These are currently in a metropolitan borough of Kirklees and has a long tradition of giving Liberal Democrat councillors although has a varied history of MPs. It has the history as a mill town, rather good deal of West Yorkshire, although this industry has today about vanished.

A doom metal pioneer band My Dying Bride originate from Cleckheaton.

A illustrious confectionery sweetly 'Lion Midget Gems' came from either Cleckheaton. It were processed originally around a little row of bungalow at the top of Westgate. A present mill (okay, owned by Cadbury) stands on the original site.

History of Cleckheaton and the Spen Valley

Early History

Such as great deal of England, the Spen Valley was heavily wooded & this is supported by a few of the list in the area, Birkenshaw and Oakenshaw mean birch & oak grove severally & a easily utilized -hurst and -royd postfix indicate clearings in the outdoors.

Person habitation occurred hundreds to thousands of years ago & Mesolithic and Neolithic remains have been observed within various wharehouses. Roman remains develop been discovered in a vale & these are thought that the roads from either York to Chester and from settlements inside Halifax and Wakefield ran through Cleckheaton & the junction produce to a staging post in the neighborhood.

Habitation continued into a number 1 millennium AD when recommended per Briton toponym Walton Cross & Kilpin Hill and the Anglo-Saxon ones Gomersal and Heckmondwike. A Viking invasions also left their mark partitioning a front yard, half of which was ruled by Anglo-Saxon lords & half by Scandinavian ones.

A Norman conquest led due many uprising per Anglo-Scandinavian nobleman of a metropolitan area & the various hamlets in the vale wasted across half of their value. Indeed just Cleckheaton, Gomersal, Liversedge and Hartshead were mentioned in the Domesday Book despite other areas, Heckmondwike & Hunsworth existence inhabited - this was due to their non getting any nonexempt value due to the ravages of the conflicts of the period. A whole vicinity passed to the lord of Pontefract, Ilbert de Lacy, under whose rule at least of these Norman & one Anglo-Saxon lord held occasionally land.

There were at this instance tenner manors in the Spen Valley vicinity: Cleckheaton, Gomersal, Heckmondwike, Hunsworth, Liversedge, Oakenshaw, Oakwell, Clifton, North Bierley and Hartshead and these are from either these manors that a villages which late wore their list arose. When period passed, a l& of delaware Lacy was subdivided & per 14th Century a manors of Oakwell, Gomersal and Heckmondwike were in the ownership of the diamond state Tilly personal world health organization lived at Oakwell Hall [Figure 3], Liversedge passed to a delaware Nevilles of Cleckheaton by marriage by using the diamond state Liversedge personal. A first state Thornhills owned Hunsworth & Northward Bierley & more areas got passed to a de Warrennes personal world health organization were the lords of the Manor of Wakefield.

Even as complex was a ecclesiastic jurisdiction. A region wholly region was divided between trine parishes. the manors of Hartshead & Clifton were a detached section of the Dewsbury Parish, which had the girl church inside Hartshead, & Northerly Bierley was in the Bradford Parish. A rest of Spen Valley got when its parish church St Peter & St Paul's inside Birstall by owning a chapel-of-ease within Cleckheaton, the White Chapel (in the future Whitechapel2). There was the little Cistercian priory in Kirklees from either a eleventh century (touching Hartshead) however this got super little influence on the front yard.

Robin Hood

These are arguable whether a legendary Robin Hood actually did exist however there are a big total of stories & legends surrounding him & the Spen Valley. These are reputed that a mother superior of Kirklees Priory was Robin Hood's full cousin & that he was flushed in the gatehouse of the Priory. He was buried in a convent graveyard however his headstone was moved old prior to the 15th Century. Present a understanding given for this is that it commemorates a places in which his survive arrow fell - he fired his survive arrow from either a places of the 3 Nun's Pub towards a Convent & asked that he become buried in which his arrow landed, however this occurs as recent addition to the legend. A original headst1 was replaced in a 18th Century by using one bearing the words "Hear Under dis laitl Stean / Laz robert earl of Huntingtun / Ne'er arcir ver az hie sa geud / An pipl kauld im robin heud / Sick utlawz az hi an iz men / Vil england nivr si agen / Obiit 24 kal Dekembris 1247"

Besides at this instance these are reputed that King John was married in the chapel of Liversedge Hall which was the residence of the diamond state Nevilles.

The Introduction of Textile Working

A region was super disorganized for an extended period when a Norman Conquest and a richest town at that period of a were however the richest 300 years late when the Poll Return of 1379 indicate. It when well demonstrate a deficiency of administration as merely a richest quaternion of a 227 families sleep in the Spen Valley were processed to pay to a higher degree the 4d minimal revenue enhancement. These income tax return as well indicate a recent deviation form a traditional sources of wealth in the area (i personally.e. farming & allied trades). These were centred around fabric & involved dyeing, weaving & fulling (folding, gathering & pleating of fabric for garments) (most common list in the area present however recall these early trades: Lister- dyer, Webster- weaver, Walker- fuller). A spread one trades was too following of the absence of regulation of the region. Due to the want of manorial control, land was divided between all the sons inside the personal like than upright passing to the firstborn. When a farmland owned by a personal had little it became unable to trend lines the personal and then population turned to production of woolen to benefit additional income.

When a Reformation, Kirklees Priory wwhen largely destroyed many families were caused from either the locality & newly non-aristocratic lords of the manor world health organization were sympathetic to Protestantism were introduced by Elizabeth We as was a puritanical man of the cloth world health organization was installed at Birstall Church. By 1570, at a period of a Rising of the Northern Earls, the previous of the old Norman noble families experienced been swept away. Sir John Neville went into exile & forfeited his estate and Thomas Hussey (heir to the de Tilly personal of Oakwell Hall) was imprisoned in the Tower of London for some period prior to existence pardoned.

Per 17th Century l&-with farmers were locating it more and more hard when were their landlords and a bit of payments were however in a similar way when farmers got there are no money to pay their debts. Meanwhile a textile workers were becoming further & further prosperous & paid less & less attention to their penurious & more and more impotent landlords. When you took a Civil War a clothiers get on 1 side & the landlords on the other. Lords of a locality were processed Royalist officers & processed a bit of progress like at the battle of Adwalton Moor about a mile east of Birkenshaw and the siege of Bradford, before a Parliamentarians took control of the metropolitan area. Royalist families were forced, fallowing a war, to pay big amercement to keep their lands & keep away from imprisonment. Day & night haberdasher were growing flush and per prevent of the 17th Century to a higher degree half of the wills in the parish of Birstall come from either either men whose wealth come from material.

Nonconformity

Fallowing a restoration of the Monarchy, Anglicanism was reintroduced also. Notwithstanding several humans experienced detected puritanic teachings additional to their taste & it took numerous years to re-set up an Anglican vicar to Whitechapel. Despite the draconian nonconforming laws, there was the prominent total of non-Anglican honeysuckle & nonconformity flourished; a fifth of the people of the Birstall Parish was forecasted to exist as nonconforming. Quakers were widespread & potentially today the total of Seventeenth & 18th Century Quaker graveyard remain in the area. In the 18th century Presbyterianism was widespread on the other hand wasted the big minority of its flock to Unitarianism and Baptistism. Methodism also flourished from either a 1740s fallowing visits from John Wesley and Charles Wesley, as did Moravianism. Indeed John Wesley sleep in Birstall for a few period when it was close to numerous big towns in the West Riding.

Within spite of a religious nature & severity in the Vale, the indweller were somewhat unsophisticated & however attend astrologist, quack doctors and prophets. Men rather Eli Collins, the "Wizard of Wyke" & Alvery Newsome, the "Wise man of Heckmondwike" were far flung. Moreover, to increase a isolation, a region got there is no canals & got couple of roads, despite two or three turnpike roads, including a major ones from either Leeds to Huddersfield and Bradford to Halifax.

Joseph Priestley, a discoverer of atomic number 8, was innate around Birstall inside 1733 & grew higher inside Heckmondwike in the Old Hall which was the personal of John Keighley, his uncle and constable of Heckmondwike. Too when his swell known scientific operate, he was likewise a strongly religious human, & as a nonindulgent Calvinist disagreed by owning the establishment for lot of his life. He moved to United states as an husband to escape persecution in which he died.

The Industrial Revolution

When a discovery of effective quality coal to the north of the Vale industry spread quickly & ironworks including a single producing steam engines under licence from either Boulton & Watt's mill inside Soho, London and an one making armaments for the Napoleonic Wars were to be uncovered in the Northerly Bierley & Oakenshaw. Around 1785 steam engines were utilized foremost inside material engineering (to pump water system to power a wheels of a mill while the todays of the Beck was as well infirm - an engine which directly powered machinery was first installed around 1897). Per prevent of the century Eleven mills were to become noticed in the Parish.

A Reverend Hammond Roberson lived in Healds Hall around Liversedge which was built by the Superintendent of the Unfortunate around Heckmondwike in 1764. Around 1804 Roberson, annoyed that a administration of Liversedge was disorganized, promoted a models of reform - the take vestry - which quickly spread to Cleckheaton & Heckmondwike.

Roberson was officeholder at Hartshead Church & inside 1810 when his married woman's demise turned his attention to church in the area. the 1st a single he built was Liversedge Church, of which he became vicar, which was opened inside 1816 at a numbers to himself of £7,474,111.10 & Four farthings. Inside 1818 Parliament voted the million pounds for the building of fresh churches in the united states & Roberson was entity to assure £9000 of this to build churches in the area. He spent £3000 apiece around building Heckmondwike & Cleckheaton churches & utilized a remainder towards building some other Sextuplet churches in the region including victims in Roberttown, Birkenshaw & Hightown.

At a period of a building of Liversedge Church there was much of impoverishment in the area & numbers of populatiin thought that money should exist as spent on supporting the poor people like than building churches. A wars got ravaged a united states's economy for years, food was expensive & a endure straw was a introduction of machinery which threatened to prevent what little act was available. Several soldiers were posted in the area just in case of an rebellion by thirsty & angry humans.

The Luddites

Luddism was a movement that began within Nottinghamshire in opposition to industrialisation which was leading to job losses. It was non far flung among wholly textile workers however was among sharecropper. These population were included in the finishing of material & shearing frames threatened to produce redundant their extremely specialised trade. Although a Spen Valley was non a centre for cropping it was the location of the virtually all high-profile work of Luddite action in the country.

Within 1812 William Cartwright of the Rawfolds Mill installed shearing frames and there was much of bad feeling in the area following. Local clergymen like Reverend Hammond Roberson & Reverend Patrick Brontë his successor at Hartshead encouraged local landholder & manufacturers to could have higher against a Luddites' threats.

Patrick Brontë was the father of the extra renowned literary sisters. He became parson of Hartshead Church inside 1810 & patch there met & married his married woman Maria. His firstborn ii tikes, Marithe & Elizabeth were born witharound a home in Liversedge which however stands in todays world. He was super strongly against any action to kill cropping machines & sustaining Roberson formed the formidable body of opposition to the widely held sympathy for the Luddites.

In 11 April Luddites attacked a Mill. 100 to 150 of the two met per 3 Nuns & walked to the Shears Inn, & onto Rawfolds. Cartwright got anticipated a attack & experienced Baker's dozen men upon one's guard at a manufacturing plant.

the attack was a failure & deuce Luddites, Samuel Hartley and John Booth, were mortally wounded. A anxious men were taken to the Yew Tree Inn (which had antecedently been a house of Josiah Ferrer, a 17th Century Constable of Liversedge) then to the Star Inn, each around Roberttown. Medical men attended Hartley & Booth when did Roberson world health organization tried to bully the babies into telling him world health organization their leader was. Nitric acid and white-hot pokers were used however whether this was for torture of to halt bleeding is non known. Booth's leg experienced to become amputated however prior to the operating surgeon can be known as he got died. At a point of dying, Booth whispered to Roberson, "Can you keep a secret?" Yes, promised a man of the cloth. "So can I" said a anxious human good prior to he expired.

Presently when a mill creator within the nearby village was assassinated & the sympathy of the habitant of industrial areas quickly switched sides to it of the mill owners. The total of men, a select few of whom world health organization were taking part around two attacks were arrested. A committal one men was heard inside the upstair room of the Black Bull in Birstall opposite a Church (which however has the court intact) & it went from either there to the York Assizes inside which it were tried in 1813.

There were ii lawsuits, a single for foursome men accused of the slaying & a single 3 years late for the attack in Cartwright's Mill. A slaying test took place in 12 January 1813 & 3 men were encountered shamefaced world health organization were publicly hanged & dissected 2 years late.

A test of the men accused of attacking Cartwright's Mill wwhen too the capital test as intent to kill of the manufacturing plant was the pendant offence. Eight men were tried (a trine hanged a day prior to were as well implicated in that test). A jury noticed Cinque of the Eight men shamed. It were hanged the next day on Saturday 16 January 1813.

The Rise of the Spen Valley

Per mid 19th Century a Spen Valley entered its golden era. Withinside 1800 youngsters were paid non plenty to feed a two for putting staples into leather for carding wool, however by 1838 there were eleven carding mill in Cleckheaton & by 1893 a town wwhen recognised as the carding capital of the globe! More trades which flourished were blanket making & rug weaving. Towns became rich & the people rose (by a factor of Quintet between 1800 & 1900). At this instance Heckmondwike began to celebrate its wealth by using a number 1 Christmas illuminations in the united states.

A mill owners built turnpike roads between a villages to enable their employees for to act & lobbied for railways built for their products to email client. When much of haggling by having a various railway corporations in a 1840s railways were eventually built which enabled a textile mills, ironworks, chemical mill & pit compete sustaining victims in the united states. Sir thomas more that this, a railways brought together a population of a single villages of a Vale & the quickly the villages grew until it merged together.

The Emergence of Spenborough

Around 1853 Heckmondwike wwhen granted the Local Board of Health, as was Cleckheaton around 1864. Withwithin 1873 the partition of Liversedge between a two wwhen mooted & it was simply the Tories coming back into power in the next season that kept Liversedge which was given a Local Board in 1875, as was Gomersal. Bradford, a okay, immense town northward stole away Oakenshaw & Northerly Bierley & around 1885 a tetrad town amalgamated to turn into a Parliamentary constituency of Spen Valley. There were at this instance tries to require all the local boards inside joint pan-valley projects like installation of sewers & a body of water. Around 1915, such joint ventures resulted inside Cleckheaton, Liversedge & Gomersal merging to form a Spenborough Urban District Council which was enlarged around 1937 after Birkenshaw, Hunsworth & Hartshead joined.

In the front yard of of the turn of the century, several immense & expensive buildings were erected & became symbols for the area's wealth, massive chapels & newly Grammar Schools were built inside each Cleckheaton & Heckmondwike, public baths were opened & to mark the newly constituency & a fact that it was a centre of it, Cleckheaton built a town hall inside 1892, paid for by public subscription.

a bike manufacturing plant & the automobile factory opened within Cleckheaton & BBA, the big asbestos house built its headquarters in the town. There wwhen possibly a thriving holidaymaker industry as humans come to look about the vicinity manufactured noted by Charlotte Brontë's "Shirley" & per Luddite attacks. A dweller of Spenborough were super public spirited & referable its local nature & severity everyone knew their council member & participate publicly cases which were super far flung and popular. A local aristocracy were swell respected & were neat helper to local is a causal agent of, a Mowatt personal invite Cleckheaton Library & too the information library at Cleckheaton's grammar (late secondary) school, Whitcliffe Mount which bears their name.

From either a Twenties yet Spenborough's fortunes began to decline. Pits began to close & trade waned. Slowly a centered government took in responsibilities antecedently held by Spenborough such as water supply, flatulence production, public health & education. Spenborough which today involved 100% of a Spen Valley save Heckmondwike was given a Borough Status by Her Loftiness a Queen in 23 Will 1955, the borough retained its coat of arms which wore the catchword "Industry Enriches" which it experienced been granted inside 1915, however by at present a level of industry wwhen inside good decline as a textile mills, metalworks & more manufacturing plant slowly closed.

Kirklees

Fallowing astir a hundred years of joint public interest around civic administration, this quickly come to the virtual prevent inside 1974 whilst the local authority changes took outcome. A West Riding of Yorkshire was reconstituted as West Yorkshire and Spenborough and Heckmondwike were swallow per recently Kirklees Metropolitan Council, which although centred in the vicinity of Huddersfield was known as fallowing an area in the Vale! Following of a distant local authority & the reduction of council member humans inside the vale became detached from either their representatives & heavy-shell public involvement in local administration was hence lot reduced.

Cleckheaton and the Spen Valley
Although Cleckheaton is just the village these are surrounded by the total of little villages. Virtually all one come separate to Cleckheaton although come classed when a portion of the postal town of Cleckheaton. Liversedge occurs as separate postal town & its villages come so, postally, classified other than. All the as a result villages for section of the Spen Valley by having Cleckheaton in the centre:

Scholes Oakenshaw East Bierley Hunsworth Birkenshaw Drub Gomersal Little Gomersal Littletown Millsbridge Liversedge Roberttown Hartshead Clifton Hightown Scholes

Cleckheaton itself is mass produced higher of areas like Moorend, Whitechapel, Whitcliffe, Moorbottom, Moorside, a Marsh & Rawfolds.