Place:Skircoat, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Skircoat is now a district of Calderdale immediately to the south of Halifax in West Yorkshire, England.

In the 13th century, the land was granted to the Earl Warren, and then passed to the Savile family. It was an independent township before being absorbed by the Borough of Halifax in 1892. The name was originally Schircotes and means building on the rocks.

Four areas which make up the present Skircoat district or ward are King Cross (or Kingcross), Skircoat Green, Salterhebble and Savile Park.

Historically, Skircoat was in the ecclesiastical parish of Halifax in the Morley Division of the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley. Skircoat started out as a township within Halifax parish. It was made a civil parish in 1866. In 1894 it was divided between Halifax Rural District and Sowerby Bridge Civil Parish. In 1899 the section within Halifax Rural Parish was absorbed into Halifax County Borough.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Skircoat. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Halifax provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Skircoat.
• A Vision of Britain through Time also provides links to three maps for what is now South Yorkshire, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. These maps all blow up to a scale that will illustrate small villages and large farms or estates.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey West Riding South 1900. The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. (the southern part of Bradford, the southern part of Leeds, the southern part of Tadcaster Rural District, the southern part of Selby, Goole Rural District, and all the divisions of Halifax, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Doncaster, Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield)
• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1944. The urban and rural districts of the whole of the West Riding after the revisions of 1935.