Cockersdale watercourses and mills

Si · Post by Si » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 3:32 pm

Hi Jim. I knew you wouldn't be able to keep this under your hat! I remember you telling me of your theory in The Junction a couple of months ago! Another visit to the site sounds good, once the weather settles down a bit!

jim · Post by **jim** » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 4:14 pm

If I am included in that Si, I look forward to it!

Si · Post by Si » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 5:48 pm

jim wrote: If I am included in that Si, I look forward to it! Absolutely! How about sometime in the early Spring? Mid-March?Anyone else interested is more than welcome - Tilly? Parksider? History? Chameleon? Etc? Bring wellies...

jim · Post by **jim** » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 6:44 pm

You're doing a grand job of organisation Si. Keep going, and I'll do my best to keep up.

Leodian · Post by **Leodian** » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 8:07 pm

jim wrote: I was hoping someone would tell me how to interprete the map references Parksider, they don't follow any system that I have come across previously. I have set them down as they appear in the book, and await instruction from the more knowledgable of the site. Any assistance gratefully received.As to Royds", there are a number of sites in the Leeds 12 area with this description, Far Royds, Beeston Near, Royds Lane, etc. making identification of the ironworks site mentioned difficult. I don't know if this applies but in some OS maps I have SE was the reference for a large grid covering much of Yorkshire. That grid was then divided into 100 smaller equal area sections, but these have numbers on the maps I have (for example the Grassington 1:25,000 First Series map is Sheet SE 06). Perhaps such as SE33SW is a much older reference version for a map but not to a precise location. It may be just coincidence but I wonder if SW meant in the south west of that map?

jim · Post by **jim** » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 8:18 pm

This seems a very likely solution Leodian. In view of the date of publication of the book (1966) I had thought that the map reference format might be from an earlier, probably imperial unit, OS series, and your identification of the style of the first four letters/numbers would seem to clear the matter up. Unfortunately, it means that map references quoted in this form will be of little value in pinpointing precise locations, but again that means we will be able to spend much more time trying to achieve that aim!

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Fri 06 Jan, 2012 11:22 pm

jim wrote: As to Royds", there are a number of sites in the Leeds 12 area with this description, Far Royds, Beeston Near, Royds Lane, etc. making identification of the ironworks site mentioned difficult. In 1880 Clayton & Speight owned the Ravells pit and the royds pit so I'd assume these were at the bottom of Churwell Hill and that they ran a tramway along the holbeck valley.The gap between OS 1853 and OS 1894 is massive and many pits and tranways will have come and gone in that time.Osmondthorpe colliery was extensive as per the OS maps and they do mark the tramways in 1854 and again in 1893 - the layouts are a bit different (Harvest Home Pit, Far Hole Pit and Kendall Pit are marked 1854) the latter layout has the incline up to the staithe at York Road.I'm interested in seeing if the main line still had signs of the tramway that ran under it to the south side of Osmondthorpe Colliery....

jim · Post by **jim** » Sat 07 Jan, 2012 12:22 am

I believe that the underbridge carrying the footpath extension of the western end of Wykebeck Avenue beneath the Leeds-Selby/York line is a direct descendant of that of the old colliery line. The built up ground on which the NER carriage shed was constructed is clearly bounded by the course of the later branch of the old line that ran due south from the underbridge to a colliery slightly to the north-east of Thornes Farm. The colliery itself seems to have been more or less at the present day junction of Halton Moor Avenue and Neville Parade.I have no knowledge at all of Ravells and Royds pits, so I leave research of those to you, Parksider. Perhaps it is time to start new threads for the info on areas away from Cockersdale.

grumpytramp · Post by **grumpytramp** » Sun 08 Jan, 2012 1:04 am

jim wrote: I was hoping someone would tell me how to interprete the map references Parksider, they don't follow any system that I have come across previously. I have set them down as they appear in the book, and await instruction from the more knowledgable of the site. Any assistance gratefully received. JimIf my memory of colliery surveying lectures of nearly thirty years ago is right I may be able to help. The Ordance Survey have split the UK into a series of 100km by 100km blocks which are identified by two letters; in this SE. That block is further divided into 10km blocks which are tradional co-ordinated. Therfore the 33 therefore refers to the 30-40km East and 30-40km North of the south west corner (the origin). When referring to SE33SW they are refering to the SW corner of that block.What does that mean here?Look at your normal OS map of Leeds (which is in Block SE) the origin will be at grid reference SE 300300 and the area will extend 5km east and 5km northAll of which really doesn't help you at all![not least, as it is to far east anyway!!!] jim wrote: As to Royds", there are a number of sites in the Leeds 12 area with this description, Far Royds, Beeston Near, Royds Lane, etc. making identification of the ironworks site mentioned difficult. I think we would struggle to find this location directly as I am certain that the Royd's Iron Works had failed somtime around the turn of the nineteenth centuryIn Baines "Directory, General and Commercial of the town and borough of Leeds for 1817" it describes the local villages and when referring to Royds it states: Quote: Extensive ironworks were carried out at this place a few years ago, by Messers Popperwell, Pullan and Shaw, but the buildings are in a state of delipidation As for location all I can add is a description from the "Transactions of the Philosophical and Literary Society of Leeds" which states that: Quote: In the valley between Wortley and Beeston the Royds coal has been muched worked, supplying ironstone for the Royds Iron Works, the engine pit was near the foundry on the Beeston side of the valley, and the coal was got on the basset north and north-west The Royds coal is the regionally important Black Bed Coal and Ironstone and when referring to the "basset" they refer to the outcrop!As pure speculation thinking about the possible presence of some sort of railway/cartway and taking cognisance of the above then how about the area shown on 1852-54 1:10,560 map [see old-maps.co.uk] as being a cloth mill on the south side of Geldard Road and on the east side of the Leeds, Dewsbury and Huddersfield Railway [Near Royds and some terraces are to the immediate south east]. There is a clear track to the north west to Far Royds cut by the railway that could have been the old railway/cartway?

jim · Post by **jim** » Sun 08 Jan, 2012 11:18 am

Thanks for some really interesting research material Grumpytramp. Your information on the map co-ordinate system I was struggling with confirm and amplify Leodian's thoughts on the matter. Useful to know how useless that system is as a method of identifying lost sites!Looking at the 1852-54 1:10560 map in old-maps brings home forcibly firstly that Royds Lane must be older than the Leeds-Dewsbury-Manchester Railway, and secondly that it ran further than I recall. the route seems to have commenced by a junction with Whitehall Road at Low Mill, passed by Far Royds, the Wheatsheaf Inn, Near Royds Cloth Mill, the waste heaps later known by my generation of 1950s schoolboys as "the ups and downs", and ended at a junction with Elland Road. Both Royds Lane and Elland Road passed close to large numbers of pits and collieries, in particular the site on the 1852-54 map at Islington. I believe that in the 1940s there was a fairly large fireclay works and drift mine complex at this site. It also better matches the description of the site you quote as being "near the foundry on the Beeston side of the valley". Locally fireclay works seem to have been natural later descendants of ironworks.EDIT Another possible site for "Royds Ironworks might be that between Royds Lane, the Kirkdale Estate, and the remains of the Farnley Ironworks railway. In the 1950s it was occupied by a firm of contractors and a scrapyard. More recently it has become a "cash and carry" firm I believe. END EDITCouple all these pits with - fanciful suggestion - the "Wagon and Horses Inn" on the north side of Elland Road as it approaches Holbeck Moor, and we have a possible candidate for a route linking Royds Ironworks and Leeds, as described in the gazetteer that started this waffle.