SE0028
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.
[map SE 00 28]
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 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.
Old Town Green, so named on the 1850 map, was given by Baron Kinnaird and Robert George Hogarth to Wadsworth Parish Council in January 1940 as a recreation ground. Presumably the Baron was Lord of the Manor, but I have not been able to confirm this.
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 .
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.
This is the original driveway to Chiserley Hall, redundant now that the Old Mill Ridge housing estate road crosses it.
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?
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).
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.
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.
The driveway to Allswell Farm continued to a junction of several paths on Latham Slack, which is a remnant of the former moorland.
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.
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.
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.
Footpath from Billy Lane to Dick Ing
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
Keelam Lane
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
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)
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.