

[https://familymurgatroyd.com/mill.htm Murgatroyd family website], including some information on the Cornmill

[https://www.wyjs.org.uk/archive-service West Yorkshire Archive services]

[https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/results/?search=luddenden&searchType=NHLE+Simple Listed buildings] in Luddenden 

[https://luddenden.com/history/ Conservation Society] History of Luddenden

[https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/environment/conservation/conservation-areas/luddenden-conservation.pdf Luddenden Conservation area]
This Calderdale Council document has an outline of the history of the village and notable dates.

'''OLD PHOTOS'''
[https://penninehorizons.org/ Pennine Horizons Digital Archive]

'''INDUSTRY'''

[https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/C._Lindley_and_Co Graces guide to British Industrial History]

[https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/C._Lindley_and_Co Lindley's Nut and Bolt works]

[https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1894_Directory_of_Leeds 1894 Directory of Leeds]

[https://www.fromfullingtofustianopolis.co.uk A history of textiles in the Hebden Bridge area]

[https://new.millsarchive.org/2020/06/25/mills-make-the-world-go-round General info on mills]

'''CHURCH HISTORY'''

[http://clanbarker.com/histories/Br/yeoman/TBOY1.htm The Murder of Sir Gilbert Brooksbank] see chapter nine of this document 

[http://www.calderdalecompanion.co.uk/qq_186.html Murder of the Vicar of Halifax] 

[https://www.parishmouse.co.uk/yorkshire/west-riding/luddenden-yorkshire-family-history-guide Luddenden church history (Parishmouse)] 

'''CRAGG VALE COINERS'''
one of whom is buried in Luddenden 
[https://www.yorkshirecoiners.com/who.html Coiners 1] 

[https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Halifax/TanaHalifaxCoiners Coiners 2] 

'''LUDDITES'''

One buried in Luddenden 
[https://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.com/2013/01/11th-january-1813-trial-of-job-hey-john.html William Hartley] is accused of Burglary

[https://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.com/2013/03/3rd-march-1813-thomas-shillitoe-visits.html Thomas Sillitoe] visits the families of the condemned men 

[https://kirkleescousins.co.uk/luddite-rebellion/ The Luddites in West Yorkshire] is an excellent summary of the local Luddites.

[http://www.yorkcastleprison.org.uk/keepers-prisoners.html William Hartley] at York Prison. 

[https://www.executedtoday.com/2013/01/16/1813-14-luddites-at-york William Hartley's] execution.

'''WORLD WARS AND SOLDIER GRAVES'''
[https://luddenden.com/ww1-commemoration/] WW1 Project

Link

2025-04-18T14:23:13Z

TonyHillyard:

'''A Brief Survey of the Luddenden Valley by C.H. Tordoff'''

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

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2025-04-18T14:21:46Z

TonyHillyard:

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

Link

2025-04-18T14:20:31Z

TonyHillyard: Created page with "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 Ludd..."

2025-04-07T15:48:27Z

TonyHillyard:

These links will generally open in the same page. Hold down Ctrl and click the link to open the new site in it's own page

'''GENERAL'''

The best local history 'go to'
[http://www.calderdalecompanion.co.uk/ Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion] which references [[Media:Tordoff_-_brief_survey.pdf]]

[https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_History_and_Antiquities_of_the_Paris.html?id=hDlTAAAAcAAJ&redir_esc=y History of Halifax John Watson 1775] 

[https://midgleywebpages.com/midgleywest.html History of Midgley]

[https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/wtw/index.html Calderdale History]

[https://familymurgatroyd.com/mill.htm Murgatroyd family website], including some information on the Cornmill

[https://www.wyjs.org.uk/archive-service West Yorkshire Archive services]

[https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/results/?search=luddenden&searchType=NHLE+Simple Listed buildings] in Luddenden 

[https://luddenden.com/history/ Conservation Society] History of Luddenden

[https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/environment/conservation/conservation-areas/luddenden-conservation.pdf Luddenden Conservation area]
This Calderdale Council document has an outline of the history of the village and notable dates.

'''OLD PHOTOS'''
[https://penninehorizons.org/ Pennine Horizons Digital Archive]

'''INDUSTRY'''

[https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/C._Lindley_and_Co Graces guide to British Industrial History]

[https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/C._Lindley_and_Co Lindley's Nut and Bolt works]

[https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1894_Directory_of_Leeds 1894 Directory of Leeds]

[https://www.fromfullingtofustianopolis.co.uk A history of textiles in the Hebden Bridge area]

[https://new.millsarchive.org/2020/06/25/mills-make-the-world-go-round General info on mills]

'''CHURCH HISTORY'''

[http://clanbarker.com/histories/Br/yeoman/TBOY1.htm The Murder of Sir Gilbert Brooksbank] see chapter nine of this document 

[http://www.calderdalecompanion.co.uk/qq_186.html Murder of the Vicar of Halifax] 

[https://www.parishmouse.co.uk/yorkshire/west-riding/luddenden-yorkshire-family-history-guide Luddenden church history (Parishmouse)] 

'''CRAGG VALE COINERS'''
one of whom is buried in Luddenden 
[https://www.yorkshirecoiners.com/who.html Coiners 1] 

[https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Halifax/TanaHalifaxCoiners Coiners 2] 

'''LUDDITES'''

One buried in Luddenden 
[https://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.com/2013/01/11th-january-1813-trial-of-job-hey-john.html William Hartley] is accused of Burglary

[https://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.com/2013/03/3rd-march-1813-thomas-shillitoe-visits.html Thomas Sillitoe] visits the families of the condemned men 

[https://kirkleescousins.co.uk/luddite-rebellion/ The Luddites in West Yorkshire] is an excellent summary of the local Luddites.

[http://www.yorkcastleprison.org.uk/keepers-prisoners.html William Hartley] at York Prison. 

[https://www.executedtoday.com/2013/01/16/1813-14-luddites-at-york William Hartley's] execution.