Industrial History Online

Industrial History Online

Nab Hill Delphs

Description and History of Site:-
Workings on Nab Hill extend for over 1km north-south divided into a series of discrete delphs which were worked under different partnerships or ownerships. All worked flagstones and Fly Flats Sandstone in the Rough Rock Flags beds. From north to south they are Nab Hill Delphs, Woodcock Delph, Fly Delph, Far New Fly Delph, Nab Hill Quarry and Old Fly Delph. Woodcock also had several levels and shafts to access deeper and less weathered flagstone. Nab Hill Delphs have surviving infrastructure - dressing sheds, dressing floors, cabins, judd walls and trackways including an east-west stone-built causeway now used as a public footpath. Such was the scale of work here that there was a row of quarrymen's cottages and a public house, the Delvers' Arms, at SE0342 3195, all long since demolished. Nab Water Lane was the route by which stone products - mainly flagstone and roofing stone - was dispatched northwards, and southwards over Cold Edge. The first known date is 1841 when 14 men were employed here and maps of 1851 and c. 1880 show the workings.


Further Reading and References:-
WYAS Calderdale. SU 271/1. Plan of Nab Farm Estate, c. 1880.
WYAS Calderdale. CAC 33/4. Lease of Woodcock Delph, 1851.
Nab Hill Delphs Survey, Watershed Landscape, 2012.
Johnson, D. Quarrying in the Yorkshire Pennines. Amberley, 2016, p49, 50, 67.


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Key Words :- sandstone open workings levels flagstone

Viewing the Site :- Open Access under the CRoW Act 2000

Address :- Cold Edge Road and Nab Water Lane, Halifax and Howarth, West Yorkshire, BD22 9QF
Grid Ref :- SE 036 327
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.790604 , Long -1.946836
Local Authority :- Calderdale Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site derelict - some buildings remaining
Site Dates :- At least the 1840s - Partly still in use.
Record Date :- 14 February 2017

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © David Johnson