Dumb Mill Bridge, Shibden Valley - TWA00216

DUMB MILL BRIDGE in the Shibden Valley has been known successively as Barrowclough Bridge, Place Bridge, Deaf Mill Bridge and its present name. It spans the Red Beck which was the boundary between the Hipperholme and Southowram townships. The stream used to be called place Brook, after a house in Southowram, hence the name place Bridge. In 1427 Hipperholme tenants were assessed 20s to repair the highway ‘Balybrigg to Barowecloghbrigg.’ In ‘Halifax Wills II’ (NO 29) it is recorded that John Homes of ‘Norwodgrene’ left, 12 March 1546 – ‘Itm, to the highe waie mendinge betwixte Kirkebie (Birkebie) lone head and Plaice brige viijs viijs.’ W.B. Crump wrote:- ‘The old mill adjoining the bridge was in some unexplained way both deaf and dumb. In the 17th century they called it Deaf Mill, then later Dumb Mill.’ Oliver Heywood wrote of ‘Deaf-mill an alehouse.’ And in the Hipperholme Constable’s Accounts there is an entry for three shillings ‘for repair of Deafe Milne Bridge’ in 1669. Miss Anne Lister recorded in her diary that a former bridge was washed away in 1837.

Tom Walker

Olwen Forest

1960 , 1960s

PHDA - Tom Walker Collection

Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

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