Norland

Norland is a small but very historic West Yorkshire village, which lies just south of the towns of Halifax and Sowerby Bridge. The rivers Calder and Ryburn are the historic northern and western boundaries of the parish, although Norland did concede some land to the growing town of Sowerby Bridge in the 19th century. The land rises steeply from the valleys to a high point on Norland Moor at 284 m (932 feet). There is evidence of activity in prehistoric times and the area was used as hunting grounds by feudal lords. Later sheep rearing, spinning wool and cloth making created great wealth for some families, as displayed in the magnificent halls built in the 17th century. Quarrying was also a significant factor in the economic growth of the village. Historically the core of the village was Norland Town, the area around Town House, Lower Old Hall, Upper Old Hall and Fallingworth, but in the second half of the 19th century the creation of Berry Moor Road (on what had been moorland) and the building of the church (1866) and  school (1871), followed by the creation of the Memorial Park in the 1920s, shifted the focus further south, so that nowadays most people would recognise the crossroads by the church as the centre of the village. However, there are also several smaller distinct clusters of development scattered along three miles of hillside. The population of the village rose steadily to a peak of approximately 1,800 in the second half of the 19th century. However, increasingly most of the work available was in industrial Sowerby Bridge or Halifax and this led to a steady decline in population. Conversely, the townspeople flocked to Norland on Sundays and holidays as Norland and its Moor became the go-to place to escape the smoke and grime in the valley. Today Norland is an idyllic rural village, unspoiled by development. It is one of the few villages in Calderdale not to have a "modern" housing estate.

This website is the result of over 18 years of researching the history of the village, but it was the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 that gave me the time to start to put it together.  There are many gaps in places (from lack of time, rather than lack of information) and there is still plenty to add. It is intended to be a repository of information collated from a variety of sources for anyone interested in understanding aspects of Norland's history. The booklet "Nobbut Norland" that a group of us produced in 2011 and which was never reprinted, can be found on here.

If you are viewing the website on a smartphone, or in portrait format on a tablet, the extended menu can be found by clicking on the three bars top left.

There is also a Facebook page (search Norland Village History) where I will post about updates to the website.

If you have some information about the village or people who lived here, please feel free to contact me (Dick Spendlove  rspendlove46@gmail.com  or click on the yellow and black icon bottom right). If you  have additional material, I would be grateful if you could let me know the source of the information as well. Likewise, let me know if you believe something on the site needs correcting. Please don't be offended if I don't react and reply immediately; I have quite a busy life and this is not my sole interest!

I am indebted to many people and freely acknowledge  the contribution they have made to my research:

• everyone involved with the Nobbut Norland project in 2010-11
• the staff of Calderdale Libraries who were inadvertently omitted from the list of thanks in 2011
• West Yorkshire Archive Service
• the staff of Bankfield Museum
• Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion - an excellent website and a mine of information
• my friends at the Halifax Great War Heritage Society (now renamed Halifax Military History Society) for all their work on indexing the local newspapers for the WWI years
• Roger Beasley for his work on the Sowerby Bridge Chronicle 
• the Calderdale Family History Society
• Anthony Greenwood for his technical advice
• Elaine Beach, Rob Hamilton, Garry Stringfellow, Murie Ronald, Jeanette Thompson, Rob Sumner and Phillip Whitaker for additional information and/or material.