Heckmondwike

Heckmondwike
Heckmondwike sign
Heckmondwike  Heckmondwike shown within West Yorkshire
Population	17,066
Metropolitan borough	Kirklees
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	HECKMONDWIKE
Postcode district	WF16
Dialling code	01924
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
EU Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Batley and Spen
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Heckmondwike is a small town and electoral ward in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England, 9 miles (14 km) south west of Leeds. Close to Cleckheaton and Liversedge, it is part of Cleckheckmondsedge, a name invented by J.B. Priestley to represent a West Riding mill town.^{[citation needed]} It is in the Batley and Spen parliamentary constituency, and has a population of March 2001 had an estimated population of 17,066.

Geography

Located at the edge of the Pennine hills, the land rises both to the north, east and south of the town centre.

Heckmondwike has its own telephone exchange, north of the High Street and is part of the Wakefield 01924 dialling area, with numbers beginning 40, 41 and 235. This exchange also covers neighbouring Liversedge, and small areas of Dewsbury and Batley namely parts of Dewsbury Moor and Staincliffe. Other telephone numbers in the area are from the cable supplier, where the number allocations 50, 51 and 52 are also used in neighbouring towns.

History

The Poll Tax of 1379 records that there were only seven families living in Heckmondwike, (approx 35 people). Mostly they lived in small, isolated farmsteads such as Stubley Farm, on the high ground overlooking the marshy Spen Valley floor.

Like many of the towns in the West Yorkshire Heavy Woollen District, Heckmondwike developed as a mill town, and was famous for its blankets. In 1684 there were around 250 people in the township, occuping 50 houses. By 1811 a Blanket Hall was built for the trade of the town's primary industry, and a second hall was erected in 1839, on the road now called Blanket Hall Street in the town centre. Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of the novelist Charlotte Brontë in 1857 described the inhabitants of Heckmondwike as "a chapel-going people, very critical of their sermons, tyrannical to their ministers and violent radicals".

What was left of the first Blanket Hall was demolished in spring 2008, along with a number of other old buildings including some former Co-op buildings that had a short spell as the town's post office and former "George" public house - formally known as "The George and Dragon". Current redevelopment of this area is to include the building of a new library, bus terminus and improved road system.

In 1894 Heckmondwike Urban District Council was established to deal with civic matters, and maintained independent control over local affairs until the local government shake-up of 1974, resisting requests from neighbouring Spenborough Council for Heckmondwike to become incorporated into their administration.

In its heyday the Heckmondwike footwear company Goliath, otherwise known as the Co-op Boot Company, made football boots for Sir Stanley Matthews, who had a long and illustrious footballing career with Blackpool, Stoke City and England. Every year he went through several pairs of light boots and he often made the trip to the Heckmondwike factory in Brunswick Street to see how they were made and meet the workers. He put his name to a special brand of boot also made in Heckmondwike^{[citation needed]}. Another footballing connection was a visit by Pele to the Mileta factory.^{[citation needed]}. The Brunswick Mill site is currently being redeveloped for new housing; which has included retaining three of the external walls of the mill to form apartments and townhouses. The development is called "Brunswick Place".

A new health centre for the town was opened in July 2010, and brought together two former doctors practices

Toponymy

The origins of the name "Heckmondwike" lie in Old English. It translates as "Dwelling or (dairy) farm of a man called Hēahmund", formed of the person's name with the word wīc. The settlement was recorded as Hedmundewic [sic] in the Domesday Book of 1086 and later as Hecmundewik, sometime in the 13th century.

Politics

Heckmondwike lies within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees. It hit the headlines in 2003 when it elected a member of the British National Party as its councillor. The councillor in question, David Exley, was elected after the then-serving councillor, Tim Crowther, left the Labour Party to run as an independent. In 2004 Cllr. Exley was re-elected with an increased majority. Then in 2006 a second BNP candidate, Roger Roberts, was elected with a majority of over 700. Roberts, a security guard, had also served as Councillor for the Conservative Party. Before defecting to the BNP in 2005 he had managed to come 10th out of 11 in an election in Heckmondwike. In May 2007, Heckmondwike's third councillor, David Sheard (Labour), was returned with a 644 majority. The Heckmondwike electoral ward also includes the Millbridge, Flush and Norristhorpe areas of neighbouring Liversedge that are south of the A62 road. In the May 2008 local elections, Cllr. Exley lost his seat, as voters in Heckmondwike elected a second Labour candidate, Steve Hall, with a majority of 195 votes. In May 2010, the other BNP representative, Cllr. Roger Roberts, lost his seat to Labour candidate Viv Kendrick, after coming third in the poll behind a very strong surge from Robert Thornton of the Conservatives. This left the BNP with no councillors on Kirklees Council, and the Heckmondwike ward represented by three Labour members. In 2011 David Sheard was elected with a majority of 2590.

The people of Heckmondwike have a high sense of civic pride; recent reports by the Boundary Commission have talked of a "fierce independence" in the town, which makes it hard to link to any constituency.[2].

Newspapers

Heckmondwike's weekly newspaper was the Heckmondwike Herald and was available until Friday 15 August 2008 (identical to the Spenborough Guardian but with a different billhead). From this date the title was merged into the Spenborough Guardian incorporating the Heckmondwike Herald, covers the settlements of the former Spenborough Urban District and Heckmondwike.

Famous people

• Jeff Butterfield – England Rugby Union international.
• John Curwen – developer of the Tonic Sol-fa system of musical notation: a street in one of the housing estates is named after him: Curwen Crescent. In summer 2007 a new housing development in the Westfield area of the town was named Curwen Park.
• David Hand – curate of Heckmondwike from 1942 to 1946 who later became Archbishop of Papua New Guinea
• James Berry - The hangman from Heckmondwike - Born in Blanket Hall Street in 1852. Between 1884 and 1891 working on piece rate he hanged 134 men and women. He resigned as a result of the execution of John Conway in Liverpool when his head nearly came off. He died in 1913.
• Arthur Wood - in 1924 Arthur Wood composed a maypole dance called Barwick Green. Barwick Green is the theme tune from The Archers that Billy Connolly suggested should replace the current National Anthem.
• Malcolm Merriweather - a fictional character played by Bernard Fox on "The Andy Griffith Show", a U.S. television series, was from Heckmondwike.
• Dave Pybus - previous member of Anathema now current bass player of Grammy-nominated heavy-metal band Cradle of Filth.
• Les "Lecter" Smith - previous member of Cradle of Filth now Anathama.
• Mike Heaton - drummer of Yorkshire indie-rock band Embrace.
• Frederick Wilson Whitehead (1863-1926), organist, music composer and teacher of music.

External links

• Heckmondwyke – a poem
• Heckmondwike Spen - a survivor from the railway age in the Spen Valley
• Heckmondwike Junior Football Club
• Heckmondwike Central railway station
• Heckmondwike Spen railway station
• Heckmondwike railway tickets
• The Goliath Footwear archive collection is held at The National Co-operative Archive, Manchester.