Cononley
| Cononley | |
| Yorkshire West Riding | |
|---|---|
 View over Cononley | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SD988469 |
| Location: | 53°55’5"N, 2°1’5"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,172 (2011) |
| Post town: | Keighley |
| Postcode: | BD20 |
| Dialling code: | 01535 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | North Yorkshire |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Skipton and Ripon |
Cononley is a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the area of the riding known as Craven. It sits in Airedale, three miles south of Skipton.
The 2011 census recorded the village as housing 1,172 souls.
The village sis on the Leeds-Carlisle railway, with Cononley railway station giving commuter access to Leeds and Bradford.
Name
The name 'Cononley' is from Old English, but of uncertain derivation. The ending 'ley' refers to a meadow or a clearing in the then wooded Aire valley. The first part of the name is derived from either a personal name or a river or beck name.
The Cononley local historian, Trevor Hodgson, collected more than 60 different spellings of the name, in use from the 11th century onwards. Early spellings such as 'Conundley' and Cunanlay' may represent older pronunciations of the name.
History
There is evidence that people first settled around Cononley in the Bronze and Iron Ages.[1]
The Domesday Book contains only a brief mention of Cononley.
By the 12th century the present village had been laid out on a deliberate plan which is most obvious on the north side of Main Street where the plots (or 'tofts') ran northwards to Back (now Meadow) Lane.[1] It may not be a coincidence that from the 12th century a significant part of the cultivated land was owned by Bolton Priory. Both Bolton Priory's Compotus (a listing of income and expenditure)[2] and the Priory's records listing around 70 gifts of land in Cononley[3] have survived. The latter record includes recognisable place names such as 'Dedehee' (Dead Eye). A smaller estate was owned by the Knights Hospitallers of St. John.
At the dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s, the Priory's lands were bought by Henry Clifford, 1st. Earl of Cumberland. In addition, half a dozen properties that had belonged to the Knights Hospitaller remained in the hands of the Crown for the remainder of the 16th century.[4]
The financial difficulties of the 3rd Earl of Cumberland wa an opportunity for a number propspering Cononley farmers to buy their lands,[1][5] which left its mark on the village because they were able to begin to rebuild their houses in stone, and thereafetr it was faming families who dominated the vilage. Roger Swire became a landowner in Cononley about 1627 and by the later 18th century his family had come to dominate property ownership in the village.[1]
The Swire Family lived at Cononley Hall from the 17th to the 19th centuries ,though parts of the house are far older: the oldest part of the present Hall was built in the 1680s for Samuel and Elizabeth Swire. According to John William Moorhouse, who could have been present, during alterations to the building in 1903 a 'secret passage' was found near the large fireplace on the ground floor of 'The Old Hall'. The discovery was linked to a earlier story that a Jacobite kinsman of the then owners, another Samuel and Elizabeth Swire, had escaped from the hall through such a passage in 1745 when pursued by the King's forces.[1][6]
Roger Swire (1735–78) was the principal beneficiary of the enclosure of Cononley Moor in 1768. The enclosure completed a process which had been underway in Cononley for centuries and which removed the last common land available to smallholders with little land of their own.[1] Another major beneficiary was Richard Wainman of Carr Head in Cowling, who was a descendant of the above mentioned Bradley family.
The Industrial Age
Between 1790 and 1810 a small water powered cotton mill operated at the upper end of the village.[1] Woollen textile production would remain a domestic industry for several more decades. A group of self-employed men founded the Cononley Club Row Building Society in 1822. By 1832 they had built 32 houses on Cross Hills Road all of which were designed to hold looms. Club Row, also known as Union Row and now Aire View, acquired the nickname 'Frying Pan Row' after a story told by Enoch Whitaker (1831–1922) who actually owned the frying pan.[1] In 1837 two separately owned mills were built close together between the village and the River Aire. The 'High' and 'Low' mills, as they were known, were built parallel with each other and at right angles to the road to Farnhill and Kildwick. Fortunately, the High Mill, identified by its bell cote and Venetian window, survived later changes on the site and has now been converted into apartments. The 1841 census recorded the fact that around 500 men, women and children, three-quarters of the Cononley workforce were working in the textile industry. No less than 112 of these people lived on Club Row. By 1881 the proportion of textile workers had declined to under a half of those employed in Cononley.[7] The opening of the railway in 1847 will have helped to increase the diversification of occupations. By 1851 the population of Cononley had grown to 1,272.
The 1840s and 1850s saw the high point of production at Cononley Lead Mine which was owned, then as now, by the Dukes of Devonshire, who had inherited the manor once owned by the Earls of Cumberland. In the late 1860s the 'New Mill', officially known as Aireside Mill, was built across the River Aire, in what was then, Farnhill. At the end of the 19th century Station Mills were rebuilt to form a single building parallel with the road, also incorporating the 1837 High Mill and the earlier mill chimney, which remains a Cononley landmark.
The Twentieth Century
In 1905 Station Mills was bought to be used for the production of cotton textiles. After 1910 a substantial part of the building, known as Station Works, housed the pioneering dynamo and electric motor factory of Horace Green & Co. After the First World War Horace Green's factory was considerably extended. By then the Aireside Mill was occupied by the worsted spinning business of Thomas Stell & Co.[1]
In the early 20th century Cononley was a self-sufficient community. It was well served with churches and chapels. There were more than ten shops including the Cononley Co-operative Society and a post office.[8] The village had had four inns but two of these were closed in 1907. The Village Institute opened in 1909, partly to provide a non-denominational but, more especially, alcohol free place for people to use their leisure time productively.
The second half of the 20th century also saw the end of Cononley as a major manufacturing centre: Peter Green & Co. closed in 1968, Thomas Stell & Co. closed in 1979 and finally, Horace Green & Co. ceased production in 1997.
About the village
The 2011 census record a population of 1,172. Farming is still significant, and there are still a few local businesses. Part of the working community in the village commute to Skipton and Keighley, or further, to Leeds and Bradford.
The village has a joint Anglican-Methodist church, a primary school, two public houses and a shop.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Cononley) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Hodgson, Trevor; Gulliver, David (2000). The History of Cononley: an Airedale Village. Kiln Hill. ISBN 0-9538970-0-1.
- ↑ Kershaw, Ian; Smith, David (2000). "The Bolton Priory Compotus 1286–1325 together with a Priory Account Roll for 1377–78". YAS Record Series 154.
- ↑ Legg, Katrina (2009). "The Lost Cartulary of Bolton Priory: an edition of the Coucher Book and Charters". YAS Record Series 160.
- ↑ Cronley, E. W. (1920). "The Preceptory of Newland". Miscellanea 1, YAS Record Series 61.
- ↑ Spence, R. T. (1995). The Privateering Earl: George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland 1558-1605. Alan Sutton. ISBN 0-75090892-0.
- ↑ Moorehouse, John William (1878–1959)
- ↑ Gill, M. C. (1999). "Cononley: The Anatomy of a Mining Village". British Mining (NMRS) 63: 34–47.
- ↑ Hodgson, Trevor; Gulliver, David (2002). Cononley: Photographs of an Airedale Village. Kiln Hill. ISBN 0-9538970-3-6.