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Holmfirth is now a small town on the A6024 Woodhead Road in the modern civil parish (post 1974) of Holme Valley, within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. Centred upon the confluence of the Holme and Ribble rivers, Holmfirth is south of Huddersfield and northeast of Glossop. It is nestled in the Pennine hills and mostly consists of stone-built cottages. The Peak District National Park is to the south of the town.
Prior to the formation of Holmfirth as a civil parish and urban district, the township was a chapelry in the ecclesiastical parish of Kirkburton and part of the Huddersfield Registration District. Some of the places that later became a part of Holmsfirth were located in the ecclesiastical parish of Almondbury, west of Holmfirth. [edit] History
The name Holmfirth derives from Old English holegn ('holly'), in the name of Holme, West Yorkshire, compounded with Middle English frith ('wood'). It thus meant 'the woods at Holme'. The town originally grew up around a corn mill and bridge in the 13th century. Three hundred years later Holmfirth expanded rapidly as the growing cloth trade grew and the production of stone and slates from the surrounding quarries increased. The present parish church was built in 1778 after the church built in 1476 was swept away in a flood the previous year. Dr Albert Lister Peace was the church's organist, at the age of nine, in the early 1850s. In 1850 Holmfirth railway station opened, on the branch line built by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. Local men who served and died in the First and Second World Wars are commemorated on the Holme Valley War Memorial found outside Holme Valley Memorial Hospital. [edit] Bamforth & CoHolmfirth was the home of Bamforth & Co Ltd, who were well known for their cheeky seaside postcards – although around the time of the First World War, the postcards they produced were of a more sober nature. The printing works were on Station Road have now been converted into other use. Bamforth's company were early pioneers of film-making, before they abandoned the business in favour of postcards. During the early 1900s Holmfirth was well known in this new art form; During the periods 1898–1900 and 1913–1915 Bamforth and Co. produced what the British Film Institute describes as 'a modest but historically significant collection of films'. [edit] FloodingThere are a number of instances when flooding has occurred in the Holme Valley affecting Holmfirth and other settlements in the valley. The earliest recorded Holmfirth flood was in 1738 and the most recent was 1944. The most severe flood occurred early on the morning of 5 February 1852, when the embankment of the Bilberry Reservoir collapsed causing the deaths of 81 people. Following a severe storm in 1777 the River Holme burst its banks, sweeping away people and property with the loss of three lives; the stone church built in 1476, was also swept away. A storm in 1821 again caused the river to burst its banks. The flooding on the night of 29 May 1944 was not nationally reported because it was overshadowed by the D-Day landings the following week. [edit] Research Tips
One contributor to WeRelate has provided many pages on the families of the Holmfirth area. For this reason many of the small villages and hamlets are listed separately. The maps listed above will help to lay out the locations of these small places in relation to each other and may thus explain how far a man went to find his bride or why he moved his family from one village to another between censuses.
Categories: West Riding of Yorkshire, England | Holmfirth, West Riding of Yorkshire, England | Almondbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, England | Kirkburton, West Riding of Yorkshire, England | Agbrigg and Morley Wapentake, West Riding of Yorkshire, England | Holme Valley, West Yorkshire, England | Kirklees (metropolitan borough), West Yorkshire, England |