Holmfirth

The name Holmfirth derives from Old English holegn ('holly'), in the name of Holme, compounded with Middle English frith ('wood'). It thus meant 'the woods at Holme'. The town originally grew up around a corn mill and bridge in the 13th century. Three hundred years later Holmfirth expanded rapidly as the growing cloth trade grew, and the production of stone and slates from the surrounding quarries increased. The present parish church was built in 1778 after the church built in 1476 was swept away in a flood the previous year. Dr Albert Lister Peace was the church's organist, at the age of nine, in the early 1850s. In 1850 Holmfirth railway station opened, on the branch line built by the…