Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for HECKMONDWIKE

HECKMONDWIKE, a town and a township-chapelry in Birstal parish, W. R. Yorkshire. The town stands on an affluent of the river Calder, and on the Milfield and Bradford branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, 2½ miles NW of Dewsbury; is a chief seat of the blanket trade, well built, and under a board of Health; and has a post office‡ under Normanton, a railway station with telegraph, a banking office, two chief inns, a blanket hall, a freemasons' hall, a church, two Independent chapels, a Wesleyan chapel, a Free Methodist chapel, and a national school. The church was built in 1831; is in the pointed style; and consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with tower and spire. The Independent chapels are handsome edifices of 1854 and 1860, built at costs of upwards of £3, 000 and £2, 000. Blanket markets are held, in the blanket hall, on every Monday and Thursday; and cattle fairs are held on the first Monday of May and the first Monday of Nov. The blanket trade is extensive; and sent supplies to both the British army and the French army during the Crimean war. There are factories also for carpets, rugs, pilots, and other fabrics; and coal mining is carried on in the neighbourhood. The town comprises all Heckmondwike township and part of Liversedge. Pop. in 1861, 8, 680. Houses, 1,830.-The township or chapelry comprises 663 acres. Real property, £17, 153; of which £1, 857 are in mines, and £12 in quarries. Pop. in 1851, 4, 540; in 1861, 6, 344. Houses, 1, 317. The increase of pop. arose from the extension of the blanket and the carpet manufactures. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Ripon. Value, £300. Patron, the Vicar of Birstal.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town and a township-chapelry"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Yorkshire AncC
Place: Heckmondwike

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