Farnhill and Kildwick Local History Group


Farnhill Village Web Portal


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Farnhill and Kildwick History Group


	Very little has been formally written or documented about the history of Farnhill or Kildwick. The aim of this group is to research and present its findings on this web site. Anyone who has information or memories to contribute please contact the web administrator. We usually meet each month in the Village Institute, please check the Events Diary for details. New members are always welcome. Regular updates and new articles feature here, so please bookmark this page. Last updated: 25/01/2020


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Plans for 2020 (hopefully)

The WW1 project took all of our time in 2017 and 2018, but it was always the plan that our regular monthly meetings would restart in 2019. It the event, that hasn't happened. There's been no particular reason for this, it's just that other stuff got in the way and there were even times, earlier in the year, when it was touch-and-go as to whether this website would continue to be updated.

Now that 2020 is looming into view, one of our New Year's resolution must be to actually get around to relaunching the monthly meetings. So hopefully, at some point in the Spring, members of the History Group who are on the mailing list will receive an email invitation to a meeting at which we'll discuss ideas for projects the group might get involved in - get your thinking-caps on now. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list, please drop us a line.

We are always pleased to hear about topics of historical interest that we might research - some of our most interesting articles have started out as suggestions made by visitors to this website. If you have any information on the history of Farnhill or Kildwick that you'd like to share with us, or would like us to investigate further, please email history@farnhill.co.uk.

Even if all you have is a short personal anecdote about life in our two villages, please write. We might be able to include your contribution on our Anecdotes & Snippets page.

A Selection from our Archive

Each month we aim to display a different selection of items from our archive of photographs and documents.

Do you have any interesting items to contribute to the archive ?
Please contact history@farnhill.co.uk


New and Updated Items Last updated: 25/01/2020
What's new this month ?
	1911 Coronation celebrations Updated 25/01/2020 One of our on-going projects is to document how Farnhill and Kildwick celebrated the 20th century Coronations and Jubilees. We've added another photograph to our article on the 1911 Coronation. You can read this updated article, or you could view all our articles on the Coronations and Jubilees.
	Anecdotes and Snippets The surprising story of the Kildwick Man-Tyger. Click here to find out more.
	Farnhill and Kildwick 100 years ago 100 years ago, suggestions were made for "arrangements" to be made for ladies at the Institute; the headmaster of Kildwick School met with the land agent of Col. Wilson, the owner of the Kildwick estate, to discuss the possible provision of a recreation ground opposite the school; and the acrimonious discussions about allotments for ex-servicemen continued.

Other recent additions and updates
	A Family at War - the Whitaker family in WW1 First posted 30/11/2019 The Farnhill WW1 Volunteers project restricted itself to those men – service men and volunteers – who were named on the list compiled for Farnhill Parish Council early in 1916. However, it was always likely that we would find that some names had been missed off this list and the project had not been going long before people started to mention the name Thomas Fielding Whitaker. Now that the project has completed the bulk of its work, it has been possible to research TF Whitaker and, in doing so, we have found that there were three men from the family, all of whom were involved in the war, one way or another. Read about the the Whitaker family in WW1.
	Kildwick Parish Library - a new home First posted 26/10/2019 At the end of 2018, the History Group was asked to help St. Andrew's Church find a new home for the Kildwick Parish Library, a collection of over 70 antique books, on various theological studies (and a cure for tooth-ache). In January 2019 a small group of us gathered in the Parish Rooms and began the task of photographing and cataloguing. A process that would lead, eventually, to the library been given a new home in the Rare Books Collection of York University. Read about the Kildwick Parish Library.
	Farnhill Hall - an archeological interpretation First posted 28/09/2019 Some time ago, members of the History Group were given access to Farnhill Hall. Among the people who came along with us was Alison Armstrong, local archeologist of vernacular buildings. This is the report she subsequently wrote for us.
	Slideshow - Building the Keighley to Kildwick dual-carriageway Updated 27/07/2019 Do you remember when the dual-carriageway betwen Keighley and Kildwick was built ? Some photographs of the construction at the Kildwick end of the road have been donated to our archive and we've made them into a short slideshow.
	Mapping Farnhill and Kildwick slideshow Updated 29/06/2019 Our archive includes a number of maps of Farnhill and Kildwick. Here are some, dating from 1577 to 2012 in approximately chronological order, made into a slideshow. It's interesting to see how views of the area have changed. We've updated this slideshow with further maps contributed to our archive in the past year or so.
	Educating Kildwick - some notes on schooling in the village First posted 25/05/2019 The history of education in Kildwick could go back as far as Tudor times. With the help of two descendents of former masters of Kildwick school, this article provides an outline of schooling in the village from those earliest times up until the start of the 20th century.