HAWORTH CONSERVATION AREA
Historical development and changing character of the conservation area
Medieval Haworth was a hamlet in the manor of Bradford. Though it was not recorded in Domesday Book of 1086, it may already have been in existence as a 'hedged enclosure' (the meaning of its name). Its first appearance in surviving historical records was about a century later, when a grant of arable land was recorded. This arable, presumably the land enclosed by the hedge, was reckoned in total as four bovates (notionally some 60 acres). At least some of the arable seems to have been held by the medieval farmers as strips within an open-field system: the open fields survived in part down to the 18th century, and groups of strips which at enclosure became consolidated as long, narrow fields can still be seen on the first ed. OS 6 inch map (surveyed in 1847) around the West Lane end of the village; indeed, some of them can still be seen running into the conservation area, fossilised as property boundaries.
The location of only one medieval building at Haworth is known: the church of St Michael and All Angels, strictly speaking a chapel in the parish of Bradford, which was probably in existence by the 12th or early 13th century. Nevertheless, we can suggest that there were two separate foci for settlement at Haworth in the Middle Ages: Town End, a triangular 'green' with the church at its southern apex, surrounded by the open fields; and further south Hall Green, another triangular 'green', perhaps surrounded by the lands belonging to the lord of the manor.
These 'greens', which can be seen best on the first ed. OS 6 inch map, were areas of common pasture at the intersections of lanes leading through the farmlands, and in the Pennine uplands they were often the locations of medieval settlement. It is interesting to note that the four earliest domestic buildings to survive in Haworth conservation area - the only ones clearly pre-dating the 18th century - are located at these 'greens'. At Hall Green there is The Old Hall itself , said to stand on earlier foundations, which is probably of late 16th-century date, as well as No.8 Fern Street, a 17th-century farmhouse. At Town End there is No.26 North Street, which can be dated to the late 16th century on architectural grounds, along with Cook Gate farmhouse which formerly had recessed chamfered mullioned windows similar to those in the Fern Street building.
The third key element in the structure of Haworth is Bridgehouse, where the original crossing of the beck was perhaps a ford. The routeway from this crossing to Hall Green, and thence to Town End, articulated the plan of the industrial village that developed during the late 18th and 19th centuries between these earlier foci. The whole of this settlement structure is contained within the conservation area. The fourth early element, the corn mill, stood on the site now occupied by the railway station and sidings, just outside the conservation area, and was the only water-powered mill to feature on Jefferys' map (surveyed 1767-70)
Haworth was already developing as a centre for the textile industry during the late 17th and 18th centuries, when probate inventories record five pairs of looms and six pairs of combs there, but it reached its most productive period in the mid-19th century. The rise of textile crafts brought a massive increase in the density of housing between the earlier settlement foci, especially along the lane between Hall Green and Town End that became Main Street. In 1851, Main Street was recorded as the home of over 130 people involved in woolcombing, weaving and spinning. Additional industrial housing developed in association with the opening of the first water-powered textile mill: the cotton-spinning mill at Bridgehouse, built about 1790. Further textile mills erected along Bridgehouse Beck and the river Worth, including the architecturally important Ivy Bank Mill, together with their associated housing, are outside the conservation area.
Historical associations
Haworth's principal claim to fame is as the home of the Bronte family in the early 19th century. The buildings with which they are principally associated lie at Town End: the church, of which Patrick Bronte became curate in 1820; the Parsonage where the family lived; the National School, where Charlotte Bronte taught and the Black Bull Hotel, frequented by Branwell Bronte.
The Brontes' church was not the only focus of religious life in 19th-century Haworth, for the chapelry had been a centre of nonconformist preaching since the time of the Rev'd William Grimshaw, curate from 1741 to 1763. Grimshaw was a leading evangelist, and his friends included the Baptist James Hartley, as well as John and Charles Wesley, who saw Grimshaw as a potential leader of the Methodist movement. The first Baptists chapel was opened in 1752 in West Lane, followed by a Methodist chapel on an adjacent site in 1758. A Strict Baptist chapel was erected at Hall Green, in 1824.
The nonconformist denominations attracted members of the most prominent families in Haworth. Among these were the Greenwoods, owners of Bridgehouse Mill. They occupied Bridge House, a late 18th-century house next to the mill, until the 1840s when they moved out to Woodlands, a larger house at the southern end of the conservation area; they were Baptists, and gave financial support to the movement along with the Midgleys, lords of the manor. The Greenwoods' successors at Bridgehouse Mill, R.S. Butterfield and J.R. Redman, were Methodists.
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