IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Weavers Lane, HUDDERSFIELD, HD7 4RU

In a free Classical style, dated 1868.

This photograph overlaps the previous one, but shows the front of the engine-house with its characteristic tall arched window. Two branches of Longwood Brook have been exposed, and perhaps, hopefully, they will be landscaped in a garden.

There mills are being converted to apartments. There were also buildings in the foreground.

The white-painted doorway leads to the screens passage of the 17C house. There is a similar doorway at the other end, although with a plain arched head. The present windows with plain stone mullions are of the late 18C or early 19C, and in the rendered gable-end there is a possible 17C window with mullions removed and a large sash window (late 19C?).

A group of houses listed by English Heritage as Royles head farmhouse. Their description is a little difficult to follow now, but the newly restored houses area described, and the white-painted doorway is part of the 17C farmhouse (see also next photograph).

See Image

When Huddersfield Corporation replaced the Dod-Lea tram service with trolleybuses, they found that the new vehicles had one disadvantage: Instead of being able to reverse without turning, (as the trams could), the trolleys needed space for the vehicle to turn round. At Dod-Lea space could not be found for this, so the route was slightly shortened to this point at the foot of Dod-Lea lane where a trolleybus turntable was built. The vehicle drove onto the table, which was then pushed round manually by the crew. The trolleybuses took over from 1 September 1939, but the turntable was not in use for long, as after the outbreak of war, (1) women were recruited as conductresses who were not strong enough to help the driver push the turntable round, and (2) blackout regulations meant that the crew could not see what they were doing. So in 1940, other arrangements were made and the turntable fell out of use. It was removed not long after this 1985 photograph was taken. There was only one other trolleybus turntable ever built in Britain, a long way away at Christchurch, Hampshire for Bournemouth Corporation.

These early 19C cottages are listed buildings and have been nicely restored apart from the exterior pipework on two of them, which presumably could not be avoided for some reason.