CULLINGWORTH CONSERVATION AREA
Historical Development
Cullingworth, c. 2m to the east of Haworth, is poised above the steep valley slope of Ellar Carr Beck, a tributary of Harden Beck, and stands about 200m O.D. above sea level. The village is situated near the head of Harden valley and stands upon the Millstones Grit of the Upper Carboniferous Period.
There is no known evidence for Prehistoric or Roman occupation within this settlement area, but to the south of Cullingworth, a flint Neolithic axe was found at Manywell Heights in 1952. Elsewhere, Harden Moor to the north of the village, may have been a landscape of Bronze-age activity, since a number of cairns and "funerary pots", probably dating to this period, have been recorded here over a period of time. A rectilinear earthwork enclosure known as Catstones Ring is situated on the adjacent Catstones Moor. This site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, its origin and function unknown, but may relate to the Iron Age or Roman periods. Roman activity is represented by the conjectural Roman route of the Manchester to Ilkley Road (Margary 720a), its route supposedly following the short section of Turf Lane, situated on the western side of Cullingworth.
Cullingworth or Colingauuorde is recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086, the name suggesting an area of Anglo-Saxon settlement. The place-name probably derived from the Old English personal-name Cula and the term woro, meaning the enclosure of Cula's folk. The character of medieval settlement is unknown, but most likely comprised a few scattered farmsteads, sited near two crossing points of Ellar Carr Beck, and at the junction of the Keighley-Halifax and Bingley routes. It is possible that monastic houses, with land holdings in the area, used these routeways.
A number of monastic houses were granted land at Cullingworth from the 12th century. Esholt Priory was granted land in the eastern part of Cullingworth, between 1180 and 1184, the land subsequently passing to Rievaulx Abbey. Kirklees Priory was similarly gifted with land in the 13th century. Both the Keighley and Bingley routeways, where they merged at Cullingworth, formed the southernmost estate boundary of Harden Grange. The grange had been established by monks of Rievaulx Abbey in the 13th century, and surviving estate records indicate that a medieval water mill was situated on this boundary, possibly on the site of Woodfield Mill, recorded on early 19th-century maps, to the south of Cow House Farm (O.S. 1852).
There is little evidence of settlement in the medieval period, but documentary evidence of 1475 reveals that the Holynrake family held two messuages near the site of the present church of St John. A map by Thomas Jeffreys of 1775 depicts a small number of buildings in this vicinity, the junction of the Bingley and Keighley routeways appearing to be the focii of the settlement. Development or rebuilding probably occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, with many of the listed buildings in Station Road dating to this period. The Enclosure plan of 1816, by Taylor, illustrates development to both sides of Station Road, with a few buildings to the south, adjacent to Church Street and the Halifax-Keighley route. In this period, according to local residents, Cullingworth comprised 38 dwellings. Main Street (Station Road) contained 8 farmsteads, four to each side of the road, and some cottages (Cudworth 1876). A school, no longer extant, had been built earlier, c. 1780, near the gates to a house known as The Nook.
Further development occurred between 1816 and 1852 (O.S. 1852) which comprised cottages, religious structures and mills. A Wesleyan Church opened in 1825, and a Baptist Church erected in 1837. In 1846 Cullingworth was made a separate ecclesiastical parish, and the parish church of St John was built and dedicated in 1853. A growing population led to a number of enlargements to these three structures.
The main occupation in this period was farming and weaving, the first row of workers' cottages being built in 1815. Mills included Ellar Carr Mill built by Joseph Harrison , to the north-west of Cullingworth, at the beginning of the 19th century. The mill produced cotton goods, but later changed to worsted. A corn mill and a tannery, at Cow House Fold, were also active in this period. By 1852 a worsted mill, ran by the Townend Brothers, had been established on the western side of Halifax Road. The mill, built around a courtyard, became the main source of employment for the village and its vicinity.
In 1894 the core of settlement remained around Main Street (Station Road), the site of the present Conservation Area, with rows of cottages extending to the south of this area and to the east of Halifax Road. Improvements to the village occurred in this period, including the widening of roadways. A Great Northern Railway route, now dismantled, was built between 1852 and 1894 to the west of the village, with a station and goods yard adjacent to Turf Lane. Settlement developed southward towards Cullingworth Gate, the place-name possibly derived from its former use as a northern entrance to the medieval Denholme Park.
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