By Tony Burke

At the two-mile mark on the road from Huddersfield towards Halifax, between The Cavalry Arms pub and Birchencliffe Hill Road lies the little-known district of Prince Royd.

Named after a local historic figure, Prince Royd now comprises 40 or so houses, a church, a pub and a used car lot.

Fairly routine, you may think, but you wouldn’t know or dream of the riches this small community once contained: an ice cream factory; a redundant quarry; a quality sledging track; a miniature train track; a mill pond stocked with carp; the Huddersfield Brick and Tile Works; and best of all, the Birchencliffe Railway!

From the perspective of a child in the 1950s and 1960s it was paradise. The ice cream factory I mention belonged to Ben Marchini, a strange little man who made the best ice cream!

He was the Willie Wonka of Prince Royd. His premises were previously the Royd Steam Brewery, then a petrol station; standing where The Gate flats are now.

All his hand-painted horse-drawn carts were stored to the rear and we could buy the most delicious unfrozen ice cream for a few coppers. The story of Ben being locked in his own freezer I’ll save for another time…

Across the road, where the Mormon Church is now, stood Foxholme, a large Victorian house owned by the Hurst family.

The house was undistinguished to us except for the miniature train track that ran around the huge garden and through doorways in the garage.

Mr Hurst was a steam enthusiast and he kindly took us for wonderful rides. We ran home with soot on our faces and leaves in our hair.

 

 

Royd Steam Brewery

 

A story worth telling here is the fate of the first Mormon church which was built in the mid-1960s on the site of the cruelly demolished Foxholme.

A raging fire in the 90s was unable to be contained by the Huddersfield Fire Brigade because the main in front of the church didn’t have enough water and the church was lost. An ominous occurrence.

At the other end of Prince Royd stood the Brickworks and to the rear of the houses between was an unused quarry, a quality playground.

The Brickworks was nearing the end of its life but the kilns were still in use. We could see the flames down through the floor vents and the tramps keeping warm next door.

That brings the story back to the Birchencliffe Railway. Brick production had exhausted the quarry adjacent to the Brickworks so another local quarry was started. This stood where the Wyevale Nursery on Birchencliffe Hill Road is now.

To get the shale to the Brickworks, a tunnel under Birchencliffe Hill Road took a twin rail with a gaggle of steel wagons and a cable system.

A large wheel at one end provided the motive power. At the other end, the wagons filled from a hopper in the quarry, trundled along under the road into the brickworks and tipped sideways to empty their load into a crusher. Back they then went into the quarry for more.

All this, in my nine-year-old mind, was done automatically without any supervision or safety guards. And we rode on it!

I have searched diligently for confirmation of this railway. I remember it clearly but cannot find it on any map, nor have I yet spoken to anyone who can remember it.

Anybody with any information please e-mail Martin at Huddersfield Hub on martin@huddersfieldhub.co.uk

 

Vincent Dorrington on the history of Birchencliffe with brewery wars, lost pubs, devastating fires and the M62