The Kirkburton Parish Council area was established as an Urban District in 1937, combining eight (originally nine) townships to the east of Huddersfield. Within the district are eleven villages: Farnley Tyas, Flockton, Grange Moor (officially in Whitley Upper township), Highburton (part of Kirkburton), Kirkburton itself, Kirkheaton, Lepton, Shelley, Shepley, Stocksmoor (part of Thurstonland township) and Thurstonland itself.
To celebrate the Queen’s 60th Jubilee in 2012 the Parish Council, with various other agencies, set up a project to create a series of ten walks centred on each community, and a series of leaflets with maps was produced. Each walk had the name of a former local personage for the title of the walk. For example, the Lepton walk features Anne Jessop (1850?-1941), daughter of Allen Jessop who established the first fireworks business in the village. The Kirkheaton walk remembers Elizabeth Drake, one of 17 girls who perished in a tragic fire at Atkinson’s Mill in Colne Bridge in 1818: they had been trapped upstairs.
And each walk had, at some point, a newly carved guide-stoop, modelled on the historic stoop at Farnley Moor, between Thurstonland and Farnley Tyas. As well as fingers pointing to the neighbouring villages each stoop also featured an item relating to the particular place. Thus the Grange Moor stoop shows the pit-head winding-gear at the local Shuttle Eye Colliery (closed in 1973).
The East Riding of Yorkshire is the smallest of the three Ridings and, unless you live there, a bit off the beaten track. It is, however, packed with interest
While people had travelled from place to place since prehistoric times, and it is possible that some of their tracks became, via later travellers in mediaeval times, the roads of today, it was the Romans who built the first roads. These were, of course, for military purposes and took no notice of the local population. One road started in Brough (Petuaria) – a continuation of the road from London via Lincoln (Ermine Street) to the Humber crossing. South of Market Weighton one branch of this road led via Warter to York and another through the Wolds to Malton. Another road extended eastward from York via Stamford Bridge across the central Wolds to the North Sea coast at Bridlington.
While the Roman roads formed the basis of Britain’s main road system (the King’s Highways) they were not necessarily the roads needed by the local population. Local journeys made by merchants with their packhorses or farmers moving livestock relied on drove roads, some of which had existed since prehistoric times. They were originally ‘green’ earth roads which avoided most settlements and were largely independent of other road systems. Many still remain on the Wolds, although most now have a narrow strip of tarmac for motor vehicles.
The turnpike movement took off in the 1720s, but the first in the East Riding was the Hull to Beverley road in 1744. Two other trusts were formed in the mid-1740s, for roads from Hull to Kirk Ella (which had become a location of choice for merchants of Hull wishing to live outside the city) and Hedon.
A second flurry of turnpike acts took place two decades later, when Beverley was the focus of roads to Leven (1761), Kexby Bridge (1764 – and thence to York the following year), Molescroft (1766 – a very short distance) and Hessle (1769). There was a plan to continue the Leven (White Cross) road to Bridlington in 1767 but this did not materialise.
Much later (1825) another road linked Hull with North Ferriby. Here (as the name implies) a ferry ran across the Humber to South Ferriby in Lincolnshire, probably from before the Norman conquest until the opening of the Humber Bridge in 1981.
Turnpikes required toll-houses, but following the demise of the turnpike system in the late 19th century sadly few have survived to the present day. As elsewhere they have succumbed from being too close to the carriageway. Toll-houses can still be found, however, at Cottingham, Leven (White Cross) and Woodmansey (near Beverley).
For more information see this very interesting East Riding Museums website on which much of the above is based. Other sources include W Albert: The turnpike road system in England 1663-1840 (Cambridge U P, 1972) and Wikipedia.
Helme is a small village in Meltham township, five miles southwest of Huddersfield. It was one of the earliest churches to be announced in the London Gazette, and unlike the others in the West Riding is described as an ecclesiastical district rather than a chapelry. Spelt Elm on the 6-inch Ordnance Survey map published in 1854, it was spelt Helme when the church was built, though Helme Lane is referred to as Elm Lane in the boundary description. The name appears to be unconnected with any trees that may have once grown here.
The Church is an attractive Victorian Gothic church with many original features, such as the Lord’s Prayer, Creed and Ten Commandments painted on the chancel walls, and the Beatitudes inscribed over the arches in the nave. The spire too is interesting, being the only wooden shingle spire in Yorkshire. It has no stained glass, thus enabling, so it is said, God’s handiwork in nature to be seen (and handy if the sermon is a bit dull).
Off Broadlands Road
The boundary is defined in the London Gazette of 13th August 1858. Boundary stones are mentioned twice in the description, and they do not follow the later standard pattern, being unnumbered, and consisting only of the letters H D B (for Helme District Boundary). The first mentioned still exists, at the southern end of a public footpath leading from Helme Lane to Sunny Heys Road, just west of and roughly parallel to Broadlands Road (grid ref approx SE 0992 1110). It is very small.
At Bent Ley Mill
The second mention refers to stones (plural): one is not a free-standing stone but carved on the corner of Bent Ley former silk mill, on the main Huddersfield to Meltham road. Another boundary stone stands here, marking that between the South Crosland and Meltham Townships. Another, so far not checked, is presumably on the north-east corner of the same building.
