Scammonden or Dean Head was a village close to

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...

, in the Dean Head Valley, England, before the valley was flooded to create

Scammonden Reservoir Scammonden Reservoir is a water reservoir in West Yorkshire, England. Its water surface area when full is . The level of the bellmouth overflow above sea level is . The reservoir holds . Its length is . History Scammonden Dam is part of th ...

in the 1960s. The

M62 motorway The M62 is a west–east Pennines, trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting Liverpool and Kingston upon Hull, Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; of the route Concurrency (road), is shared with the M60 motorway, ...

crosses the dam wall and then passes through a cutting to the west over which Scammonden Bridge carries the B6114. The Chapel of St Bartholomew still exists, as does the old vicarage, which is now home to Scammonden Sailing Club.

History

Historically History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

, Scammonden or Dean Head was a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

and

chapelry A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th century. Status A chapelry had a similar status to a Township (England), township, but was so named as it had a chapel of ease ...

in Huddersfield parish covering more than 2,000 acres. In the 1870s it had a church, a Baptist chapel, a national school, a post office and 190 houses. Industry in the village included cotton-spinning and woollen manufacture and there were freestone quarries. In 1866 Scammonden became a separate

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

, on 1 April 1937 the parish was abolished to form

Colne Valley The Colne Valley is a steep sided valley on the east flank of the Pennine Hills in the English county of West Yorkshire. It takes its name from the River Colne which rises above the town of Marsden and flows eastward towards Huddersfield. ...

. In 1931 the parish had a population of 394. The area is now in the

Kirklees Kirklees is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. The borough comprises the ten towns of Batley, Birstall, West Yorkshire, Birstall, Cleckheaton, Dewsbury, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Meltham, Mirfield and Slaithwaite. It ...

district, in the county of

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

. A motorway and dam across the Dean Head Valley was proposed in the early 1960s and work began in 1964. Most buildings in the village were demolished or submerged in the reservoir when it was filled in 1969. Geologists considered the church and school would become unsafe once the dam was full. The church school closed in 1970 and is now a private residence. Below Scammonden Road is an archaeological site of a late prehistoric settlement known as Meg Dyke.

Geography

Scammonden is surrounded by the

moorland Moorland or moor is a type of Habitat (ecology), habitat found in upland (geology), upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and the biomes of montane grasslands and shrublands, characterised by low-growing vegetation on So ...

of the

Pennines The Pennines (), also known as the Pennine Chain or Pennine Hills, are a range of highland, uplands mainly located in Northern England. Commonly described as the "Vertebral column, backbone of England" because of its length and position, the ra ...

east of Blackstone Edge. About 900 acres were enclosed in 1820 but the surrounding hills are uncultivated rough pasture. Roads from

Elland Elland is a market town in Calderdale, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. It is situated south of Halifax, by the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigation. Elland was recorded as ''Elant'' in the Domesday Book of 1086. It ha ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

passed through the village.

Religion

There has been a chapel in Scammonden since 1615 and the church remains active. Scammonden was a

in the Huddersfield ecclesiastical parish. Its old chapel was rebuilt at a cost of £1000 in 1813. It was replaced by the church in 1865. The church roof was replaced in 2002 with the aid of grants from

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

, charities and other community fundraising activities.

References

External links

History of the Church
{{authority control Villages in West Yorkshire Former populated places in West Yorkshire Former civil parishes in West Yorkshire Geography of Kirklees

History

Geography

Religion

See also

References

External links