Exploring SE0023
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- Links to maps
- 2. The roads
- Along the !B6138 road
- Church Bank Lane
- Coppy Nook Lane
- Footpaths to the north-west of Cragg Road
- Footpath 85
- Footpath 86 - Castle Gate, Sunny Bank Lane, Upper Lumb Lane
- Footpath 86(A)
- Footpath 86(B)
- Footpath 86(C)
- Footpath 88
- Footpath 88(A)
- Footpath 88(B)
- Footpath 89
- Footpath 90
- Footpath 90(A)
- Footpath 90(B)
- Footpath 90(C)
- Footpath 117
- Footpaths to the south-east of Cragg Road
- Footpath 91
- Footpath 91(A) - New Lane
- Footpath 91(B)
- Footpath 105
- Footpath 106
- Footpath 106(A)
- Footpath 106(B)
- Footpath 107
- Footpath 109
- Footpath 110 - Bent Close Lane
- Footpath 112
- Footpath 112(A)
- Footpath 112(B)
- Footpath 112(C)
- Footpath 113
- Footpath 113(A) - High Lane
- Footpath 113(B) - The Deacon Hill path
- Footpath 114
- Footpath 114(A)
- Footpath 114(B)
- Footpath 114(C)
- Footpath 114(D)
- Footpath 115
- Footpath 116 - Four Gates End, Marshaw Bank
- Footpath 131 Kirby Cote Lane at Owlet Hall
- Bibliography
1. Introduction
This square contains most of the village of Cragg Vale, once a hive of industrial activity with several textile mills, but now a picturesque rural area.
There are only two public roads (plus a tiny length of Coppy Nook Lane) in the square. The B6138 road divides the square into two parts, and Church Bank Lane leads off it down to Marshaw Bridge and the Church of St John in the Wilderness. The B6138 is Blackstone Edge Road above Church Bank Lane and Cragg Road below it.
Next in the hierarchy of highways are the unadopted lanes, which give access to houses and farms on the hillsides. In this area they all have public footpath status only. There are many other footpaths through fields and woodland, forming a dense network with a total length of about 11.5km. The footpaths have numbers, all prefixed by 'Hebden Royd', which was the name of the local council when the rights-of-way were defined. Often the same number was given to various branches off the main path, in which case I have added a letter in brackets, eg (A), to identify branches or detached sections of paths. The path network is so complicated that I have described each path in turn rather than attempting a guided tour. I have inserted maps to show the start and finish points of each path, and also some intermediate points.
In the text, 'Footpath' has generally been abbreviated to 'FP', and 'path' has been used for the right-of-way, even if there is no visible track.
The Calderdale Way passes through the square. For the route description, see
Link
Links to maps
For historical maps and modern OS maps at the largest scale, seeLink
For large-scale maps with rights-of-way, select 'Transport networks'. I usually choose the monochrome version, and then search for, eg, Church Bank Lane and select St John's Church. For old maps at six inches to the mile, select 'historical maps' and choose the date of the map. You can adjust the zoom level and change instantly between four editions of the OS six-inch map from 1851-5 to 1934-48.
Link to old OS 1:2500 maps
Enter the all-figure grid co-ordinates at the centre of the area you wish to see. The window for 1:2500 maps is approximately 970m wide by 680m high. You cannot pan the maps, but have to re-enter new co-ordinates and wait for the map to reload.To see the browse page, the 1:25000 map in a popup window, or various other options click on 'Links for SE0023' and select the appropriate link.
2. The roads
Along the B6138 road
The B6138 is called Blackstone Edge Road above the Church Bank Lane junction and Cragg Road below it. It was an early 19C turnpike road, built in stages from 1815. The section of the road in this square was the last to be completed, in 1824. The trust was dissolved in 1886. This road is part of the route for Stage 2 of the Tour de France, on 6th July 2014. It is the longest continuous climb in England. The riders will probably have no difficulty climbing up as far as the Church Bank Lane junction, but then the gradient steepens for a while, and when they get to the open moorland above the Sykes Gate junction the climb seems never-ending. After descending to Ripponden, they will have the steep climb of Ripponden Bank, and eventually the horrendous climb of Holme Moss. This description goes the easy way, from south to north, downhill. | |
To the right, Cragg Vale Junior and Infants School was built in 1887 by Sowerby Local Board. It replaced an existing school stated to have been unsatisfactory. At that time Cragg Vale was partly in Sowerby and partly in Erringden. The Mytholmroyd Local Board was established three years later in 1891. (Walsh) There was an old milestone outside the school. 'Halifax 8, Rochdale 10' is shown on the 1850 and 1894 maps, 'Old MS' on later maps. The turnpike milestones were replaced by county council milestones towards the end of the 19C. | |
Church Bank Mill (Cotton), as named on the 1894 1:2500 map, was between Blackstone Edge Road and Church Bank Lane. It was originally Pepper Bank Mill, also known as Four Gates End Mill, and was owned by the Hinchliffe family. It was six storeys high with a 36 ft water wheel powered by a 62 ft fall of water. The goit can be seen in the sloping field uphill of the mill site; it fed a small reservoir, now silted up and overgrown by trees, The tail goit was underground and fed the mill dam of Marshaw Bridge Mill. | |
This was the premises of the Cragg Vale Co-operative and Industrial Society, which was registered in 1861. It was a general store, and had a meeting room for use by the community, and was taken over by the Mytholmroyd society in the 1930s and closed in the 1960s. The stone over the doorway is inscribed :'Union is strength'. | |
Church Bank Lane
The name perhaps arose because this was quite a remote area when the only access was by packhorse track. It was in Halifax parish until becoming independent in 1844 as 'Halifax St John in the Wilderness' (Youngs). The church was a 'Commissioner's Church', ie funded by the Government, built in 1815 according to 'Pennine Valley, ed. Jennings, or 1839 according to 'The History of Hebden Bridge' by Colin Spencer. | |
St. John's Kindergarten, in the Sunday school of St. John's Church, was established over twenty years ago and was the area's first Steiner Kindergarten, affiliated to the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship. 'We provide a secure, caring, homely environment where your child can grow through play, rhythm and imitation. We provide quality toys and materials allowing the children to develop physical and social skills and creative impulses, as well as using their imagination and fantasy to form the foundations for a healthy adult life.' (from the school's website). |
Coppy Nook Lane
Footpaths to the north-west of Cragg Road
Footpath 85
From the bridge you can see various ruins of what was a cotton mill. In 1852 Cragg Mill and Paper Mill were owned by William Greenwood. Cragg Mill was 110ft by 38ft with water and steam power. Next to it were 20 cottages and a gasometer retort house. The wheel was 23ft 6in by 10ft 6in wide. The water channels and wheel pits of paper Mill are still visible. (Walsh) Cragg Mill was the lowest of this group of mills. It was renamed as Lower Mill by c.1895 and was shown as disused on the edition of c.1910. | |
This photograph was taken to show the circular foundations of what was possibly a chimney. This might have belonged to Paper Mill (called Cragg Mill in the 20C) to the left, or Lower Mill (originally called Cragg Mill) to the right. These are both shown on maps as cotton mills, although Paper Mill was presumably a paper mill before its name was changed. | |
This is shown on the 1850 map as being walled all the way up to Lower Lumb. Now the wall on one side ends at the tree, and just a few stones from it remain in the foreground. It was too narrow for carts, and was superseded, except as a footpath, by the Castle Gate, New Bridge and Sunnybank Lane route. | |
Footpath 86 - Castle Gate, Sunny Bank Lane, Upper Lumb Lane
Footpath 86(A)
Footpath 86(B)
Footpath 86(C)
This short path link goes through Cragg Hall Wood. |
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.
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