The first of Henry Harrison's articles appeared in the Cleckheaton Guardian on 23 Sep 1910

Greenside and St. Peg Lane, around the time of Plug Riots on Friday August 18th 1842.

To begin with what is at the present time, Mr Rouse's auction rooms - at that time it was made into a barracks for the soldiers, in case another attempt should be made on our peaceful and then lovely little village. Before proceeding with Peg Lane, it may be of some interest to give the history or genealogy of the two families who owned these rooms (then a shop) prior to 1842. The first, Wm. Birkhead, Tommy Wright's wife's grandfather, resided at Street Side, near to Dudley Hill. He was a maker of coarse white cloth in a small way. He had two sons, William and Thomas; they too resided at Street Side and had a small farm. They also made coarse white cloth and were pretty successful during the Russian Middle Trade, in which favourable opportunity, it was generally supposed, they obtained the greatest part of their property. They lived together in a state of bachelorship, until William was close upon fifty years of age; he then married Mary Brooke, daughter of John Brooke, a white cloth maker of Cleckheaton. With her he received part of the Brookhouses estate as a portion, and paying her father the remaining value, he thus became possessed of the whole estate. He immediately erected the present house, out-houses, etc., and as soon as it was ready removed with his family from Street Side thither, his brother Tommy continuing to reside with him and his family. Here the family continued till they all died successively, William himself, though much the oldest of the family, being the last survivor of this branch of it. Tommy died a bachelor in the year 1866, leaving his whole share of the property to his brother William, except a few small legacies to his sisters. While at Street Side, William's two eldest children, Lydia (Tommy Wright's wife) and her sister Betty, were born. Mary and Willie were born at Brookhouses. William Birkhead died March 1797, being about 100 years old. His wife Mary died in 1796, in her 80th year. Their names are recorded on a tablet in the vestibule of Providence Place Chapel, removed from the the wall of the Old Red Chapel.

Having finished with the Birkheads, we will now come to the Brooke family. John Brooke, father of Mary Birkhead, must have owned part or all of the Brookhouses estate at the time of his daughter's marriage. He appears to have been a man of character and a considerable landed property owner, representing a branch of a numerous, and at that time, pretty substantial family in the neighbourhood. He, too, was a white cloth maker of Cleckheaton. (in my opinion, the auction rooms already referred to would be his weaving shop). He married three wives, by the first of whom he had one child, a son named Richard, who turned out a wild young fellow, enlisted as a soldier, caught consumption and died young. His second wife was from a family at Rooms near Morley, of the surname Webster. By her he had four children - namely Mary, whom I have named before; Samuel, the eldest son, who, having offended his father by his marriage, was in effect disinherited, forsaken by the family, and treated ever afterwards as an alien to their blood. His father gave him two or three small crofts, with a cottage and workshop erected upon them, at Woodside, between Heaton and Hightown. Having a family of eleven children, he was obliged to mortgage his property for as much as it would fetch, and struggled with distressing circumstances all his days. His surviving children, since his death, have all, or most of them, been able to obtain a comfortable living. Obadiah, the second son, had the family residence at Heaton Greenside settled upon him. (in my opinion this would be the brick house at the top of Brooke Street). He remained a bachelor to a pretty advanced age, when he had the good fortune to marry Betty Wood, a daughter of John Wood, hardwareman, of Bradford. To her management he was entirely indebted. Obadiah had two sons, John and Obadiah. John married a Quaker with a large fortune and kept a hardware shop, etc. at Cleckheaton. The younger Obadiah, a bachelor, settled at Leeds, where he followed the profession of a surgeon and apothecary. Nathaniel, John Brooke's youngest son, had a small farm called Walstone Houses (this in my opinion would be the place at the present time called Walsh Houses) left for him near to Little Gomersal, and a few cottages at Heaton Gate, but having a family of eleven children he was obliged to dispose of his little estate in his lifetime, and died in very straitened circumstances.

If I am right in my surmise about the Walstone Houses, I am inclined to think they would be bought by Jonathan Fox, a card maker at Mount Pleasant, and a Mr. Gomersall, maltster, father to Joseph, who built Green Bank House and corn mill, and who resided at that time at Spen Hall. Fox and Gomersall shared in the Mount Pleasant and Walsh Houses farms, and agreeing to divide they drew lots, and old Mr. Fox told me that his lot fell on "Jonah" - that is, Mount Pleasant. Be it so or not, that I will leave. I might just say here that David Fox, cardmaker, who built Highfield House, was Mr. Jonathan Fox's son.

Coming back to the Brooke family, Nathaniel's daughter, the eldest of the girls named Betty, married a Benjamin Fearnley, only son and child of John Fearnley, a man of considerable property in Cleckheaton. In looking over some very old deeds I find that the old Pear Tree property at one time belonged to a Rev. Mr. Fearnley, who may have been John's father. Benjamin Fearnley and his wife at one time lived in one of the two houses which stood about where Hepworth's clothier's shop is at present, and one of their daughters was married to Mr. James S Broadbent, cardmaker of Round Hill (Mr Broadbent was one of "Old Neddy's" apprentices). And I shall be right in saying here that Mrs Benjamin Fearnley left a small legacy to Red Chapel, which sum is paid at the present time by the five owners of the property on the old Pear Tree estate.

Having given to the best of my ability the history of the families I have named, I must retrace my steps back to John Brooke's shop. Prior to the Plug Riots in 1842, it was at one time a machine making shop. The master - or, say the tenant - was Sam Wood. His lathes were turned by hand by means of a "swape." One of his apprentices was John Harrison (uncle to the writer), son of Jacob Harrison of Birkenshaw. John married a Mary Birkby of The Square, sister to Joseph Brooke's wife, a stonemason, who built two of the finest stone mill chimneys to be seen in the Spen Valley today - one at Nelroyd, for Alexander Dixon (say 1843 or 1844), the works then being at Spen (Alick Hill); the other that of the Mann's at Spen Corn Mill. They are both on the Gomersal side. Sam Wood left Cleckheaton and went to Strawberry Bank in Liversedge, now pulled down. The writer has at the present time an armchair that was made at Wood's works, but I cannot say at which place. After Wood left Cleckheaton, if I am rightly informed, the place was rented by one of our town's clothiers named George Yates, son of William, Wall Nook, where Mr. G. Jackson resides, and the field that is now Brooke Street was his tenter field. The posts were stone. Mr Yates lived in the ancient brick house that stands today near the top of Brooke Street. At the present time there is a stone tablet over the front door, but I find all that was on it is perished. This house was at one time the home of the Brookes.

I now come to 1842, when the building was made into a barracks. The soldiers were drilled behind or over the wall in the garden. The sentinel on duty paraded from which is now Dr. Sykes's house, day and night, to the top of Peg Lane. After the soldiers left the town the shop was rented by Jonathan Allatt, joiner and millwright, who occupied half of the present brick house. Across the road was Allatt's wood yard and saw pit. All sawing at that time was done by hand labour, one man at the top and one at the bottom. The fence wall was one side of the saw pit. This plot of land was Brooke's portion of the town's Green, purchased in recent years by our U.D.C. for the market.

The next block of property owned by the Brooke family was the ancient hall'd looking house at the top of Peg Lane. The shop, I am inclined to think, would be that of John Brooke, the hardware dealer. In 1842, it was occupied by a Swinley man, Samuel Sugden, overlooker at Peg Mill. He was father to Ed. Sugden, who was for more than forty years postmaster for Cleckheaton. Prior to Sugden, I am told there lived another John Brooke - "John Maria" - to distinguish him from other John Brookes. He made a few pence by selling sweets, and at holiday times, and by keeping a "lake house" for young folks - at one time a very common custom. It is said that John rose to a position of some means as a draper. In his poorer days he sold "shabra," a cheap cotton, for Dame Booth, whose shop was where the West Riding Bank stands today. This shop was once robbed by a man from Gomersal, and he was hanged at York, the last man, it is said, to suffer the extreme penalty for housebreaking. The two houses adjoining Sugden's shop and fronting into the lane, were for a great number of years occupied by Mercy Haley and two of her daughters, and a married grandson, S. Sowden. She was the widow of Wm. Haley, and he the son of James Haley, who was put town's apprentice (from Mirfield), at the age of seven years, to Dame Woodhead's father of Syke Fold, clothier. Mercy's four sons were Jonas Haley, machine maker, who ended his days in Dewsbury; James, a shoemaker, who died at Pudsey; William, a wool washer of Peg Mill, who died in Neddy's Fold (now named Market Square); and Samuel, a cardmaker, who came to grief in 1870 in the Blackpool trip accident.

At present the oldest cardmaking firm in Cleckheaton, with one exception, is that of Fox and Sons in Quarry Road. Sam Haley was put apprentice in his early years to Wm. Birkby of Brookhouses, as a "living in" 'prentice. All the teeth at that time were put in by hand - coarse kinds 1,200 for a halfpenny, fine say 900 or 100 for a halfpenny - mostly by women and children. On leaving Birkby's, Mr Haley began business for himself in a small way, in the early 40s. He and his brother Bill were among the first to join the Cleckheaton old reed band. Sam was a great lover of music, like most of the Haley family. I shall be right in saying they inherited it from their grandfather, James Haley, who was one of the first to sing by note in Cleckheaton. He (Sam) was a member of the Philharmonic Society, and also of the Bradford Old Choral Society, with which he sang at the great festival at the Crystal Palace and also at Birmingham. At one time also he was a singer at the Old White Chapel, the Old Red Chapel and Providence Place Chapel. He took a deep interest in town's affairs, prior to our Local Board, and at one time was a town's constable. Before the police force was established, he was one of the watch and ward men whose meeting place was behind Mr. Navey's shop.

The next block was owned, and partly occupied by George Roberts, junior, a stone mason, mostly employed in making gravestones in his own yard. He was a son of George Roberts, who built St. John's church, a portion of which, it is said, fell during the building. In the first of the three low-decker cottages lived Richard Armitage ("Dick Tidge") and his wife Maria, who hailed from near Wakefield. The lowest of the three cottages was a beerhouse called the the Waggon and Horses. The signboard was fixed on to two long posts, almost as high as the ridge. The comely dame of the house was Ann Garside ("Old Nanny"), who later took the Old Oak. In this house in former times, I am told, lived Job Mallinson (father to Luke, who left thirteen daughters). Job was at one time postmaster of Cleckheaton - the first probably - and he had to fetch his letters from Mill Bridge (brought by the mail coach). Then came the open field right down to Ings Well. This well was a pure spring, never failing, and by the largest portion of the inhabitants at that day, it was highly valued. It was also a general meeting place for gossip, both by old and young, and a noted place for lovers to meet. To get down to the well there was a flight of steps, and over the top a large stone cover. Many, many were the tales told here while people sat on this cover and waited for their turn at the well. Over the fence was the field owned by the Atkinsons, reaching down to the then sparkling stream (the River Spen).