June 2025

In the Huddersfield area there are two structures (they are hardly buildings) known as “dumb steeples”.  That is to say they are steeple-like obelisks, but without bells.  As far as I can trace they are unique in the country for being so called.  One is well-known, the other less so.

The well-known one is at Cooper Bridge where the road east from Brighouse (the A644) meets the Huddersfield-Leeds road (the A62) – well-known as it is passed daily by thousands of vehicles at the very busy roundabout.  In fact it originally stood in the centre of the road junction but was moved to the side of the road as traffic increased.  It is famous also as a meeting-point of the Luddites prior to the attack on Rawfolds Mill in 1812.

Nothing is really known about this obelisk (as it is called on the earliest OS map of 1854) or when the term “dumb steeple” was first used; Frank Peel in his Risings of the Luddites of 1880 calls it that.  Many, however, are the theories of its origins and purpose, summarised in an excerpt from one of the Minters’ books on old Huddersfield and reproduced on the Huddersfield Exposed website.  

The explanation we like is that it was a boundary marker, possibly relating to the nearby Kirklees Priory and Estate; or possibly from its location at the junction of the townships of Clifton, Hartshead and Mirfield.  Similar obelisks, eg at Ackworth, were in effect guide-stones giving destinations and distances, but there is no evidence of that here.

The other dumb steeple (pictured right) is at Grange Moor in the township of Whitley Upper, and this is not well-known as it is surrounded by modern houses at some distance, and not visible, from the quiet country lane leading to Briestfield.  Again, nothing is known about the origins of this.  A plaque (detail top) in the centre says it was rebuilt by Richard H Beaumont Esq in 1766, but with no clue as to why, or when it was first built.  A member of the family who owned the Whitley Estate, born in 1748, he was therefore only about 18 when he rebuilt it – perhaps it was to give him something to do.  It may well have been a boundary marker between the Whitley Beaumont estate and that of a branch of the Kaye family at Grange (that is Denby Grange, a hamlet in Whitley Upper township).  [Source W Y Archaeology Service]

RWH / June 2025