Our story
A valley, a mill, a fire and a rebuild: how St Paul's came to be the church it is.
Armitage Bridge was once a sparsely populated valley. Early maps were drawn up to make sure tenants paid the right rent to the estate owners. That changed in the early 19th century, when the Brooke family built their mill here and a village to house the people who worked in it.
The Brookes also looked after the families of their workforce. They built a school and endowed the building of St Paul's church.
The fire, and the rebuild
St Paul's was reconstructed after a fire in 1987. Our Heritage Open Days display tells the story, and the burial records are available to anyone searching for family graves in the churchyard.
Some local faces
Samuel William Copley, who has the village's only blue plaque, trained as a hairdresser, went to Australia and made his fortune in banking and insurance. On his return he bought the Ramsden estate, and later sold it at the price he paid to the people of Huddersfield.
Want to dig deeper? Come to our next Heritage Open Days weekend, or ask the Huddersfield and District Family History Society about tracing your own family here.