Farnhill Village Web Portal

The History Group archive contains a number of scans of paintings and drawings of the two villages – some of them quite old, others more recent. Many are unsigned and/or undated. This slideshow contains a selection of them, in approximate chronological order.

Shortly after we first published this slideshow we received a recent picture of Farnhill and Kildwick. It was submitted by Elizabeth Buffett as part of the competition for the 2021 Farnhill and Kildwick Village Calendar, and drawn by her father. In the end it wasn't selected, but it is certainly worthy of inclusion in our collection.

Click the image opposite to view.
 

This update to our article on the remarkable ships named HMS Kildwick includes two letters from a member of the crew sent to the vicar of Kildwick in April 1945.

We're also taking the opportunity to remind you of the wonderful two-part wartime memoir written for us by Cyril Dennis who, as a teenager, served on board HMS Kildwick during WW2.

Part 1 of Cyril Dennis's wartime memoir
Part 2 of Cyril Dennis's wartime memoir
 

From the Romans to the present day, the road from Keighley to Skipton has changed considerably. The route you would have taken depends on when you were travelling.

In a new appendix to our article on the development of the road from Keighley to Skipton we consider plans dating from the early 1960s for a trans-Pennine route that would have severely impacted Kildwick and the nearby townships.
 

Another update to our piece on the Kildwick and Farnhill Brass Band. This update includes some more information on the early history of the band.
 

A family history that begins in Kildwick in 1671 and continues, to this day, on the other side of the world.

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.

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.

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.

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.