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Text © Copyright January 2012, Humphrey Bolton;
licensed for re-use under a Creative Commons Licence.
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.
To see old 1:2500 and six-inch / mile maps the best site is National Library of Scotland, but for maps published in the 1950s and 60s you need old-maps.co.uk. Modern large scale mapping with a rights-of-way layer can be seen on the Calderdale Council website and with listed buildings on the Historic England website.
Chiserley
Chisley up to 1964, but changed to Chiserley on the OS map by 1969. From being a loose hamlet of farms, mills and terrace houses for mill-workers it has grown to be a village.
by Humphrey Bolton
The earliest mention of Chisley was in 1296. An early form is Chesewaldley, and one can imagine the broad expanse of hillside being used for dairy farming, and cheese being made. Why the name was changed to Chiserley in the 1960s is a mystery.
Chisley Hall is dated 1617, and has a two-storey porch with a room over the entrance. It was the home of Thomas Dent Hoyle in 1905. He was one of the owners of James Hoyle & Sons Limited, Cotton spinners and manufacturers of Acre Mill, on Billy Lane.
Walker Lane
The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was founded in 1863, and a Sunday School built whilst services were held in the Club Houses. The chapel opened in 1872. The carving around each of the six windows was by a different stone mason, each giving his services free.
The entrance to the chapel is on the first floor at the top of a curved staircase.
The Club Houses were built in the early 19C as an investment by a local funeral club. The upper storey was used as a communal weaving shop and each cottage had an internal communicating door on each floor. (from Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion). There is a footpath passing the houses and going down to Nutclough.
These concrete-clad council houses were built in the early 1950s when rapid building methods were needed to deal with a housing shortage. They are part of a housing estate between Walker Lane and Billy Lane.
Green End is probably so named because it is near to Old Town Green.
This is Old Town Green, with the mill in the distance.
by Humphrey Bolton
Old Town Lane
Guidestone at the eastern end of Old Town Lane.
Billy Lane
The Primary School, the post office, and the site of Acre Mill are on Billy lane.
Acre Mill was founded by James Hoyle in 1859. One of his sons, John, brought prosperity to the firm by manufacturing the very strong cloths used to line Dunlop tyres. He lived at Summerfield, a large house on the southern edge of the housing estates. Cape Asbestos took over the mill in 1939 for manufacture using asbestos, initially to make the filters for gas masks. After a while there was a series of deaths of workers from asbestosis and lung cancer, and an investigation took place that led to the closure of the mill and its demolition in 1987. There is a commemorative plaque and tree on the site. See Link
.
Looking down onto the bowling green from Billy Lane.
Old Town Primary School, but in Chiserley, not in Old Town.
The Hare and Hounds is at the road junction at the eastern end of the Billy Lane.
Footpaths in the village
There is a network of public footpaths between Walker Lane and Billy Lane.
This path is on a road that leads to eight of the houses on the estate and also one of the houses in Chiserley Hall.
It leads to a junction where you can turn right to cross the other driveway to the Hall.
Or you can turn left to pass a hedge that needed a haircut.
This path crosses this lane, then goes past the Green End terrace to Walker Lane.
This is the original driveway to Chiserley Hall, redundant now that the Old Mill Ridge housing estate road crosses it.
This is Chiserley Field Side, down a lane from Billy Lane next to the post office.
This view is looking up from Chiserley Field Side across its access lane to the back of the school.
A footpath passes Chiserley Field Side to Lower Chiserley.
The path leaves Lower Chiserley and goes between fields in a curve.
A branch path goes up path Top o’ th’ Croft to Billy Lane, past a block of six houses that was an industrial building. Was this a car museum many years ago?
Another path passes Foot Kiln, a terrace of six houses.
Turning west, a hole in the path contains the remains of a penstock that diverted stream flow via a drain to Ibbot Royd Cotton Mill (on the 1850 six-inch map), later Martin Mill (1930 1:2500 map).
Alongside the path there is a boulder wall, presumably very old.
Turning southwards, a path goes down steeply to Walker Lane.
Continuing westwards a level path goes under a canopy of trees to Walker Lane.
Turning northwards, there is a stile on the path back to Chiserley Field Side.
The countryside north of Chiserley
This is taken from the Old Town Reservoir. There is a broad valley above Chiserley with a network of paths amongst the fields and farms or former farms. The moorland at Keelam Edge is in the background.
by Humphrey Bolton
Lanes and paths lead from Billy Lane and Old Town Green across the area of pasture fields to the moorland beyond.
From Old Town Green there are two ways to Rock, where there was a row of four cottages, probably homes for quarry workers, and another cottage called Little Rock.
Above Rock, on Wall Stones Flat, there is a reservoir that presumably belongs to Old Town Mill. It seems to have been constructed c.1895 as it is shown on the six-inch map of that date but not on the 1:2500 map of 1894.
From Rock there is a footpath along the hillside; this view is looking towards the site of Rock.
A ditch comes down to a culvert under the path. The culvert discharges into a paved channel. It seems likely that this took water from the reservoir to Old Town Mill, and is probably disused now.
This is the channel descending the steep hillside.
There is a footpath across the southern side of Wall Stones Flat.
The driveway to Allswell Farm continued to a junction of several paths on Latham Slack, which is a remnant of the former moorland.
Allswell Farm was formerly called Bog Eggs (I wonder why they changed the name?!)
Allswell Farm now provides horse riding and holiday cottages.
A bridleway crosses Latham Slack to reach the moor near Old Hold.
The bridleway continues on the moor, but is indistinct; it is called Brigg Well Head Gate and goes up onto the eastern end of Bog Eggs Edge, meeting the bridleway that passes the spring and then continues to Luddenden Dean.
There is pasture between the moorland of Wall Stones Flat and Bog Eggs Edge, and it is crossed by a footpath.
Various paths go along the lower edge of the moor. This one is part of the Calderdale Way.
A paved channel, alongside a bridleway, collects water from Brigg Well Head Spring, which seems to have dried up. I suspect that it was made to channel flow to the reservoir. Why the stones across the channel?
Old Laithe Lane
This is the driveway to Old Laithe, but is also a public footpath up to the moor or Allswell Farm or Old Hold.
Further up the lane. It is easy walking as long as a car doesn’t come!
This is the path from Old Laithe to Allswell Farm.
Footpath from Billy Lane to Old Laithe
This path is not straightforward. I discovered the hard way that you have to start by going on the left side of the fence, not the right side as the map suggests. After turning right at the corner you come to this wet patch and then turn left.
At this gap in an old wall the path bears left to Old Laithe, where the path seems to be blocked.
You can go round the top side of the house, but the path is rather overgrown.
Alternatively you can go on this path eastwards to Dick Ing.
Footpath from Billy Lane to Dick Ing
A stile on the footpath; Dike Ing is in the distance.
The path goes through the garden past the house.
You can go along the lane to Popples Lane or go over the stile and on a field path up to Latham Lane.
Popples Lane
Popples is shown on the 1850 six-inch map. The house on the right looks to have been a barn, and has a small oval window in the apex of the gable. The lane is the access road to several houses and is a public footpath. On the right there is a stream in a deep ditch.
by Humphrey Bolton
Here you can go left to Latham Lane and Keelam Lane, fork right on a footpath that passes Keelam Farm, or double back to the right down Dike Lane, which is a rough track.
Latham Lane
This is at the top of the lane, just before it reaches the moor and joins Brigg Well Head Gate.
Keelam Lane
The lower part of Keelam Lane is wet, and covered by rushes.
Further up the lane is a broad marshy strip of land that was perhaps used for driving cattle or sheep onto the moor.
Dike Lane
Dike Lane south of the driveway to Claytons.
There is a footpath to the moor from Dike Lane, It goes through the gateway on the right.
This stile is on the path, which then turns left and follows the wall up to the moor.
The branch path past Claytons has been blocked.
Bibliography
Colin Spencer, The History of Hebden Bridge, Hebden Bridge Literary & Scientific Soc. 1991ed. Bernard Jennings, Pennine Valley - a history of upper Calderale, Otley, 1994
The South and West Yorkshire Village Book, South and West Yorkshire Federation of Women's Institutes, 1991 (see section on Wadsworth)
Images used on this page, © Copyright Humphrey Bolton, Alexander P Kapp, Milestone Society, Mark Anderson, John Slater and Chris Heaton;
licensed for re-use under a Creative Commons Licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.
