MORLEY CONSERVATION AREA
Historical development and changing character of the conservation area
A thousand years ago, Morley was an area of woodland and moor: so much is evident from its name, and from the Domesday Book entries for Morley in 1086. Its woods encompassed a larger area than the later medieval township, extending to Woodkirk, where there was a church with a priest in 1086. It also included Tingley, the location of a mound where the communities of Morley wapontake - an administrative unit covering much of the territory between the rivers Aire and Calder - met to decide judicial and other matters.
Though Morley gave its name to the wapontake, it does not itself seem to have been a large or important settlement in the Middle Ages. The -ley element in its name indicates cleared land in a woodland setting; and though we have no information as to the location of its settlement(s) and arable fields in that period, the general pattern recorded in the earliest detailed map - an estate plan of the early 18th century - gives us a layout which is probably not much different from that of medieval times. There were three elements to the settlement, and all are at least partially represented within the conservation area. To the north was a scatter of settlement around the area of common land called Morley Bottoms. At the southern end was a second scatter of farmsteads around a 'green' or 'common' in the Town End and Low Town area. Between these was Middle Thorp, a series of farmsteads standing in two lines of crofts running between Morley Bottoms and Town End.
There would have been more continuous lines of buildings and crofts in Middle Thorpe than are shown on the 18th-century map: it was drawn to record only the property of the lord of the manor; freehold properties are largely left blank. Nevertheless, a combination of this map (which shows the wider pattern of fields and commons as well as the settlement area) and antiquarian records of Morley provides a basis for analysing the development of the settlement plan and field systems.
It is probable that the earliest settlement element was that occupying the hills around Morley Bottoms common. This was the location of the medieval chapel, on the site of the present St Mary's; and though the building which preceded the present chapel was evidently a 15th or 16th-century structure, its demolition in 1875 revealed pieces of Norman architectural stonework built into its walls. These indicate that the chapel - a subordinate chapel in Batley parish - stood here from at least the 12th century. Also adjoining this common in the early 18th century were two large houses: Morley House and Morley Hall. It is possible that one or other stood on the site of a major medieval homestead; or indeed that the chapel on Troy Hill was originally attached to a manorial homestead.
The Town End and Low Town settlement may be an early peasant settlement, with its original parcels of long, intermixed arable strips still fossilised in the 18th century as long, thin fields: Townend Croft, New Close and the Haughs among them. The main settlement development in the Middle Ages seems, however, to have been the creation and growth of Middle Thorp: a series of crofts running in lines either side of the trackway between Morley Bottoms and Town End. The properties on the east side of the track were further defined by a back lane on their east side. They included a house known as the Manor House from at least the 17th century, possibly the site of a medieval manorial or freehold homestead. East of the back lane was a unit or 'furlong' of medieval arable strips again fossilised, in parcels, on the 18th-century map as long, thin parallel fields with sinuous boundaries.
West of the trackway was another row of buildings and crofts. These crofts had no back lane. Indeed, the way in which the east-west boundaries between the crofts continue westwards as field boundaries suggests that this half of Middle Thorp may have been created on top of the ends of arable strips. They may mark a stage of development later in date than the properties on the east side.
Though only one of the buildings shown on the 18th-century estate map (Morley Hall) still survives, a comparison of this map with that of a map of 1863 and with the modern large-scale map shows very clearly how the pattern of medieval trackways and fields has provided an enduring framework for Morley's later development. The main routeway through Middle Thorp has become Church Street; the back land has become Commercial Street, and the orientation of property boundaries within (and beyond) the conservation area still reflects the layout of the medieval arable strips. The commercial and industrial centre of 19th-century Morley was shaped in considerable detail by the agricultural settlement of medieval times.
In the 18th century Morley was already an important centre of the woollen textile industry, run on a domestic scale. In 1790 the Crank Mill, an early steam-powered fulling and scribbling mill was erected on the edge of Low Common, an area of common land extending eastwards from Morley Bottoms. The growth of textile manufacture led to a significant increase in Morley's population, which doubled between 1801 and 1851. That rate of growth was, however, eclipsed by the figures for the second half of the 19th century: the population doubled again between 1851 and 1871, and again between 1871 and 1891. The phenomenal growth after 1851 reflects a rapid increase in the number of textile mills. By 1851 Morley still had only six mills, but by 1900 there were about 40 in the Township, over half within or adjacent to what is now the conservation area.
Historical associations
We cannot characterise Morley's social, political and religious tendencies in the Middle Ages, but we do know that the advent of Puritan doctrine in the late 16th and early 17th centuries had an enormous impact on the community there. It became one of the most important centres of republicanism and non-conformity in a region where such sentiments were widespread. Before the Civil War its chapel was served by a noted Puritan minister, Samuel Wales. During the Civil War, Morley and surrounding townships supplied a number of prominent officers for the parliamentarian forces: Captain Thomas Oates who lived at the Manor House in Morley; Corporal Crowther who served under Cromwell and had a house on Banks Hill; and Major Joshua Greathead of Gildersome, who fought against the Royalists at the battle of Adwalton Moor.
During the Commonwealth, in 1650, Thomas Savile, Earl of Sussex and a leading republican whose residence was Howley Hall, granted a 500 year lease on Morley chapel to a group of Presbyterian trustees, including Thomas Oates and Joshua Greathead. It was served by Presbyterian ministers until the Restoration, when it came back into the hands of the established church. During the Commonwealth the chapel's chancel had been used as a school, and in 1663 its schoolmaster was Thomas Oates. In that year, however, Oates, Crowther and others were implicated in the Farnley Wood Plot, an intended rising provoked by Charles II's Act of Uniformity.
Though the plot was a complete failure, Morley continued to be dominated by religious non-conformity during the centuries of industrialisation. By the end of the 17th century, the Presbyterians had regained the chapel from the established church. In the mid-18th century, over half the 259 families in Morley were said to be Presbyterians, with a further 50 or more families who were Independents, Methodists and Anabaptists. According to figures given by Scatcherd, the local historian, this dominance seems to have greatly increased by the 1820s.
Given such traditions, it is perhaps fitting that Morley was the birthplace of the great industrialist, philanthropist and non-conformist Sir Titus Salt (1803-76), whose model industrial community at Saltaire was a response to his experience of working-class alienation and deprivation in industrial Bradford. He was born in the Manor House, a successor to Captain Oates. Equally fitting, Morley was also the birthplace of H.H. Asquith, Liberal Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. His birthplace, Croft House, is in the south-east corner of the conservation area.
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