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| SILSDEN TOWN DESIGN STATEMENT | |
2. HISTORY OF SILSDEN Silsden acquired its name about 500 AD. and it is derived from two Saxon words: "Sighle" - a Saxon farmer, and "Dene”- land lying in a hollow; hence the name Silsden means "the land in the hollow When the Normans were compiling their Domesday Book they showed Silsden as the most important village in Craven, in which there were 800 taxable acres - compared with 300 at Skipton, and 200 at Addingham. Some significant historical references are: 1090 - King William gave the Manor of Silsden to Robert de Romille, a Norman Knight. In 1122 his daughter gave land and the rights of a mill at Silsden to the Canons at Embsay. The Order of Knights Templars held land in Silsden in 1185 and when the Order was suppressed in 1312 their lands were bestowed on the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from which we derive St. John Street, where a cross of St. John may be seen on the apex of a gable. A cottage in St. John Street bears the oldest date in Silsden - 1636.
1629 - The old packhorse bridge in Keighley Road near the present Aire Bridge dates from this year and is one of the narrowest in the country. It is still in an excellent state of preservation, although the stream that it once crossed has now been diverted. 1712 - the foundations of the present Parish Church were established when Francis Stirk and Peter Cowling purchased land and a barn for l0s.0d from the Earl of Thanet. 1732 - there are records of flax being grown extensively on Silsden Moor to meet the demand for cordage and sails for the Royal Navy. 1750 - Bishop Pococks, writing of his travels, states that the moors on the way to Silsden (probably at Robin Hood, where coal was worked up to recent years) were full of coal and that approximately 3 cwt. of coal could be bought for 4d. at the pits. 1761 - the first record of a nailmaker - see below. The growth of local population has been steady rather than spectacular as follows: -
Several elements of the economic life of Silsden are worth noting : Nail-making & clog iron making The first record of nail-making in Silsden can be found in the Parish Register of Kildwick, which records a “nailmaker from Silsden” in 1761. He was William West, believed to have come from Birmingham to live in the area - at Sycamore Farm, Brunthwaite - around 1760, and brought with him his trade as a nailmaker. Until 1850 the industry was always domestic or semi-domestic, the local farmers supplementing their income by having a smithy on the farm. At the height of the industry there were over 209 nail-making smithies within a mile of the village centre, and the only nail-maker in nearby Addingham was from Silsden. By 1850 it became difficult to compete with mass-production methods. One by one the Silsden smithies were driven out of business and the trade ceased locally in 1919. In June 1939 a nailmaker’s smithy was acquired by Manchester Museum. Clog-iron making began around 1850 in Silsden and the last firm to make clog-irons - Thomas Green’s, Sykes Lane - ceased in 1950. Textiles: The processing of wool into cloth by domestic handlooms has been carried out in Silsden for centuries, but no direct records are available until 1712-1714, when the Kildwick Parish Register began to record the occupations of the parishioners. Until 1836 all spinning and weaving in Silsden was done by hand, often to supplement income from other sources. In the 18th century it is recorded that men of the family at Cowburn Beck, as well as farming, combined the trades of mason, joiner, blacksmith, turner, mechanic, bee-keeper and woolcomber. In 1835-6 the Beck’s Mill was built on Keighley Road, by Joshua Fletcher, Henry Mitchell and James Gill (most of it demolished in the mid-1980’s). Previously there were between 200-300 handlooms in use in Silsden, until 1837, when William Wright introduced power looms, driven by water from nearby Stakes Beck. Domestic weaving died out as one machine in less than a day could weave more than all the handlooms in a week. The very first machine weavers worked from 6am to 7.30pm, (4.30pm on Saturdays) and could be fined for being a minute late for work. Yet one of these, Lot Robinson, worked until he was 82 - spending 70 years in the textile trade. As the old trades of nail-making and clog-iron making declined, textiles went from strength to strength. The industry’s height was between the two wars, when there were over 15 textile mills in the village. The “Textile Argus” of 1927 stated, “Silsden has during recent years become a most industrious textile centre. It is unquestionably the busiest place in the West Riding, has a population of some 5000 and is in the happy state of having no unemployed, with at least 75% of the workers owning their houses”. It is said that in their heyday the mills employed at least one person from every home in Silsden. Now, in 2003, there is only one, on the site of the old dye-works in Keighley Road. “50 Shilling Tailors”: Henry (Harry) Price, who was born in 1877 and died in 1963, started a clothing business in Silsden in 1899 by selling hosiery from his cottage. Later he set up his first clothing shop in Kirkgate. At 19 years of age Harry was made manager of the “Grand Clothing hall” in Keighley, and his wife continued to run the Silsden business. His breakthrough came in 1920, when he introduced the “fifty bob suit”, the price of an average weekly wage. “I can halve my prices and double my sales,” he said of his revolutionary production line techniques. He was knighted in 1937. He went to live in West Sussex with his second wife but never forgot his northern roots, giving cash support to Silsden Playing Fields fund, and he was President of Silsden Agricultural Show. Silsden Cooperative Society: The Co-op played a very important part in Silsden life. The society was formed in 1874 as a coal cooperative, due to the fact that in 1873 the local coal merchants had increased their prices by three times in one week. Several people thought that undue advantage was being taken, held consultations and then called a meeting of people who were dissatisfied with the prices being charged. The new society at first experienced difficulty in obtaining coal supplies but did eventually overcome the problem. By 1875 a grocery business began, with supplies distributed from the kitchen of a founder member, Mr. T Widdop. The first store was opened in 1881 in St. John Street, followed by one in Bridge Street the same year. The main offices and shops by the canal bridge date from 1908. Other stores followed in Keighley Road, at the junction with Walker’s Place; at South View Terrace; and at Dradishaw Road. Now there is only one shop left, Bridge Street Food Fair - built almost on the original site.
Other industries In the early 19th century Silsden was noted for the quality of its hats, another home-based industry: Joseph Linford in St. John’s Street and William Berry in Albert Square were specialists in making top hats, especially for local horsemen. A chair-making factory, owned by the Laycock farming family, stood on the site of the local reservoir and employed many local people until 1858 when the reservoir was built. Brewing was a domestic industry for centuries, and several individuals sold beer from their homes: at the bottom of Bradley Road, Jonas Throup sold beer from the ground floor of his home - now a barber’s shop - while he ran a small wool-combing business upstairs; he was also the village constable. In the early 20th Century Silsden had a sweet manufacturers, Frank Pollard & Son, near Wesley Place, whose most famous product was a sweet called Owd Toms. The 2003 closure of Cooper’s Shoe Shop marks the end of a family business that began as a cobbler’s shop around 1770. Among other industries have been a Tannery; three large Timber Merchants; the Meddocream ice-cream factory; Briggs Printers; a Dye Works; and an Ordnance Factory.
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belonging to Sighle”. The earliest evidence of habitation is at Counter Hill on the road to Addingham, where two defensive earth works have been discovered, attributed to the Brigantees, a tribe who fiercely resisted the Roman invasion in 78 AD. One of the camps contains a tumulus or burial ground. Although Silsden is very close to Ilkley, the Roman camp of Olicana, very little evidence of Roman occupation has been discovered. After the Romans came the Saxons and they founded all the villages of Craven. 
1613 - a wooden bridge is recorded. Prior to this the old road to Steeton passed over the river by stepping-stones and a ford about 100 yds. above the present bridge.
1658 - 520 
The Canal Wharf: In 1773 the first boatloads of coal passed along the local stretch of the new Leeds-Liverpool canal. The wharf was developed for unloading goods and became a hive of industry, with a two-storey warehouse. In the late 1700’s this was the largest room in the village and was used for Saturday night dances and get-togethers with a resident fiddler, Blind Jack. Around the wharf were shops and various workshops, and boat trips could be made.| SILSDEN TOWN DESIGN STATEMENT | |
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