Clay House, West Vale - DPC00353

Clay House is a Jacobean building, a fine example of seventeenth century vernacular architecture, located within a beautiful rural park in the village of West Vale, less than a mile from Elland and less than three miles from Halifax. Built c1650 for John Clay, the house may have originally been designed as two dwellings. When John Clay died in 1654 he left to Margaret, his son’s widow £10 a year and the east end of the ‘newly builded house’. A window in the hall has a painted panel with the Clay coat of arms and ‘IMC 1675’. Etched in the glass are the lines ‘Where e’er she treads blushing Flowers shall rise and all things prosper where she turns her eyes’.
It is owned now by Calderdale Council, and is the official start (and end) point for The Calderdale Way, a 50-mile walking route that circles the borough of Calderdale

PHDA - Dave Pearson Collection

Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

DPC00353.tif