Rastrick - Calderdale District - West Yorkshire - Part 1

---

General Description

Introduction

This is an attempt at describing a township that changed from being an agricultural community to an industrial one in the 19C, and is now a suburb of the neighbouring town of Brighouse. The aim is to use maps to investigate the history of each small area of land, starting with the township map of 1824 that is displayed in Rastrick Library and continuing with the various editions of the Ordnance Survey maps. The landscape is like a document in which old features are erased and covered by new ones, but now and again parts of the old features remain waiting to be discovered.

This article is divided into parts due to the limit on the number of image thumbnails. Part one starts with a general account of the geography and history of Rastrick, and then starts a detailed description divided into sections based on the grid squares and illustrated by the images in Geograph. This description can be followed in Get-a-map, in the 'bird's eye' view in maps.live.com and in old six-inch maps and current large-scale OS mapping in Calderdale.gov.uk (see 'Introduction' under 'Exploration' for details).

Geography

Rastrick occupies the part of the hillside to the south of the River Calder between Bradley and Elland, opposite Brighouse. Its central grid square is SE1321 and its area is 555ha. The lowest point is 53m above Ordnance datum (AOD) by the River Calder and the highest 204m on Pinfold Lane near Elland Upper Edge. The underlying rocks are Carboniferous (Lower Coal Measures), which slope down from west to east. Elland flags are near the surface in several areas, and there have been many quarries, one of which is still operating. The western boundary, with Elland, is at the top of an escarpment. The land then slopes down to a valley in the central part of Rastrick. Moving eastwards there is then another escarpment, with a spectacular quarry face where shale and perhaps clay have been dug for a brick and tile works. The land then slopes down again to the valley of Bradley Park Dike, which is the boundary with Bradley. At this eastern end of Rastrick there was the Anchor Pit coal mine. The northern boundary, with Southowram, Brighouse and Clifton, is the River Calder, and the southern boundary with Fixby is along roads and field boundaries (see History). The main land-use is housing, with some industry and farmland, and a small area of woodland.

The part of Rastrick to the south of the M62 is in Kirklees Metropolitan Borough, not Calderdale, because the motorway was adopted as the boundary between the two districts in 1974.

Prehistory

There have been two finds of Neolithic artefacts at Upper Cote, in Fixby just outside the Rastrick boundary. There are two possibly defended sites of unknown age: Round Hill (SE137207) is said to have been a natural hill enhanced by earthworks, and Castle Hill (SE138217) was a ringwork considered to have been Norman but, given its strategic position on a spur overlooking two valleys, may have had an earlier origin.

These are both near to the supposed route of a Roman road (Margary #712) from Tadcaster to Manchester, and Castle Hill was near to the junction with another supposed road (#720aa) that went over Blackstone Edge. Road #712 is assumed to have crossed the River Calder by a ford at Snake Hill (SE147225), and to have headed for the Roman Fort at Slack (SE084175). A Roman coin has been found at Castle Hill. It is surprising that the roads have not been found, considering the amount of quarrying, housing development and the construction of the M62 motorway. A paved road towards Fixby Ridge was found in the 18C in a field (Lower Hopper-take) near the top of Slade Lane, but there is no proof that this was Roman (Turner).

There is some evidence of British settlement: a 'Holy Well' (presumably the 'Holly Well' at SE149217 as shown on OS 1850), and a place name 'Walton Barrows'. No doubt the Angles settled here, and from the name the Danes probably had a settlement at Fixby. 'Rast' is thought to be a Scandinavian element, and 'ric' is Old English for a stream.

History

Rastrick (spelt Rastric) was a vill in the Domesday Book. It had been held by Earl Godwine and after the Conquest was held directly by King William. The cultivated area of the vill was half a caracute, possibly 60 acres (24ha), but in the list of the vills in Morley Wapentake it is one caracute. It later became part of the manor of Wakefield, held by Earl Warren from c.1100.

The number of houses in Rastrick was 15 in the Poll Tax records of 1379 and 24 (families) in 1605.

During the medieval period parts of the manor were sold, and a number of farms established., eg Lillands at SE128226, Woodhouse at SE151218, Firth House at SE152212, Toothill at SE143211, Lower Cote at SE136203 and Boothroyd at SE130219. In the 18C the estates held by the gentry Lillands (the ancient seat of the Rastricks), Toothill, Boothroyd and Thornhill.

During the 19C, the population grew from 2053 in 1801 to 3917 in 1851 and 9357 in 1901. The ratepayers established a Local Board in 1863 to deal with the severe problems of water supply, drainage and highway maintenance caused by the rapid increase in population during the 19C. A gas works was built by the Rastrick Gas Co. at Birds Royd in 1865. and 17 street lights erected. The ratepayers would not sanction the provision of a waterworks, so the Rastrick Water Co. was formed to buy and distribute water from Halifax. This company was taken over by the local board in 1890. A school board was established in 1881.
Rastrick Township was in the parish of Halifax and the Wapentake of Morley. It became a civil parish in 1866 and joined the new Brighouse Municipal Borough in 1893. Brighouse became part of Calderdale Metropolitan District in 1974, and the boundary with the Kirklees district was drawn along the motorway so that the part of Rastrick south of the M62 is in Kirklees.

Rastrick was in the chapelry of Hipperholme, and at the end of the 14C became a chapelry of Halifax Parish. However the chapel was closed in 1547 and used as a barn from 1578 before being restored and enlarged by the Church of England in 1605. Rastrick became a parish in 1720, but in 1724 joined Elland cum Stainland and Fixby parish, changed in 1739 to Elland with Greetland and becoming Elland parish in 1862. Rastrick again became a separate parish in 1881, and in 1916 it was divided to create Rastrick St John parish.

Roads

Ogilby's 'Brittania' of 1675 was the first set of maps to show the surveyed lines of the principal roads of England and Wales. It was a remarkable achievement; 20,000 miles of road were surveyed using a measuring wheel and compass. It has strip maps of two roads through Rastrick. One is from Brighouse Bridge (now Rastrick Bridge) up Rastrick Common (the road is here shown with pecked lines indicating that it was unfenced) to the village, shown near the present church; a 'Hall' is also indicated. The road continues to Lower Edge Road, and down to Elland. The other road is from Oakham to Richmond, and came up from the ford at Cowcliffe to Clough Lane, and along Clough Lane and Dewsbury Road to Elland Upper Edge, and down to Elland.

Warburton's map of 1720 shows Ogilby's roads and also one from from Bradley. Jefferys's map of c.1775is much more detailed,and shows also some local roads: Toothill Bank, Toothill Lane, Cote Lane, Pinfold Lane, Delf Hill and Slades Lane.

In the 18C and 19C the main roads were improved, and new ones constructed, by turnpike trusts. The first of these in Rastrick was the Dewsbury and Elland Trust, which in 1758-9 improved the road from Bradley to Elland via Upper Edge; this became the present A6107 and B6114. Around 1805 a branch of the New Hey Road was built by the Huddersfield and New Hey Trust. This followed the old road up from Brighouse Bridge up Rastrick Common and Ogden Lane to the village, then up Crowtrees Lane and on a new line (New Hey Road); this became the A643. The old main road from Rastrick village up Tofts Grove and over Lower Edge was improved by the Brighouse and Elland Trust in 1814-5. In 1823-4 a new road was built from Huddersfield to Bradford, including a new bridge over the River Calder, by the Huddersfield and Wibsey Low Moor Trust; this became the A641. (OS, 1850 and RCHM, 1984)

Crowtrees Lane was very narrow, and was widened in the early 20C to allow a tramway to be constructed. The central section was constructed alongside the old road, with a grass verge between the two. In the mid-20C the A643 was re-routed from the former turnpike road to Bramston Street and Thornhill Road.

Finally, the M62 was constructed across the upper parts of Rastrick in 1968-71 (Johnson, 1972).

Maps

1675 John Ogilby, Britannia, an atlas of strip maps of the main roads of England and Wales(in Halifax library)
1775 Thomas Jefferys, The county of York survey'd
1824 Township map (in Rastrick library)
1850, c.1895, c.1910, c.1940, Ordnance Survey maps at 6"/mile, Yorkshire Sheet 246. These can be seen on-line - there is a link at the start of the Exploration section.
1905 Ordnance Survey maps at 1:2500 for Brighouse and Elland, reprinted in the Godfrey Edition.

References and Bibliography

Eilert Eckwall The concise Oxford dictionary of English place namesOxford 1960
E Peter Johnson, M62 The Trans-Pennine Motorway, Dalesman Books, 1972
J Horsfall Turner, The History of Brighouse, Rastrick and Hipperholme, 1893 reprinted MTD Rigg 1985 [Rastrick Library]
R Mitchell, Brighouse: Portrait of a Town, 1953
R Mitchell, Brighouse: The Birth and Death of a Borough, 1976
John Ogilby, Britannia, 1675 (an atlas of strip maps of the main roads)
RCHM, Rural Houses of West Yorkshire 1400-1830, Fig.29, HMSO, 1984
I D Margary, Roman Roads in Britain, John Baker 1973
John Warburton, A new and correct map of the county of York, 1720
VCH - Ed. William Page, The Victoria County History Yorkshire, London, 1913
Frederic A Youngs Jr, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol II, Royal Historical Society 1991.
Watson, History of Halifax
Kelly's Directory of the West Riding, 1901
Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England - Yorkshire West Riding, Penguin 1967

Exploration

Introduction

The exploration is arranged first by 1km grid square, then by road or other route, and lastly by centisquare (csq), ie 100m square. Field names are from the township map of 1824.

To open the 1:25000 map click on an image thumbnail to open the image page, then click on the Get-a-map link. The six-figure GR at the cursor location should appear at the bottom left of the Get-a-map window.

To open a 'bird's eye' view open an image from its thumbnail, and then click on 'More links for this image'. On the next page click on the maps.live.com link and then on the 'Bird's Eye' link.

The old six-inch maps and modern large-scale OS mapping can be seen on the Calderdale Council website. Shift-click on Link. This link brings up the 1850 map, but first you will get the 'Terms and Conditions' page on which you have to click on the check box and 'Submit' button. Once you have the 1850 map you can use the 'Base Map Picker' to switch to maps of 1894-6, 1908-10 and 1934-48. I will refer to these as 1895, 1910 and 1940.

Note that 'shift-click' opens the maps in a new window so that you do not lose the Geograph window.

As a short way of indicating the approximate time window in which a feature appeared or disappeared I have used < for before, - for between and > for after with the date(s) of the map(s), eg something that appeared on the 1850 map but was not on the 1824 map, and was still on the 1940 map but is not on the 1999 map is shown as 1824-1850 to 1940-1999.

SE1220

csq 47 SE124207

Rastrick is entered from the west at the junction of Dewsbury Road and Pinfold Lane, Elland Upper Edge, near the former Black Bull Inn. Dewsbury Road is part of an important ancient highway from Barnsley, Sheffield and Rotherham to Elland and Halifax (Crump), and is now the B6114.

There is a water pumping station at the junction of Dewsbury Road and Pinfold Lane, built >1940 in the western corner of Well Close.

Pinfold Lane

csq 57 SE125207

The boundary with Fixby is along Pinfold Lane, with Rastrick on the left. Well Close is higher than the road, possibly due to tipping of quarry waste.

csq 56 SE125206

At the end of the field there is a public footpath to the left, opposite Moor Hey Lane, Fixby. Lower Moor Hey Farm was at the entrance to this lane. The footpath runs alongside the eastern boundary wall of Well Close to Dewsbury Road.

csq 66 SE126206

Proceeding along Pinfold Lane, the next field is Near Common, which was quarried during 1910-1940. The hollow in the middle is where the quarry was.

csq 65 SE126205

The south-eastern boundary of the field (now removed) is the boundary between Rastrick and Fixby. When I went to see it work had started on laying a land drainage pipe, so it seems that the boundary followed a watercourse or a boundary ditch had been dug in ancient times, or perhaps there was a land drain in the footings of the wall.

Dewsbury Road

csq 57 SE125207

On the south side of Dewsbury Road, Well Close is next to the pumping station, and is at first higher than the road; there is a retaining wall of large stones. A strip along the top of the embankment has been left uncultivated.


csq 58 SE125208

The buildings on the north side of the road are on a field called Delf Close, which extended almost to the row of 18C cottages called Grantham (SE127207). There are other fields in the area with this name. Delf is an old word for a quarry, from the Old English 'Delfan', to dig. In the late 19C the Ordnance Survey incorrectly changed it on maps to 'Delph' ('ph' for the 'f' sound should only be used in words derived from the Greek language).


The Baptist Church is dated 1890 on the front wall. It is one of only four remaining places of worship in Rastrick.


Although this part of Delf Close does not appear from the various maps to have been quarried, it has not been built on.


csq 67 SE126207

This is Well Close. The well was somewhere in the foreground (on the 1850 map) before this part of the field was quarried. By 1850 the central part of the field had been quarried, and by 1895 quarrying had affected all the western part of the field, and the well had gone. In 1910 there is a quarry towards the north-eastern corner, with a crane shown on the 1:2500 map, and on the 1934-48 map a corner of this had reached the eastern boundary of the field.


First, a view of Grantham from the footpath in Well Close. The footpath was diverted into Far Common when this corner of the field was quarried, and the diverted path was eventually fenced rather close to a wild rose bush. This problem has now been solved by a very generous relocation of the fence. The path then enters a small triangular enclosure, made in the period 1910-40, where the path tends to be overgrown by weeds such as nettles, which are encouraged by the dumping of garden waste.


Grantham; the pair of houses on the right was probably built by 1895, certainly by 1905. The second image is the view from Grantham westwards along Dewsbury Road.


csq 68 SE126208

The entrance to the field that was Five Acre Quarries. The end of a public footpath to Scar Edge and Lower Edge is to the left of the gate, and there is an electricity sub-station on the right. The footpath first appeared on the 1910 map, and is a diversion of a track from Grantham shown on the 1824 map.


The large field on the site of Five Acre Quarries, named after a field called Five Acre. The quarries have been filled in and reinstated as one vast field incorporating Upper Field and Lower Field behind Grantham, in addition to Five Acre further down the slope. Beyond the field boundary in the distance is Scar Edge, and to the right the spoil-heap of the working quarry off Lower Edge Road.


csq 59 SE125209

This is looking down the edge from the footpath, into Elland territory. This was the southern part of Chadwick Wood, which was presumably felled; woodland is now regenerating. The path then turns sharply right and follows the western side of the fence and into square SE1221.


csq 77 SE127207

Eastwards from Grantham were two fields, also called Delf Close, which had merged by 1895. This part is occupied by a small industrial estate.


csq 78 SE127208

Behind Delf Close were two fields called "Far Common and Two Acre", part which became part of the Five Acre Quarries that are now one large field.

csq 87 SE128207

The development of the row of houses along the south side of the road started before 1940, and was probably completed soon after the war. This view shows the oldest houses at the eastern end of the row, and also part of a group of three fields called Mowing Close, which have remained substantially unchanged since 1824. The two fields next to the road are Top Mowing Close, and the one behind just Mowing Close. There is a little valley here; it crosses Dewsbury Road but is not apparent on the other side of the road.


On the north side there is a pair of houses built between 1910 and 1930, of the type with a narrow lean-to roof over parches and bay windows. Then a yard with piles of manure.


csq 97 SE129207

Next along Dewsbury Road there is late 20C ribbon development on the frontage of Whinny Common. The side of the cutting opposite has been made into a garden, and the field above is Top of Mowing Close.

SE1221

Scar Edge and Church Lane

csq 60 SE126210




This is looking past Holme Laithe towards the Calder valley.


csq 71 SE127211

Part of the Lower Edge Quarries was a field called Tenter Croft, which must have been where pieces of cloth were stretched on tenters.

csq 72 SE127212

We have to go down Church Lane, Elland, passing the rear of Quarry House, which is just in Rastrick. It is an early 18C house and a pair of late 18C cottages. On the south side, first floor, there is a taking-in door converted to a sash window, and on the ground floor a doorway with much weathered datestone said to record 1710 and the initials 'IIB . There is another former taking-in door in the east front. There is an outbuilding that might have been a warehouse connected with textile manufacture. See 'http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/images/33/88/L338802.jpg for more detail.


csq 73 SE127213

Here there was a field called Croft, which became a football ground by c.1940; it is now part of the Lower Edge Quarries.

Lower Edge Road

csq 74 SE127214

Turning right on Lower Edge Road, once past the Royal Oak and its car park the houses on the south side of Lower Edge Road are in Rastrick. The first house has a beautifully inscribed datestone, and the second, Mason's Cottage, might be the former Mason's Arms public house. The Elland / Rastrick boundary then crosses the road at a boundary stone; unfortunately any inscription it might have had has disappeared.



The land behind the houses was called Bowling Green, and part of this is now Minstead Avenue, a street that has never been completed beyond the two houses.


csq 84 SE128214

The area to the east, south of Lower Edge Road, is Lower Edge Quarries. Even in 1824 the fields had been disrupted by quarrying, and fields called Middle Close and Uppermost Close were split, with quarried land in the middle.

On the north side, along the western edge of the council housing estate, a narrow field has been left, part of yet another Delf Close. It is bounded by Boothroyd Lane, which is not on the older maps but was first shown on the 1850 map, then more twisty than on the 1890 map. It replaced the previous route, still a footpath where it has not been built over, to Boothroyd via Nunnery. Here is the junction of the lane with Lower Edge Road.


csq 97 SE129217

Boothroyd Lane leads to a former farm and a big house that became an orphanage and is is now a private school, but this is in SE1321 and this view of Tenter Croft is as far as we get in this part of the article.


csq 86 SE128216

From Boothroyd Lane, a footpath leads into Strangstry Wood, mostly in Elland, but the boundary runs through the disused quarry that forms a deep trench to the east of Harry Hill. There is a right-of-way northwards through this quarry.

csq 87 SE128217

Here are two views of the quarry.


csq 93 SE129213

Continuing along Lower Edge Road, here is a view of the quarries from the entrance, but to appreciate the scale of the operations look at the birds-eye view.


csq 94 SE129214

On the south side of Lower Edge Road, Nunnery Lane leads into a large council house estate. Before this was built the lane was very narrow and led to a house or houses, possibly a farm, called Nunnery (this was at SE130215).


csq 95 SE129215

Nunnery Lane now leads to a T-junction with Malham Road to the east and Sherburn Road, a main estate road, to the west. This view is looking straight forward over an open space where there were some short-lived council flats.


Sherburn Road soon curves round to the north-east, parallel with the estate boundary, and into SE1321.

SE1320

Dewsbury Road, B6114

csq 06 SE130206

The entrance to a water service reservoir is on the south side of the road. The reservoir was constructed in 1957 to alleviate problems of low water pressure in Rastrick. It occupies 'Six days work' and part of 'Five days work' behind, leaving a narrow strip next to the road. The small building is a pumping station. A strip of land has also been left on the eastern side of the reservoir to give access to 'Five days work, and this old barn has survived.


csq 07 SE130207

This road enters the square just before a footpath, shown on the 1850 map, goes off to the north around the back of the first of a row of old houses. The ones in the centre of this image are on the 1824 map.


csq 18 SE131208

The footpath starts as a snicket, but is then a broad grassy track across the former common, which became fields called 'Far Common' and 'Near Common' but has now reverted to rough grassland used by the public.


csq 09 SE130209

An old track to quarries follows a field wall from the northern corner of the 'common', not a right-of-way but used by dog-walkers. The lunar landscape of Lower Edge Quarries is in the distance.


csq 08 SE130208

A disused sandstone quarry that was not filled in. In a field called Whinny Common.


csq 17 SE131207

A pair of old houses on the north side of the road, with 1787 on the datestone behind the rainwater pipe. The other houses to the east are modern. Then Dewsbury Road is on a high retaining wall above Badger Hill Cricket Ground. This was Slaide, the Old English word slæd meaning a valley or dell. The stream seems to have been culverted before 1850. There was a quarry in the foreground, on the western side of the field in Far and Near Common, and it might be that spoil was tipped in the valley to produce the present level surface. The New Road Cricket Club made their ground at Badger Hill at some time after the late 1930s. In 1988, it became the Badger Hill Cricket Club.


csq 16 SE131206

This housing estate is on the site of Badger Hill Mills, which were demolished after a serious fire in 1970. Although the newer parts of the mills escaped damage by fire, they were destroyed when the demolition of an old chimney went wrong and the chimney came down on top of them. The mills had been established by John Smith and his son William in 1868, and grew to the largest woollen mills in the district by 1922. The field next to the road was part of 'Common Close' and was leased from the Thornhill Estate.


csq 15 SE131205

Two more photographs at Badger Hill: a view of the housing estate road, and one of 'Five days Work' taken from the southern end of the road.

New Hey Road, A643

This road was constructed around 1805 as a turnpike road on a new line.

csq 14 SE131204



On the right (no image yet) is a house that might have been built for a reservoir keeper, as it was in the corner of a plot containing a reservoir of the Brighouse Corporation Water Works in what had been 'Uppermost Close'. The reservoir is on the 1895 map, only two years after Brighouse became a borough.

Next to this is Lands House, built in the late 19C for Alderman William Smith, who owned Badger Mills nearby. It is now a care home. The 'French chateaux' tower is seen here from Pinfold Lane.


csq 15 SE131205

Below Lands house there was a field called Shop End, presumably part of a field called Shop that was divided by the turnpike road; the northern part is shown as a Sandstone Quarry on the 1850 map, and a pair of houses was built on the southern part before c.1935.

csq 26 SE132206

Next on the right in Lands Farm, apparently derelict as seen from the road, but looks to be used as a contractor's depot.


Below Lands Farm a field called Common Close was also split by the turnpike road. On the east side there is a detached house built between 1910 and c.1935, and then an open area next to the cross-roads. Opposite are modern houses, part of the Badger Hill estate on the site of Badger Mills.



csq 27 SE132207

On the western side there are short rows of 19C houses with 20C houses in the gaps between them.


csq 37 SE133207

Regent Close is a small council house development that replaced terrace houses in the 1960s. Then a block of back-to-back houses.


csq 38 SE133208

New Road Sunday School, one of the four places of worship in Rastrick. Opposite it is the entrance to Badger Hill Cricket Club.


Above the cricket ground entrance is an open area that also had houses shown on it on the map of c.1940. The seat has seen better days! The open area looks rather more attractive in June! Below the entrance are three terraces of houses.


csq 39 SE133209

Croft House, hidden by holly trees, was, I think, built for the owner of Spout Mills in the valley behind the house. Next to Croft House, this industrial building has been demolished to make way for the new flats, also called Croft House, and their car park.


I regret not taking a photograph of this view before the redevelopment started; it was not very pretty. The derelict site of Spout Mills was on the right, with a few ruinous walls. Mount Lane goes up to the right, leading to the terrace of houses, Mount Pleasant, and on to the farm at Back Braid. A footpath to Badger Hill cricket ground goes off round the corner to the left.


csq 29 SE132209

Mount Pleasant, seen from Badger Hill 'common'.


csq 49 SE134209

This is the junction of Spout Hill with New Hey Road. The letter box is HD6 269, an EiiR lamp box on a pole. The Croft House flats are behind it.


Greenhead Lane is opposite Spout Hill. It is not an ancient lane, but first appears on the 1850 map in conjunction with terrace houses.


This, at the New Hey Road end of Greenhead Lane, was Mellor's Bar. It became briefly the Puff Inn, with a rather nice sign, and is now the New Spitfire.




The former Co-operative shop re-opened as a milliner's in 2008 having been a business to do with textiles for a while.


Below the former Co-op is a row of 18C to 19C cottages; the oldest pre-date the turnpike road, ie before 1805, so that there there may have already been a street here. The fourth image is of a coal-house with a massive flagstone roof. It was many years before the eastern side of the road was developed, between 1895 and 1910.

Clough Lane

csq 26 SE132206



On the south side three pairs of semi-detached houses were built probably in the 1930s.


csq 36 SE133206

A group of old houses on the north side, including Fixby View Yard, replaced the woollen mill that was shown on the 1850 map.

Further east a strip of land had been taken in from the highway, and part of it has been made into an accommodation road for council houses. On the verge is a pillar box, HD6 282, that replaced one at the cross-roads.


On the south side, the first part of the field called Common Close to be developed was Elder Lea House, built in 1885 by Albert Smith, a local mill-owner. To the east of it are two more pairs of 1930s semi-detached houses.


csq 46 SE134206

The pair of semis on the north side next to Slade Lane replaced an old house built before 1835 on land taken from the highway. A similar old house still exists on the east side of Slade Lane.

.The road crosses a valley. The field is Near Hoppertake; Far Hoppertake is in the distance, near Lands House with its distictive tower. An electricity sub-station has been built in the north-eastern corner of the field.


To the east of the sub-station, road widening has obliterated everything old, including a cottage and a milestone (Elland 1½, Dewsbury 8). There is now no access to public footpath Brighouse 106, which was a short cut from Slade Lane to Cote Lane.

csq 45 SE134205

Most of this square is a field called Hoppertake.

csq 55 SE135205

Cote Lane, north of the M62, has been destroyed. A pity as it was an ancient highway shown on Jeffreys's map of 1775. Fortunately it still exists on the south side of the motorway, in Fixby. It is a narrow holloway, and shows that the roads in this area were only fit for pack-horses before the turnpike roads were made in the 18C and 19C. There was a water trough at the junction with Clough Lane, another victim of road widening. The field to the east of Cote Lane was called Quakerfield Bottom.

csq 56 SE135206

The road widening included the straightening out of a bend, leaving part of the old route as an accommodation road. There is a row of 19C buildings, all apparently built on roadside waste that was enclosed by 1824. In the middle of this group is the Round Hill Inn. A cricket pavilion is close behind.


csq 64 SE136204

The field, partly occupied by the M62, was called Quakerfield Top.

csq 65 SE136205

The main item in this square is the bridge that carries the M62 over Clough Lane.

The entrance to the cricket ground is in this square. This is the view across the ground to Round Hill (see csq 77)


csq 74 SE137204



Opposite the Clough House Inn there is a water trough, fed by a pond behind. Next to the trough a lane leads to Lower Cote, which is just in Fixby.


csq 77 SE137207

Round Hill is considered to be natural, but probably altered by man, perhaps as a lookout station in prehistoric or Roman times. It has been the scene of celebratory bonfires over the years.


csq 84 SE138204

Toothill Lane South was a public road to the centre of Rastrick via Toothill Bank. It was severed by the motorway, and this southern section has been reclassified as a footpath.


The old cottage, built before 1824, probably on roadside waste, is well below the modern road level.


csq 92 SE139202

This is the old Rastrick boundary, marked by a disused stile and fragment of wall. Hudderfield County Borough nibbled at Rastrick's territory in 1937 when it acquired Fixby. The borough boundary was defined as the rear of the building plots that were being developed along Lightridge Road and Clough Lane. Behind the houses to the left (south) the field was called Far Heys, and was a football ground in the 1930s.


csq 95 SE139205

This is a gate on Toothill Lane South

Slade Lane

Slade Lane is one of the ancient roads of Rastrick, and with its continuation Delf Hill formed a link between the old main roads from Leeds to Elland (Lower Edge Road) and Almondbury or Dewsbury to Elland (Clough Lane). Slade means a valley, usually narrow, (the Old English word slæd).

csq 47 SE134207

Starting at the junction with the latter road, on the west side a field called Fletcher Lands was developed in the 1930s as Fletcher Crescent council housing estate. 28 houses were built around a central island of grass and trees. The estate also included 14 houses along Slade Lane and 12 along Clough Lane.


The private houses on the east side are later, probably after 1950, and are in a field that was called Ing.

csq 57 SE135207

The 1824 map shows a building across Ing, and across the valley bottom. This was probably a mill, the precursor to the present Slade Lane Mill, now an engineering works. On the south side of the building there are remains of water storage tanks.


On the north side of the mill building there some old-looking stone sheds, and a footpath goes up to Clough Lane, coming out opposite where Cote Lane was.


Next there are old terrace houses on the east side, and a junction with Garlick Street on the west side. This is a modern (probably after 1950) residential road, through Croft, Little Croft and Long Croft, that extended the late 19C (or early 20C) Garlick Street in csq 49 and 59.

csq 56 SE135206

This is the footpath from Slade Lane to Clough Lane.


csq 58 SE135208

Carr Green Drive follows the valley to the north-east, whilst Slade Lane curves to the north. This estate is part of the development of Rastrick as a major suburban area in the second half of the 20C.


There are then old houses on the western side, whilst the eastern side was not developed until the 1930s.


At the northern end of the centisquare, Greenhead Lane goes to the west, through to New Hey Road. It is not an ancient lane, but was made when the area was developed in the late 19C.


csq 59 SE135209

These are the houses on the west side of the road between Greenhead Lane and Garlick Street.


These are some of the houses on the east side of the road between Greenhead Lane and Lower Fold.


This is Garlick Street, and opposite it, Lower Fold. This area was called Oaks Green, and buildings are shown here on Jeffreys's map of 1775.


The lower end of Slade lane, with 19C houses on the west side, in Green Piece, and mid-20C houses on the east side, in Upper Croft.

---