But you must learn to duck in `the orginal Slaithwaite'
IN a hamlet above Slaithwaite lies a small community of 14 houses, which, as some believe, was the original Slaithwaite.
Collectively known as Slaithwaite Hall, the historic complex also once housed a prison.
Now converted, the buildings provide interesting characterful homes.
David and Julie Bamforth live in one of the houses with their two children, Billy, aged six, and Nancy, aged four. Julie is a lecturer at Huddersfield University.
The house had just two bedrooms and a box room when they bought it four years ago.
But there have been a few changes since then.
A conservatory has been seamlessly added and changes upstairs have made it into a four-bedroomed house with an en suite bathroom to the main bedroom, which has a gallery overlooking the kitchen/sitting room.
Velux windows have enabled light to come flooding into the sitting room.
Originally the house, built in 1726, was the servants' quarters and the sitting room was the barn.
Now exposed stonework sits comfortably next to plastered walls, original oak beams and mullion windows.
An original stone fireplace houses a wood-burning stove which throws out plenty of heat and the only noise to be heard outside come from the chickens.
An Aga takes pride of place in the kitchen with a Belfast sink.
But you may have to learn to duck if you are a six-footer as the ceilings, together with the beams, are not a great height.
Mr Bamforth, who keeps cattle on the land, said they were looking to move so that he had more space to concentrate on his hobby of restoring vintage tractors.
"To restore one you need two or three just for the parts and there just isn't room here," he said.
He also works with wrought iron and has designed both a bedhead and a stone gallery rail in the bedroom.
The original hall - the oldest house in the valley - has also been restored by a neighbour after it had gone to rack and ruin and was eventually used as a pigsty.
Research by Canon Hulbert, in his Annals Of Almondbury, says the "old Hall which is still remaining near the boundaries of Marsden-in-Huddersfield was probably the residence of a family of note, that of the Tyases, the ancestors of the Kayes of Woodsome, one of which latter family afterwards built the Manor House of Slaithwaite".
The original hall apparently consisted of a one- storeyed dwelling some 40ft long and about 14ft high. At some later date, it was divided into three cottages.
And over a hundred years ago, all the top storeys of the then dwelling-houses in this locality contained weaver's hand-looms. These were the days when the hand-loom woollen industry was in vogue before the advent of machinery in mills.
* Have you an unusual home. We'd love to feature it on this page. Contact Brigid Shaw on 01484 43000 or at the e-mail address below.
