Slaithwaite Feature
       An artists impression of how the village of Slaithwaite used to look
Slaithwaite
Reflflections of yesterday.
By Mark Sheppard
“Twit-Twoo”
it’s “Slawit” to you!
Slaithwaite, known locally as Slawit, is a a village within the Colne Valley region, lying across the River Colne and the Huddersfifield Narrow Canal.
The village was part of the Earl of Dartmouth estates, a chapelry, in the parishes of Huddersfifield and Almondbury union of
Huddersfifield, Upper division of the wapentake of Agbrigg and included the township of ‘Lingarths’ (Lingards).
In the early 19th century a local spring was discovered to contain sulphurous properties and minerals, similar to those found in Harrogate. Sometime after 1820, a bathing facility was built, along with gardens and pleasure ground, with some visitor cottages.A free school was founded in 1721 and
rebuilt twice: fifirst in 1744, and again in 1842.
In the 1848 edition of ‘A Topographical Dictionary of England’, Samuel Lewis (the editor) wrote:- “the lands are in meadow and pasture,with a small portion of arable; the scenery is bold and romantic. In the quarries of the district are found vegetable fossils, especially fifirs and other mountain trees.The village is beautifully seated in the valley of the River Colne; the inhabitants are chieflfly employed in the woollen manufacture, in the spinning of cotton and silk, and in
silk-weaving”
Slaithwaite Hall, thought to date from the mid-15th century, is located on a nearby hillside. It is one of a number of cruck-framed buildings clustered in this area of WestYorkshire.After many years divided into cottages, the building has been extensively restored and is now a single dwelling.
Legend has it that local smugglers caught by the excise men tried to explain their nocturnal activities as ‘raking the moon from the canal’ and defifinitely not as ‘fifishing out smuggled brandy.
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