The worn and weathered milestone or stoop on the corner of Mill Bank Road faintly shows the mileage on this side to Honley ( two and a half miles) and on the other to Penistone (eleven miles).
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An unusual sculpture, formed from a dead tree, recently stood on Holmfirth Road but is in danger of disappearing imminently. It has collapsed and now lies within the nearby school grounds. It was created by Jason Thompson, artist in residence at Meltham C.E. School in 1995. On the carving, the ram symbolises the woollen industry, the fleece being drawn through three rollers to
produce a finished roll of cloth at the top right. The two sheepdogs are the guardians of the school, based on Nimrod Earnshaw’s sheepdogs and known as Nimrod’s Sentries. At one time they lived in kennels on opposite side of Wessenden Head Road to stop sheep from straying beyond that point. The tractor reflects the importance of the local tractor works, although a nail in the tractor’s tyre indicates the demise of the industry. A series of trumpet shaped forms rising from the tractor might suggest the local brass band, whilst Meltham rooftops are depicted between the branches,
representing West Nab and Deer Hill. The books on the left branch represent learning and history and the water flowing from them might suggest the importance of water in Meltham’s history. The monitor with 3-D child represents modern technology and the future, whilst the honeycomb base and mineral-like veins represent local beekeeping and the coal and fire-clay mined locally.
The goats head logo with the initials JB&B at the Meltham Mills complex is that of Jonas Brook and brothers, textile manufacturers. There was first a corn mill and then a fulling mill on this site, but in 1774 William Brook arrived to set up a woollen mill, the first of several he established, which later switched to cotton production.
Charles Brook (the elder) also opened a silk mill at Bent Lay. The Meltham Mills factory became David Brown Tractors in 1939, later Case Tractor Production, but finished in 1988. A number of small businesses now occupy the site. The Brook dye works at Royd Edge Mills survive but only just. They are in a state of dereliction.
The housing estates of Calmlands and Wetlands off Holmfirth Road were built by the Brook family to house their workers. Friendship Terrace, shown here, was the first of the houses on Wetlands.
Emblem and inscription on the Carlile & Mechanics Institute, which opened in 1891, donated by J. W. Carlile, a partner in Jonas Brook & Bros. mill. The West Riding County Council started a library in the Town Hall in 1923 which moved to the Institute in 1930.
Durkar Roods was built in 1870 for A. C. Armitage but later the David Brown family lived here. It stood in sizeable grounds and had its own lodge at the corner of Bishop's Way and Huddersfield Road, now a private house.
The park nearby is named after Robert C. Ashton, a local J.P. From the park there is a good view of Melt ham Hall built in 1841 for W. L. Brooke and extended in 1860. It was given to the people of Meltham, along with the park, in memory of Mr & Mrs T. J. Hirst in 1944. Mr Hirst had been a director of Jonas Brook & Bros.
All that remains of the toll house which once stood near the corner of Huddersfield Road and Meltham Mills Road is this inscription set in to the walls of the mill complex. It was built in 1819 to control the Lockwood and Meltham turnpike and survived until 1971.
Oddfellows Hall in Meltham was built in 1851 and expanded in 1894. Nearby is the entranceway to what was the Meltham Clothing Company.
Near the market place stands the Conservative Club on the site of the first school in Meltham, of 1737 and the second school of 1823. The building became the Conservative Club when the church school was built on Greens End Road in 1868. This has now become the parish church hall and bears a mural about the millennium celebrations in the village. There is also a window from the original church embedded in the boundary wall of the parish hall.
The market place houses the remains of an oddity - an early chocolate bar dispensing machine.