Shipley, with Heaton
The village extends for nearly a mile along the south bank of the river Aire; at the western extremity are several well-built houses, commanding a prospect over Airedale, and at the eastern are numerous neat houses of various dimensions. The township comprises also the hamlets of Moorhead and Shipley-Fields. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the worsted and woollen manufactures, for the former of which there are five, and for the latter, three, mills; the manufacture of paper for pressing is carried on, and there is a whiting manufactory. An act for lighting the village with gas was passed in 1847. The Leeds and Liverpool canal intersects the parish, and is met here by the Bradford Branch canal. The Leeds and Bradford railway also runs through Shipley; and here commences the Leeds and Bradford Extension, which passes through the village by a deep excavation, and thence proceeds up the valley of the Aire to Bingley, Keighley, Skipton, and Colne. A fair, chiefly for cattle, is held on the first Monday after the 20th of October. The living is in the patronage of the Vicar of Bradford; income, £100. The church, dedicated to St. Paul, was erected by the Parliamentary Commissioners, at an expense of £7688, on a site given by the late John Wilmer Field, Esq., lord of the manor; the foundation stone was laid by the vicar of Bradford, on the 5th of November, 1823, and the building was consecrated by the Archbishop of York on the 5th of November, 1826. It is a handsome structure in the later English style, with a tower of four stories, embattled, and crowned with pinnacles; and contains 1488 sittings, of which 332 are free. There are places of worship for Baptists, Primitive Methodists, and Wesleyans. On the western slope of Baildon Moor is a remarkably strong chalybeate spring, containing no particle of saline matter, and producing ochre of beautiful colour, fit for paint; the water is thought to be superior to that of Harrogate. A chalybeate spring in a field called the Harrisons, near the Hirst, has lately been lost by the sinking of a coal-pit in its vicinity.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.