Hi there
I have just joined. My g grandfather worked for Farnley Ironworks and was designated a Superman. He was a Blastfurnaceman, Foreman and Hammerman reputed to earn £1 a day. He was called William Parish and any details re what he would have to do or about Farnley Ironworks would be much appreciated.
On the other side of the family my Ggrandfather owned coal mines and blastfurnaces (I remember my father talking about pig iron). He was called James Woodhead and lived in Lawns House, Farnley. One of the pits he owned was called Charles Pit. He once saw a mill owner light his cigar with a £5 note and was duly disgusted at such extravagance! Typical Yorkshire showing off!
Thank you.

I've added Charles Pit to the database. We had a walk out there last year and the very impressive tramway embankment is still largely extant. I'll upload a photo of it tomorrow.

Both of my grandfathers - Marsden Barraclough and Rufus Sharp - and one of my g-grandfathers worked at "Farnley Forge" as it was locally known, and at its successor, The Leeds Fireclay Company - aka Farnley Fireclay. My mother was born in the now sadly demolished glazed brick lodge house at the main entrance to the site on Whitehall Road.
In the mid 50s, as school kids at the school built by the FICo we used to walk up Lawns Lane to the playing field at Lawns House (a children's home of some kind - Dr Barnado's?) to play football or to play cricket in the grounds of Farnley Hall.

I have a picture of the oldest members of staff and the management posed in front of the "Gates Lodge" and one of the oldest workmen, too both dated 1914, as well as a few pictures of the forge yard (long past its days as an iron company) and a portrait of the "Young Master", Mr Robert Armitage Esq.

Other memorabilia include the mantle clock presented to my grandfather by the Farnley Iron Co. Glazed Brick division of the company on the occasion of his wedding in 1913 and a modest collection of the "sampler" ashtrays produced by the Leeds Fireclay Co. for reps to carry around as samples of the finishes and glazes the company could offer for sanitary wares (these are branded LFCo. as opposed to Lefco, which produced faience, artworks and garden ceramics and was closely allied with the famous Burmantoft's Pottery in Leeds, while salt glazed bricks, tiles and and red bricks are mostly branded only with the name Farnley.).
Another interesting document is an auction catalogue with tissue maps from the sale of Armitage's Farnley Estate in 1929 which includes names of the occupants of the houses being sold in New Farnley.
The houses were generally tied to "the forge" and I have just found a Parish/Parrish family at house no. 4 Playground and paying an annual gross rent of just over 48 pounds.

James Woodhead is mentioned in the appendix of the catalogue as a co-owner of a couple of the properties -
Plot 4 "The Windmill" a capital small holding on Green Lane/ 3 bedroom house/2-stall mistal and outbuildings plus a cottage and a total acreage of 7-1-3 A.R.P.
and
Plot 65 - Three closes of land amounting to around 7.5 acres on Gelderd Road, occupied by John Clayton who paid a net annual rent of exactly 4 pounds. These appear to be the site Farnley Wood Lift Pit (already disused in 1910).

The "Leeds Tithe Map Digital Resource" website has hundreds of excellent and very clear maps showing the Farnley ironstone, fireclay and coal mine sites - the most useful years being 1875 and 1910.

Hope some of this helps a little - greetings from Germany from a Tyke who was born and grew up in New Farnley and used to play on the shale tips.

By the way,

the Church records can be found in Calverley:

http://www.calverley.info/calv_enter.htm 

James Woodhead Mine Owner of Lawns House, Farnley
Died 1915
Will proved 1927 (family arguments?)
1 Daughter
Edith Woodhead
3 Sons
James, Allen and Rowland Woodhead

More from Calverley and from my late father's incredible amount of research into our own ancestors:

It looks as if the Parish/Parrish family moved from Bowling to Farnley some time before 1871 (the children are registered as being born in Bowling and Farnley, so, if my maths is correct, this move could be dated back to around 1860/1861.

It could also be assumed that James & Ruth Woodhead arrived in Farnley around 1870 (as lodgers with his brother/uncle (?) & wife before getting their own house in the area)

Here are the marriages:

Edith Anne and Ruth Woodhead (James' daughter and wife) witnessed the marriage of Mary Annie Summerscales, a hotel keeper's daughter (date not shown - probably 1902)

Marriage of Allan(?) Woodhead, Colliery Proprietor (aged 22) son of James Woodhead, in Farnley Parish 25-06-1902

Witnesses: Bazil Silvester Woodhead, Martin Clarkson

Also the marriage of Rowland George Woodhead (32), Colliery Proprietor of Farnley, witness Basil Sylvester Woodhead, 29-08-1908
(the different spellings are from the records)

Son James Cecil (24), Colliery Owner, was married on 28-07-1910, witness John Hardy Woodhead

Basil Woodhead married Hannah M Procter in 1934

The data on both the Woodhead and Parish/Parrish families are first shown in the 1871 Census for Farnley - tracing the families further back would take us to Bowling or Horton/Bierley, and that's unfortunately a set of records I don't have in my father's research database - there is some data about Bowling, but only strictly limited to the Kellett and Johnson branches of our family.

In 1871 James Woodhead (28, born in Horton, coal proprietor employing 4 men) lived as a lodger with his wife Ruth and daughter Jane Ellen (?) in Peevey (possibly a misprint from the original written documents) the house of Ann Woodhead (34, linen draper) and a daughter Alice Woodhead (12).

The Parish family lived in Raper Buildings - father Richard (40, forge man from Bowling), mother Margram (39, Oakenshaw), sons John (18) and William (17) both forge men from Bowling, daughters Charlotte (15) and Emma (13) from Bowling both factory hands in a woollen mill, sons Charles W, Richard and Edwin Henry (aged 10, 5 and 3 respectively) were all born in Farnley and were still at school, youngest daughter was 8 months old.

In 1881, William Parish (sp.!) aged 27, hammer man from Bowling was living with his wife Eleanor in Peel Croft Farnley with their children John W and Mary M.

At this time, the Woodheads, James (born in Bierley) & Ruth and their children John H (8) Edith A (7), Rowland G (5), Basil Silvester (3) and Allan (1) at Far Fold, Farnley

The 1891 Census shows William Parrish (37) hammer man, born in Bradford living at 31 Pontefract Terrace, Farnley
with his wife Eleanor and their children John William (aged 13 (!) office boy Iron Wks., Mary M (11) and Alfred (7).

By 1901, the Woodheads were living at Watson House, the profession of the sons is described only as colliery owners son, they have a domestic servant called Martha Wilson from Carlisle and a new name appears, Alice Woodhead (39) a milliner by trade (possibly only visiting on census day).

The Parrish family were still at 31 Pontefract Terrace in 1901. William is now described only as an ironworker, John W is now a clerk at the ironworks (and very probably worked together with my grandfather, Marsden Barraclough, in the long office block/laboratory building to the left of the main entrance to the forge yard on Whitehall Road), Maggie (Mary M) was now a school board teacher and their youngest son Alfred (17) also worked at Farnley Forge.

Good work there Yorkshireman. Is there any mention of any small early coal mines on Green Lane in Farnley?

Good work there Yorkshireman. Is there any mention of any small early coal mines on Green Lane in Farnley?

Thanks Morrisey,

not too much work, my dad did most of it years ago after he retired - it even turned out that we had a relative who moved to the states and played in the Marx Brothers movie "A Night in Casablanca" and in "Lost Weekend" 😉

I'll look into the Green Lane area on the maps I have and get back to you with it.

I seem to remember some industrial remains just off Green Lane and Back Lane and next to Tong Road at the bottom of Sikes's Wood (shown on maps as Nan Whin's Wood).

I believe most of the remains were on Peat's and Sid Stephenson's land. There was Cud Hill Pit just past Moor Top on the right of the road to Drighlington, and there was quite a long thread about it on the Leodis/SecretLeeds websites.

There are still (I expect) the "Ironwater" springs in the wood and what looks like leats for a mill on Cockerdsdale Beck - though that was probably for textiles, tanning or dyeing.

Going further up the valley towards Tong, there are quite a few signs of mining and manufacturing industries, but a lot got lost when the created the golf course at Fulneck. Beyond that we start getting into Low Moor and Bowling country, which only really interested me on the side. There are still some signs of a very long incline that ended between Pudsey and Farnley - I have some info on that, all I have to do now is find it 😠

Hi
I have an old plan for Doles Wood Colliery and Cockersdale Dayholes (Dale Road). It shows 3 dayholes at Cockersdale on John Edward Brook Esq land, worked on both sides of the fault.
Lumb Wood Colliery in Lumb Wood (opposite Nethertown. opposite side of Lumb Wood Beck from Whitehall Road).
Doles Wood Colliery with 3/4 shafts working up to the stream (Ringshaw Beck?). The workings are in the second and third fields behind the Church and Mountain Inn(from Back Lane on new maps) It runs up to Bradford &Wakefield Road.

Title of plan is
BRAY & DRIGHLINGTON & GILDERSOME GAS Co and OAKES
Plan Showing Workings of Brown Metal Seam at DOLES WOOD COLLIERY also the Middleton Seam at Cockersdale Dayholes.
Hope this helps.

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Good work there Yorkshireman. Is there any mention of any small early coal mines on Green Lane in Farnley?

Hi Morissey,

A few years ago there were plans to start open cast coal mining in precisely this area - Farnley Park - but they were dropped. Interestingly enough, this also brings us back to the Woodhead family - Basil Woodhead (of a couple of mails ago) was interviewed on the matter of coal reserves in the area: savetongvalley.org.uk/docs/Mining.pdf and a picture shows him outside his home in Tong.

I've looked as far back as the tithe maps from 1844, but there's nothing in the way of signs of mineral workings in 1844 (probably before mining started in earnest), 1875 or 1910.
The nearest mines to Green Lane are, almost due west and close to Sidney Stephenson's Holme Farm in the middle of New Farnley.
The workings here were already closed in 1910 and I don't have a name for the pit.
The next nearest pit was Sowden No.4 on Low Moor Side Lane at the junction with Walsh lane, where the headframe and the derelict winding house were still standing in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The mineral railway from the forge via Barker Well Farm connected these two mines and then swept in a large radius to cross Whitehall Road by the Jewish Cemetery to connect via a branch to Briggs Pit and continued on to branch again to what must have been quite a large pit (unnamed) and ended at Farnley Wood Lift Pit almost on Gelderd Road.

To the south west of Green Lane, there are shafts noted in Nan Whin's Wood and close to Hollin House on Tong Lane - these may have belonged to either Sowden No. 4 or Cud Hill Pit (just past Moor Top). The Farnley pits seem to peter out more or less on the borough boundary (the beck) as we enter the domain of the Bowling and Low Moor Iron Company pits up the valley towards Tong and Bradford.

The what must have been quite spectacular Alexandra Incilne is now only visible in parts in Google Earth - the engine house was located just to the north east of the junction of Tong Lane and Mill Lane and the incline bore north-west on the northern side of some extensive mining works between Acre Wood and Coney Wood before turning to take a SW course to continue past the southern boundary of Charles Pit and about a mile beyond (and that's where my Leeds map resources run out)

Most of the industry at the Farnley end of the valley (Troydale) had little to do with mining, and the extensive leat and mill pond system belonged to the glue factory and the Troydale Tannery (BTW - there were two glue factories in Farnley, the other was in the forge yard and was locally called "Bailey's Bones" and stank to high heaven when the wind was unfavourable.)

By the way, to get back to another part of the original question.

In a blacksmith's forge, the hammerman was the bloke who wielded the heavy hammer and moved the piece around when working it on the anvil, this may or may not have been the blacksmith himself.

Later, with the advent of water, steam or hydraulically powered hammers (trip or drop hammers) in industrial forges like Farnley, the hammerman turned the pieces between each stroke of the hammer.

Hammering was a process for refining raw iron and served to consolidate the mass and drive out impurities like slag - the resulting product was a bar or "string" of iron.

For people who like to know where family names come from, a hammerman was also called a stringfellow or, typically in S. Yorkshire, a stringsmith

If anyone can place the air shaft in Nan Whin's Wood to a particular colliery I'll upload a pic to the database. There's also a fenced off shaft in the next door field.

I suspect a lot of the Alexandra Incline was removed by open casting in the lower fields. There are still traces where it went over the old cart track at the bottom of the valley.

After the tramway went past Charles Pit it continued to Bradford and ironworks there. Around Hunsworth and East Bierley are some great inclines and tramways. Think the well named "Eight Horse Incline" speaks for itself.

Although the golf course is on the site of Doles Wood Colliery there are still some cracking spoil heaps hidden in woods. I suspect that the course has been landscaped around some of the remains rather than over them. Also, some very large spoil heaps up around Tong itself.

Roger, I'd be very interested to have a look at those maps if possible sometime. Plenty of walking around to be done before the leaves come back if you fancy coming over!

Yorkshireman; let us know if you want any remote photos taken!

Thanks Rik,

As you've probably noticed, I'm particularly interested in New Farnley and the industrial and social archaeology of the immediate area.

If you think about it, the village is almost on a par with the Saltaire concept of workers' housing and schooling - the Armitages were probably not quite as "benevolent capitalists" as Sir Titus, but the village was IMHO a perfect example of a purpose-built company settlement from the beginnings of the industrial revolution.

I went back there for the first time in around 25 years a few years ago, and I hardly recognised anything any more.
The primary school where I took my 11-plus had gone, Long Row had gone, the shale tips (my childhood playground), Lloyd Lindsey's smallholding and the pumping house at Sowden Pit had all gone, too. Even Murgatroyd's Post Office had been transformed into a private residence.

If anyone has any old photos of Farnley Forge, the Fireclay Works, the works' railways or similar, I'd like to see them shared here along with any new pictures of remains around and between Leeds and Bradford (the Charles Pit shot was a good start).

I'm already gathering a few things to add to a future gallery.

I still find it very surprising that so little information is available about Farnley's industrial heritage - after all, it lasted around a hundred years!!

I just hope it's not too late to unearth more about the company, it's workers and the village.

I was unfortunately too young to think about it when I lived there and was too busy getting to grips with life in another country to get back to record what was left of it on film.

I've just got around to reading this thread in detail, and it touches upon something I looked into a couple of years ago but drew a blank along this avenue.

William J Armitage who I believe has associations with the Farnley Ironworks was the Chairman of a venture at Beck Hole in North Yorkshire called the 'Whitby Iron Company' where an unsuccessful mine and blast furnace operated for a short period 1857 - 1864

No-one has ever found much in the way of records (I did however locate a few legal document in the National Archives at Kew) but I think theres a strong Leeds/Farnley connection, Indeed in July 1862 men were dispatched from Leeds to help with problems with the blast furnace.

I always felt some more record could exist with the Armitages, but an enquiry at the "Armitage of Farnley collection" held at the YAS but they said there was nothing relating to North Yorkshire.

Heres my article if anyone wants a look.
http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Beckhole-Iron-Mine/Final-Beck-Hole-Article.pdf 

I also had a thought that the Farnley Blast Furnances may be of a similar design to the Beck Hole ones, but i've so far failed to find a photograph of either.

Hi Chris

Are the Armitage's the same family who lived at 'Kirklees Hall' near junction 25 on the M62? (Clifton, Brighouse). If this is the same family the records could be held at Huddersfield with the Local Authority or local Solicitors (possibly 'Ramsdens').
They had an estate office in Huddersfield before they sold up and sold the estate. I have a feeling a gypsy bought the estate but I could be wrong.

Rikj as you are reading this thread ring me to meet up.

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I've just got around to reading this thread in detail, and it touches upon something I looked into a couple of years ago but drew a blank along this avenue.

William J Armitage who I believe has associations with the Farnley Ironworks was the Chairman of a venture at Beck Hole in North Yorkshire called the 'Whitby Iron Company' where an unsuccessful mine and blast furnace operated for a short period 1857 - 1864

No-one has ever found much in the way of records (I did however locate a few legal document in the National Archives at Kew) but I think theres a strong Leeds/Farnley connection, Indeed in July 1862 men were dispatched from Leeds to help with problems with the blast furnace.

I always felt some more record could exist with the Armitages, but an enquiry at the "Armitage of Farnley collection" held at the YAS but they said there was nothing relating to North Yorkshire.

Heres my article if anyone wants a look.
http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Beckhole-Iron-Mine/Final-Beck-Hole-Article.pdf 

I also had a thought that the Farnley Blast Furnances may be of a similar design to the Beck Hole ones, but i've so far failed to find a photograph of either.

Hi Chris,

I was about to recommend Leodis or Secret Leeds, but, as they say "Been there, dunnit" 🙂

Information on the Armitages and the Farnley Iron Company is amazingly sparse - the story seems to begin in 1844, as shown here on Welcome to Leeds:

"The Farnley Iron Company was founded in 1844 by the four sons of James Armitage, a woollen merchant who purchased Farnley manor and lands from the Danbys for £45,000 at the turn of the 19th century."

That was a hell of a lot of brass in 1844!!

"It was because of the demand for workers at the forge that the part of Farnley parish known as New Farnley came into existence. There were not enough men in Old Farnley village for the vast new enterprise, so people were imported. For some reason they all came from Low Moor, Bradford and were for the most part nonconformist in religion."

"The Armitage brothers built a school at New Farnley in 1845, which has now been demolished. It was in the school the first services were held by the curate of Farnley. The tough people from Bradford did not take kindly to the Church of England ministry and after a short period, when a member of the Armitage family was appointed minister, they eventually left this company chaplaincy in the hands of a Wesleyan Methodist."

That's where I went to school

I may be going out on a limb here, but I seem to remember having read that the Danby family owned extensive properties in Eskdale (although probably not the village Danby and Danby Manor, which was owned first by the Danvers and then by the Dawnay family), so it wouldn't be so far fetched to assume that the Armitages "inherited" mines in the area.

So much for a tentative link between the Armitages and Eskdale - I think I may have to delve deeper 🙂

Cheers and HNY

This topic just keeps on getting better. Here are some photos taken back in 2008 that show some shallow pillar and stall workings that existed below Green Lane.

Hi Morrissey,

I certainly recognise that typical oily/rusty shale - or at least my mother would - she had to wash my clothes when I'd been playing on the tips or the greasy windlass of Sowden No. 4

BTW: Have I been looking at the wrong Green Lane, are the shots from close to the Beulah in New Farnley?

I'll post a few pix and maps soon.

Cheers

Hi Rikj
You mentioned you had added Charles Pit (owned by my ggrandfather James Woodhead II) to your photos. Have you had time to do this yet, please?

Hello Yorkshireman
Thank you for putting maps on this site. My family owned Grove Colliery but due to my father working all hours with no time to show us the whereabouts of the family's mines and blast furnaces, we were not sure where it was. Also there was a family rift, caused by my grandfather, so much knowledge has been lost (as well as money and properties!)
I showed this map to my brother and he wonders what was the date of the map, please?
I notice you have a Raffles Pit - one of our family was called Raffles - wonder which came first, the pit name or the family name. The only Raffles I could think of (until now) was the Raffles Hotel! Possibly someone local to Farnley/Tong could help here!
Wendy

Hi All,

It took quite a while, but here's an updated map of the holes in the ground around New Farnley.

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/supersize/Personal-Album-8946-Image-80007/ 

If anyone finds errors, please let me know - there are a couple of bits I'm not to sure about.

Like the three pits across Whitehall Rd from Ashfield and which pit exactly is Parkside.

Would also greatly appreciate any new pit names anyone can offer.

The name Sykes' Pit is a bit of guesswork that could explain why Nan Whin's Wood was called Sykes's Wood for the locals (yes, Sykes's - not Sykes or Sykes').

If anyone's interested in other sections, the map I've compiled now stretches across to Bowling in Bradford (including Pudsey and Tong) and the northern section goes down as far as the top end of Huddersfield in the west and across to the borders of Wakefield in the east.

The middle part stretches from Huddersfield/Mirfield down to Emley Moor, and the southern part currently ends just south and east of Clayton West (to be extended to Denby Dale/Penistone when I find the time)

For Morrisey:

The hole you were in looks like it could be the drift close to the Beulah.

Cheers