Description and History of Site:-

An extensive area of workings cut into Addingham Edge, extending for c. 500m east-west, with several discrete workings along the edge, with working faces at least 15m high. Abandoned part-finished millstones as well as gate stoups and dimension stone lay scattered through the whole set of workings. Nearly 30 roughouts have now been logged along with many other tooling marks, negatives, sledways, remains of an aerial ropeway and remains of a probable smithy.They were leased by the freeholders of Addingham, within which township it then lay,on short-term renewable leases on condition of paying 6s per pair of millstones to the freeholders beyond the first 16 pairs. Revenue was used for the benefit of the poor of the parish. In the early 18th century the lord of the manor had got hold of the rights to lease the workings and in 1774 it was subsumed within Silsden after a boundary dispute between the two manors. Two millstones were dispatched to Bainbridge corn mill in 1797, suggesting widespread markets for the products from here.

Further Reading and References:-

1. Keighley Museum 95:66. Memorandum. Lease for 11 yrs of Windgate Nick Cragg Quarry 22May 1712.
2. W.E. Preston. 1952. 'An Addingham millstone quarry' The Bradford Antiquary vol. IX New Ser. vol. VII, pp. 32-38.
3. Johnson, D.S. 'Millstone and grindstone production in the Pennines and north-west England: a historical and archaeological survey' Industrial Archaeology Review, 44 (2), 2022, pp. 120-32.

Possibly linked with WYK02615 and WYK02616

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Key Words :- addingham edge grit millstone quarrying

Viewing the Site :- Open Access

Address :- Addingham Moorside, Silsden and Addingham, West Yorkshire
Grid Ref :- SE0711347137
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.920326 , Long -1.893182
Local Authority :- City of Bradford
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site disused - but otherwise substantially intact
Site Dates :- - early 1800s
Contributor :- David Johnson - 17 November 2016

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