What was it like, living in a tiny hillside village in your great-grandparents’ day? Perhaps your ancestors lived here, above busy Keighley town? This fascinating guidebook, in four parts, recreates the flavour of life in a hamlet overlooking Worth Valley in West Yorkshire. Part One includes the families Barker, Bolton, Brogden, Clapham, Feather, Jowett. Laycock, Lister, Midgley, Pickard, Steel, Whitfield and a dozen more.
We praise those who converted the common land of Branshaw Moor into good farmland by pure manual labour. They created soil of lasting value yet were themselves never far from poverty and the Workhouse. Indeed, in 1834 the speech of the visiting Commissioner of the Poor Law Amendment Act so infuriated the populace that he had to flee, clothing torn, amidst shouts and hisses.
But we also value their social get-togethers, their joys, relationships and farewells. In our big group photo, celebrating the Coronation in 1953, one hundred and twenty of us have been identified. Is that your great-grandma with her playmates? Did she tell you they dared each other to paddle through a little tunnel under Oakworth Road? This book is unique in that it proudly records every ancestral family through generations, with dates in searchable lists, along with pictures of the houses where they lived. But also all records their life experience: the cricket pitch up Occupation Lane, their Grammar School three centuries before Oakbank School.
To re-create the unique taste of life in this old village, join our tour of historical landmarks guided by photos maps and documents.
Table of Content
1. Location of Exley Head
2: Photo of many Village Residents in 1953
3a. Alphabetical List of Families
3c. About Their Homes
3d. History Of Houses
3e. The Meaning of our village name, Toponomy
4b. Shops
4c1. Wash Houses
4c2. The Little Bridge
4d1. Occupation Lane
4d2. Cricket
4d2. Bracken Brow
4e. Oak Bank
4f2. The Free School
4f3. Parish Workhouse
4f4. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834
4f5. Vigorous opposition to the Act in Keighley
4f6. The New Workhouse and The Poor Farm
4g2. Where was the old village well?
4g3. Our cross was a ‘Wayside Cross’
Np. Natural plants
Nw. Lost Woodland
Rs. Spring Lines
FAc. Chemistry of soils
FAi. Intaking
FAL. Land Drains in Moorland
FAn. Names of Fields, Toponomy
FAv. Historic Value of Land
FAy. Year of land improvement
Gi. National Intaking
About the author
The author, David Kidd, was born in Exley Head and spent his childhood at 130 Wheathead Lane, Holden Street near Hoyle Fold, but when he was a teenager his father, Fred Kidd, moved house to other places to be nearer his jobs, however they all came back to Exley Head every weekend to see and hear what was going on from the many relatives. Moving away was a loss to them, but thinking about it later they realized it gave them a clearer memory of what it used to be like before modernization swept over the village.
When Fred retired he moved back to nearby here and worked on recording this history however he died in 2000 with it unfinished. This book is the completion of the late Dr. Fred Kidd’s aim. His son David earned a degree in Graphic Design and has been practising book design and illustration for 35 years. He describes his work as simple, professional and elegant; and strives to maintain clear communication of the concepts and deliver a creative solution.
Kidd worked for thirty years producing books for these educational publishers:
Blackie & Son of Glasgow
W & R Chambers of Edinburgh
Oxford University Press
University of California Department of Agriculture
Addison Wesley
Kidd drew diagrams and illustration for these subjects
University level: agriculture, biology, science of music
Popular books: perspective drawing for cartoonists
School level: mathematics, computer literacy
Professional journals, antiquarian books dealers; medical doctors and nurses.
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