There was very little at Hinchliffe Mill before the construction of the Woodhead Road in the 1770s, and subsequent development shortly afterwards was always to do with the textile industry as the River Holme provided the necessary water power for the building of scribbling and fulling mills along its banks, and the road an easy route for the transport of raw materials and finished goods. The earliest houses were built close to the mills and the river, but were devastated by the Great Flood of 1852. Later houses were built in terraces up the steep hillside. Development continued piecemeal in the 18th and early 19th Centuries and was virtually complete, apart from some infilling, by 1854. The name Hinchliffe means steep cliff.
The 1852 Great Flood
The 1852 flood severely affected Holmbridge and Hinchliffe Mill. The Bilberry Reservoir above Holmbridge had been one of three reservoirs built under an Act of Parliament of 1837 to ensure the textile mills in the Holme valley had a constant water supply even during dry periods. It was built to a design by Mr George Leather of Leeds but modified during construction to cut costs, so that the height of the dam wall was reduced by over 30 feet to only 8 feet higher than the water level. Subsequent subsidence reduced its height even further. Poor building work – one firm was dismissed and another brought in – and the existence of previously unknown springs undermining the construction contributed to its weakened condition. Warnings by local residents were ignored. After a stormy week with wind and water pressure further weakening the dam wall, Bilberry Dam broke its embankment in the early morning of February 5th 1852 and around 86 million gallons of water rushed down the valley towards Holmfirth along the route of the Digley brook and Holme river. The torrent destroyed anything in its path, buildings, bridges and people, around 80 of whom drowned. A few, such as those living at Bilberry Mill and cottages close to the dam, realising the imminent danger, had luckily evacuated their homes. The water rushed down the narrow course of the river, wreking the most damage where its course was narrowed by rocks, mills or cottages.
At Holmbridge severe damage was caused to the bridge, road, church and churchyard by the torrent, which already carried debris picked up along the course of the Digley Valley see Holmbridge page for details. Afterwards the river here was bridged only by a wooden plank for a while so that onward travel for goods along the usual Holme Moss route towards Manchester was impossible.
A little further along towards Hinchliffe Mill a further bridge and mill dam on the right bank lessened the room for the water to pass. The left bank opposite formed the wall race or back wall of six cottages at the lower end of Water Street. By this time the turbulent waters still carried the boilers, machinery and timbers from the Digley Mill which had been all but demolished by them further upstream. Hundreds of tons of water pressed against the wall of the second storey of these three storey homes. Half a dozen cottagers managed to escape as this point before the wall gave way collapsing the cottages onto the street behind. Sixteen Water Street residents were said to have saved themselves by clinging to the roof of their home with the rushing water only a foot or so below them and their house in imminent danger of collapse. All but one of the remaining inhabitants (James Mettrick jnr.) were swept away in the torrent, their battered corpses being discovered in the ensuing days. James, 23, had been helping his father get the children up to the attic to avoid the waters when the house collapsed and he was swept away in the current. After a quarter of a mile or so, near Bottoms Mill, he was able to catch hold of a plank and pull himself to dry land, exhausted and not knowing that his whole family had perished. George Crosland, also of Water Street, had another lucky escape. When he was cast out into the flood he managed to climb onto a box which eventually washed into a house downstream. There he managed to catch hold of an embroidered cloth hanging from the rafters and saved himself by clinging on until the water level lowered. Eight other members of his family drowned. A baby, the youngest child of Robert Ellis of Water Street, was found by a neighbour after the worst of the torrent had subsided, in a waterlogged cradle under the Ellis's kitchen table, and reunited with its desperate family all of whom had survived.
Hinchliffe Mill itself suffered damage. The engine house, stables and barn were destroyed but the mill itself, although invaded by water, survived. The flood waters swept on towards Holmfirth where they continued to destroy lives and property.
The Victims
Almost half the victims of the flood came from the small community of Hinchliffe Mill where the houses had been built very close to the stream.
Water Street
Whole families were lost to the flood here, namely
Jonathan Crosland (39) and his five children, Charles, Hannah, Martha, Foster and Ralph, aged 3 to 19
Rose Charlesworth(40) and her five children, Joshua, James, John, Emor and Ruth, aged between 1 and 16. Her husband, John Charlesworth, survived although he died the following year.
Joseph Dodd (48), his wife Hannah Dodd (30) and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, aged 7 and 2.
Joshua Earnshaw (72), his son Charles (36), and his three grandchildren, Joshua and Mary Crosland and Ann Beaumont, aged between 12 and 21.
Nancy Marsden (53), her unmarried sister Eliza Marsden (47) and two nephews Joseph Marsden and 16. The body of Joseph Marsden was never found it seems.
James Mettrick (60), his wife Mary Mettrick (38) his five children William, Samuel, Alfred, Jane and Joseph, aged between 1 and 30, and his married daughter Betty Earnshaw (30) and her son Abel Earnshaw (5), and his son-in-law William Exley (32).
Fold Head
Lydia Brook (28) and her daughter Hannah Brook (11). Lydia's husband Joseph Brook survived.
Fold Gate
James Booth (60), his wife Nancy Booth (44) and their lodger William Healey (45)
The Methodist Chapel
Built in 1839 by the Woodhead Road, and a Sunday School, with some 500 scholars at that time, added in 1877. Previously Methodist meetings had been held from 1784 in a cottage at Waterside. Then in 1812 a room was rented at Longwalls, Hinchliffe Mill and in 1827 a Sunday School (later used as a day school and Band Room) opened in Dobb Lane. Nine of the villagers who drowned in the 1852 flood were buried in its graveyard on Sunday, 8th February 1852 including Jane, William and Joseph Mettrick. It could seat 400 people. In modern times it has been converted into apartments, and its former congregation have services in the shared church of St. David in Holmbridge.
Dobb Lane School
Built by subscription in 1827 to cater for a growing population. A school house for the headteacher was built behind the school in 1849.
Water Street
The three storey houses originally built here were devastated by the 1852 flood. Many collapsed but were rebuilt and no. 1 and 2 has an inscription - 'IM 1759' - on the lintel over the garage door.
Terraced Housing
This developed in an unusual way, partly due to the steep terrain and partly due to the extreme need for natural light by the occupants, who were largely handloom weavers, working as many hours of daylight as they possibly could. This has resulted in terraced houses with under-dwellings, with one house having access to the top two storeys and another with access on a lower street to the lower storeys including the ground floor and sometimes a storey below ground level. Large "weavers windows" are built into the first and second floors. This arrangement has led to the erection of steep entry ramps to the upper floors and railing and step entrances to some lower floors. There are some good examples of this along and behind Woodhead Road. The houses are all densely and closely packed together. See the picture carousel for examples.
Hinchliffe Mill Co-op
This society was founded in 1870 with a loan of £125 and contributions from members, the first of whom was Mr. John Littlewood. Soon the society was able to pay a dividend of 8 pence in the £ to members and in 1883 was doing well enough to purchase the premises from which it had been operating and the neighbouring premises, mainly with small loans from existing members. Also in1883 the society joined the Wholesale and Co-operative Union and hosted the Huddersfield District Conference. A butcher's department was added in 1887 for a trial period but was not a success and was abandoned two years later. A branch was opened at Underbank in 1881 and again it became possible to purchase and renovate the premises in 1883.
Mills
Hinchliffe Mill mill
It seems a fulling mill existed here, upstream of the bridge which now carries Dobb Lane, in the late 15th Century, owned, according to legend, by the Hyncheliff family, giving its name to the settlement which slowly grew up around it.
The larger 5 storey mill, downstream of the bridge and with its own large dam, was built in 1807. Both mills were water powered with a water wheel at the upper one, and both were used by 'Butterworth & Co.' for scribbling, carding and slubbing wool from that year. In 1833 they together employed 28 people, about half of them children, working a 14 hour day in summer and 12 hours in winter. The owners resisted any suggestion that laws be introduced to reduce those hours!
Water power alone proved insufficient for the lower mill and an engine house was then built over the river only to be swept away in the 1852 flood, along with the homes of some of the mill workers on nearby Water Street and the workers themselves. By 1853 the owners of both mills were Thomas Morehouse and John Graeme and the occupiers 8 individual members of the Butterworth family plus Anthony Green and Samuel and Nancy Sandford whose earlier premises, Dyson's Mill, had been destroyed in the flood.
From then on parts of Hinchliffe Mill seem to have been let out to various tenants – J&T Ellis in 1856, James Mettrick, mungo and shoddy manufacturer, until 1873, Joseph Butterworth & Sons who went into liquidation in 1876. However, Thomas Butterworth & Co. continued in business in the mill, installing a new boiler house in 1884. George Charlesworth also used part of the mill from 1872 until his death in September 1882 when his machinery and wool stock were sold off. Butterworth's continued there but the wool trade was in decline and J. Butterworth left the family partnership in 1891 and the remaining partners, Thomas H. Butterworth and Percy Barber were forced into liquidation the following year. Their stock of yarn and machinery and their electric lighting plant were put up for dale. They had been one of the earliest employers in the Holme Valley to have electric lighting installed in their mill!
Local men Henry Whiteley and Hurst Green had formed a partnership, leasing part of the lower mill in 1879 and it was they and 'S. Butterworth & Sons' who occupied the premises when the owners put it up for auction in 1897. However, the mill was withdrawn from sale when it failed to meet its reserve price. Then a serious fire in April 1901 destroyed the mill's interior, despite the attendance of several fire engines and the help of Yew Tree Mill's hoses. An estimated 3,000 spectators watched the decimation which put at least 100 of them out of work. A few nearby cottages were saved. Messrs. Whiteley and Green then bought the ruined mill from the Morehouse family and rebuilt it as a 3 storey, rather than the original 5 storey, building with separate buildings for each process – weaving, mending, scouring, dyeing. A small steam engine was added in 1911 for times when the water supply was insufficient.
Mr Hurst Green died suddenly in May 1914, ending the Green family involvement, but the mill was busy producing khaki during World War I and had a larger steam engine installed in 1922, the water wheel now being unnecessary. The sons and grandsons of Henry Whiteley continued to operate the mill with a Board of Management but the flood of 1944 destroyed the mill's finishing room, built in 1913 over the river, and swept away some of the machinery, also leaving the entire ground floor under a layer of mud. Despite the problems, production eventually resumed, automatic looms being installed in 1951, replaced by rapier looms in 1971. Production doubled in the 1960s and the workforce increased by 25%. Cords and twills were the major products with materials such as cotton, nylon and rayon being introduced. A quarter of fabrics produced were exported to countries such as the U.S.A., Germany, France and Japan. Their cloth was bought by such high end companies as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Polo. 'Whiteley & Green' continued until 2000 when a company called 'W. & G. Weavertec', commission weavers, took over.
The lower mill is now empty and derelict, waiting to be replaced by a housing scheme. The upper mill has not been used for textiles since the 1940s, after which it was put to a variety of uses by small local companies.
Yew Tree Mill
Stone built with a Welsh slate roof, this is one of the earliest family textile businesses in the area. Unlike most other mills, Yew Tree Mill stayed in the ownership of just one family – the Roberts – almost throughout its existence. Jonathon Roberts of Brown Hill is the first known owner of the mill which has buildings dating back to the 1770s.
From these small beginnings the mill expanded into a complex of buildings by the early 19th Century with a dyehouse, wool warehouse, warping and weaving rooms and cartsheds. Construction of the turnpike road (Woodhead Road) in 1809 actually cut the site in half and a tunnel had to be built to reconnect both parts. By the mid 19th Century there were also 3 houses on the site occupied by members of the Roberts family – Jonathon, John and William, descendants of the founder.
The mill suffered some minor damage during the 1852 flood but nothing compared to its neighbours and a claim by Jonathon Roberts for damage to machinery and stock was ultimately dismissed. The mill produced good quality woollen cloth, and shoddy from the waste, and sold it via Butterworth &Sons of Huddersfield. This company got into financial difficulties in 1864 but Jonathon Roberts, their chief creditor, helped them out and enabled them to stay in business. A few years later, though, Jonathon's nephew and grandson of the founder, Henry, went into partnership with Robert Butterworth to form Butterworth & Roberts, woollen manufacturers and merchants. Butterworth arranged the sale of the cloth Henry and younger brother Samuel produced, but when he died in 1883 the company retained the name but concentrated on production alone. Yew Tree Mills was expanded greatly at this time. Between 1868 and 1872 two 5 storey buildings were added to the site's existing blocks of 2, 3 and 4 storeys and a steam engine installed to serve the power looms and spinning mules. The mill complex was dominated by its octagonal chimney dated 1868. The water supply came from two purpose built dams on a stream directly behind the mill called Stubbin Clough.
With the the demand for woollens declining by the 1870s, the company had to adapt and by the 1890s were concentrating on fancy worsteds. A new weaving shed was built in 1907 and a much more powerful steam engine installed to replace the original. A dam behind the mill, constricted in 1874, provided the water for both dyeing and cloth production.
In 1937 Gordon Roberts, a descendant of Henry, formed a company, 'G.H. Roberts Ltd., Yarn Spinners' on the same premises with his wife Hannah. This company was run as a co-operative with workers invested in its success as they shared in the profits. They produced wool and angora yarns on 4,250 spindles in part of the 5 storey mill. Ten years later, however, this company moved to new premises in Dalry, Scotland, in order to install new machinery and expand. They continued business there until the mid 1970s when they were taken over by another local firm, Z. Hinchliffe of Denby Dale (see Denby Dale page).
By the 1950s Butterworth & Roberts, who had stayed at Yew Tree Mill, were ready to turn to electric power, installing their own electricity sub-station in the process. This Hinchliffe Mill part of the company then concentrated on high quality worsteds supplying mainly British companies such as Burberry and Aquascutum.
From 1951-59 W.H. Robinson, yarn spinners, occupied the premises, the only non-Roberts company to do so up to that point. Butterworth & Roberts continued, though, and because of their willingness to update their machinery, innovate in the design department and keep on good terms with their customers, continued to succeed as others failed. When 'W.H. & J. Barber' closed in 1975 Butterworth & Roberts took over their worsted spinning mill in Holmbridge, keeping it open for a further 4 years.
In 2000, though, John Roberts sold the business and mill to the company in charge of Moxon's of Huddersfield, Gamma Beta Holdings Ltd., who continued producing quality wool and cashmere cloths for several years more. An inscription detailing Moxon's origins and history was displayed on the premises at this time, but Moxon's no longer own the premises and the inscription has since been removed – a disappearing curiosity!