Mark’s History: Reminders of industrial past at new Wortley housing estate

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lower wortley tunnel
Photo: Mark Stevenson

The new housing estate at Royds Lane Mount in Lower Wortley may be new – but there are remnants of the past still to be seen reminding you of the area’s industrial heritage, writes Mark Stevenson.

royds lane bridge lower wortley
What the bridge looks like now. Photo: Mark Stevenson

In the 1840s at least two mines and a quarry were worked on the estate with many more in the surrounding area.

Royds Pit was located where the Mazda garage is on the Ring Road and it had a tramway leading up to near where Uppingham Gardens is now to supply the Bricks Works that used to cover most of the estate with coal and fire clay.

royds lane mount bridge old
How the bridge used to loo. Photo: Mark Stevenson

In the 1840s the railway arrived and with it, the pedestrian tunnel on Royds Lane was built.

Royds Lane itself once ran from Cottingley Hall Crematorium up to Whitehall Road. An engine shed was at the top of the estate with tracks leading to and from it.

In the 1890s Honeybourne Road was nothing more than a track. If you had looked up on Honeybourne Road you might have seen a steam engine on the Mineral Railway passing overhead on the long-gone bridge.

Honeybourne Road wortley 2014
Honeybourne Road as it was in 2014.

In the middle of this industrial landscape, somebody decided to build a villa dating from around the 1880s to 1960s.

A building called the Railway Villa appears on the map roughly in the middle of what is now Uppingham Gardens.

Through the tunnel was Highfield Farm, which is on the 1840s map. The bridge that still remains at the top of the estate is at least 130 years old

Read more of our Mark’s History column here.
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