DISCLOSURE: This page may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission.
UK Genealogy Archives logo

Heckmondwike

HECKMONDWIKE, a chapelry, in the parish of Birstal, union of Dewsbury, wapentake of Morley, W. riding of York, 9 miles (S. W.) from Leeds; containing 3537 inhabitants. This place is situated on the Wakefield and Halifax road, and is the principal seat of the blanket and carpet manufacture in Yorkshire. The township comprises by measurement 662 acres: the soil is fertile, and the scenery of a very pleasing character; the substratum is coal, of which several mines are in operation, and there are quarries of good buildingstone. The village is of considerable extent, and has a hall in the centre, which was opened on the 15th of Oct., 1840, for the sale of blankets, for which purpose it contains numerous rooms for the merchants attending the markets, and is open every Monday and Thursday. Fairs, chiefly for cattle, are held on the first Thursday in May and November. The Dewsbury station of the Manchester and Leeds railway is distant three miles. The chapel, now a district church, dedicated to St. James, was erected on a site purchased by the inhabitants, in 1831, at a cost of £2574, by the Parliamentary Commissioners; it is a neat edifice in the early English style, with a tower surmounted by a handsome spire, and contains 750 sittings, of which 300 are free. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £150, with a good house; patron, the Vicar of Birstal; impropriators, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. There are two places of worship for Independents and one for Wesleyans.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

Advertisement

Advertisement