Settlement: OS Grid Reference – SE 2042 0697
Taking the A629 road between Shepley and Ingbirchworth, as you hit the staggered crossroads at High Flatts, take the west turn up the slightly sloping straight road of Windmill Lane. Just where the road ‘kinks’ at a small bend, stop and look into the field on your left.
Archaeology & History
Deemed by some as a hillfort, and others as settlement remains, what little are left of the remaining earthworks here were first described by local historian Henry Morehouse in 1861. Found about a mile west of Upper Denby, the site was described in the Victoria County History as being “on a commanding though not exactly a defensive situation on the slope of a hill.” This remark coming from the belief (and that’s all it is) that this was an Iron Age castle site. In 1924 James Petch said of it,
“The earthwork seems originally to have been almost square, and two sides and an angle remain. The external ditch is from ten to twelve feet broad in its present state.”
While Faull & Moorhouse (1981) tell of there being “evidence for Neolithic activity” here, modern surveyors reckon it as an old prehistoric settlement — which makes sense; though little of the site remains to be seen today.
References:
- Faull, M.L. & Moorhouse, S.A., West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey, I, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
- Morehouse, Henry James, History and Antiquities of the Parish of Kirkburton and the Graveship of Holme, Roebuck: Huddersfield 1861.
- Petch, James A., Early Man in the District of Huddersfield, Huddersfield 1924.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
