What makes Holmbridge special? 

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We believe the cottages were built in the early 1800s to house workers in the valley’s woolen mills. Many nearby homes have long rows of windows in the upper storeys indicating former weavers’ cottages – looms and spinning wheels were housed in these rooms when weaving was still a cottage industry. Later, as water and ultimately steam were used to power the larger automated machinery, the textile industry moved into the large, stone mills along the river in the valleys.

Entire communities including young children worked long hours in the mills, where noisy looms and spinning machines powered first by water and then fired by massive coal furnaces belched out black smoke, coating the village in a thick layer of soot. This is why so many walls are black; the stone itself is yellowish sandstone, but the black is residual soot.

Gradually, imported woolen cloth took over and the mills closed down, were converted into other businesses or, in many cases, demolished, leaving only a few local outposts of the once-thriving textile industry.

Today, clean air laws, sandblasted stone, and health and safety laws make life in the Holme valley far quieter, cleaner, safer, and healthier than it was barely 50 years ago.

  

Dobb Lane and Stanley Streets
Dobb probably comes from an old English word for dark, indicating the northerly side of the valley. he chapel (now a private home) at the bridge end of the block is dated 1827, while the 2 terraced houses joining No. 23 up the hill were a later addition. Originally, Stanley St was a public right of way and the steps up to Numbers 6 and 12 gave access to a Sunday school (now a private home) and band hall. At the entrance to Stanley Street, a public footpath leads up the hillside across open fields onto the moors and has fabulous views across the valley and beyond. The communally maintained garden to the left of the footpath was once old wells and drinking troughs, where village women would congregate to do their weekly wash. In the past, inhabitants of Dobb lane had to use the outside privies at the end of Stanley St. (now thankfully converted to sheds!). None of the under or overdwellings or weavers’ cottages in this entire block had a bathroom.

 

Hinchliffe Mill and Holmbridge

The immediate neighborhood is known as Hinchliffe Mill, and across Dobb Lane you can see one of the original Hinchliffe mills (now a workshop). If you look carefully over the wall you can see a bricked-in stone arch just above ground level, this was once the stonework arching the waterwheel. The area to the left of this was previously a mill dam. The river Holme, visible from the cottage, originates upstream in the Pennines and gives its name to Holme, Holmbridge, and Holmfirth. The combination of suitable grazing land for sheep, the “soft” water flowing over the millstone grit stone, and the river’s provision of power and energy led to the success of the woolen industry. The nearby Colne Valley also provided these conditions but with even more industrialization and bigger mills and towns. Huddersfield was a thriving textile center, with part of its success due to the visionaries who insisted on building a train station there on the main line between Manchester and Leeds.

 

The Holme Valley floods

Happily, modern technology now protects the Valley from flooding, but at the height of the Industrial Revolution, safety took second place to profit margins. Reservoirs were built upstream on the rivers to provide a controllable source of water power for the mills in the valley.

The disastrous flood of 1852 was an industrial accident which could have been prevented if more serious attention had been paid to the condition of the Bilberry Dam’s retaining wall. As it was, the reservoir filled to capacity after constant rainfall, and initially overflowed and then burst the dam wall on the night of February 9th, 1852, releasing a giant wave of water into the narrow valley which destroyed everything in its path.

In all, 81 people in the valley were killed, and 4 mills, 10 dye houses, 3 drying stoves, 34 homes, 7 shops, 7 bridges, 10 warehouses, and 8 barns/stables were destroyed. The heaviest loss was right here in Hinchliffe Mill, Holmbridge. Four cottages on Water Street, which still runs along the river beside the Dobb Lane bridge, were lifted up and completely washed away - they were never rebuilt, and the gap is obvious today. 

The tiny terraced houses were overcrowded, and over 30 people living in the 4 cottages were drowned, including Jonathan Crosland and 7 of his children. His youngest daughter, baby Ruth, escaped only because, when her mother died in childbirth the previous year, she had to be nursed in a different home. The owners of Crosland Cottage are directly related to this family.

The Bilberry Reservoir still exists, just above the newer Digley Reservoir, which was built on the site of mills destroyed by the flood. Today there is a car park at the reservoir and walking trails take in both Digley and Bilberry.

Another flood in 1944 was the result of a cloudburst up the valley, and 3 young children in Holmfirth were drowned. Monuments in Holmfirth commemorating those lost in the floods. A lesser-known marking of the flood waters is a notch in the stone face of the Elephant and Castle pub, showing the height of the waters. It was made by the father of a friend of ours, who was the pub landlord at the time.

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Interested in more history?
The Colne Valley Museum in Golcar (open weekends only), which underwent major expansion in 2016, has working looms and spinning wheels, and a replica of a dwelling similar to this one, with a fully restored range. In the Colne Valley, the opening to the canal tunnel under the Pennines is a tourist attraction and you can ride boats into the tunnel, which is the longest canal tunnel in the country. The towpath walk is also of interest. Of note, the other side of the Pennines is Lancashire (rivalries still exist!). On the Lancashire side of the hills, the mills produced cotton rather than woolen cloth.