Golfers will be well used to seeing an imposing derelict building when they play at Meltham Golf Club.
The 200-year-old Grade II Heady Fields – which looks like a large stone barn but was actually two weavers cottages with attached small barns – has fallen into disrepair and the club submitted a planning application to Kirklees Council to convert it into four houses which was approved.
Under the proposal the barn – which can be seen off Wilshaw Road – will be transformed into two three-bedroom houses and two four-bedroom three-storey homes with master bedrooms and bathroom suites.
The plan also includes 13 parking spaces and an access road. There is no time scale as yet for the work to start.
The Headyfields property was originally part of Joseph Green-Armytage’s Thick Hollins Hall estate, named after the original holly groves on the site.
Following the establishment of the golf course in 1908 the building was occupied by the head greenkeeper until the First World War. Since 1933, it has been used to store machinery.
Huddersfield historian George Redmonds has now been able to shed light on the building’s history.
He said it dates back to the ancient Armytage family who lived at Thickhollins.
“When William Armytage of Thickhollins died in 1807 there was no Armytage heir and the estate passed to his relative, Joseph Green, who then became Mr Joseph Green-Armytage,” said George. “He immediately began to rebuild Thickhollins and improve the landscape around the house, keeping a detailed account of all the work carried out.
“One of his improvements was the erection of two adjoining cottages to the south east of the hall called Heady Fields after the name of the piece of land on which they stand. As this was ‘Head Fields’ in 1716 it can be taken literally, as a location at the head or top end of the fields.
“The houses were completed early in 1808 and on March 9 Charles France was paid for putting glass in the window frames of ‘Headdy Fields House’. Two tenants were immediately in occupation – that is James Buckley and Ely Shaw.
"In the estate records the annual rent for Buckley was £24 and for Shaw £27, due in two payments, one at Whitsuntide and the other at Martinmas – as was customary locally.
“In 1810 Ely Shaw took over both properties on the promise of an 11-year lease at an annual rent of £44 10s and Heady Fields became the Shaws’ new home. When Joseph Green-Armytage raised money on them in 1816, as security for a mortgage, they were referred to as ‘the Heady Field’ and the buildings included barns and mistals.
“In the census of 1841 two branches of the family were resident there, with a combined total of 15 children, most of them boys. The adults were woollen weavers.”
