Egypt and the Bay of Biscay

I'm always curious about place names and there are some interesting ones locally. One way to get to Halifax from here is via Moscow, Jerusalem, Egypt and World's End. These are all tiny hamlets in the Thornton area of Bradford. These places would have been familiar to the Rev'd Patrick Brontë, when he was doing his parish rounds from Thornton - and I've discovered a fascinating account of Jerusalem Farm being a place where maggots for fishing bait were once grown... and the gases produced were inhaled by TB patients as a 'cure'! (See HERE).

The hamlets sit on the watershed between Airedale and Calderdale, amidst rather bleak and scrappy terrain shaped by the huge stone quarries that flourished here in the early 19th century. The stone fuelled the huge building boom of the Industrial Revolution: all the new mills and the workers' housing that was built in the 1800s.































The row of cottages that is 'Egypt' was probably built for quarry workers. It was originally sited between the two quarries of Bell Dean and Egypt, the former now filled in and the latter now a large, disused hole. Waste thrown up from the quarries prompted the construction of two huge walls to hold back the spoil heaps and these were known as 'the Walls of Jericho'. I can remember them from my early days as a student in Bradford, when the narrow road passed between them and they were a well-known landmark. (There's a photo HERE, if you're interested.) They were deemed unsafe and demolished in the 1980s, and Egypt Road (below) was widened and made safer.

Closer to home, on the top of a hill overlooking Shipley, lies the row of houses known as the Bay of Biscay - and no, I don't know why, except that there was a farm of this name that formed part of the estate of the Earl of Rosse, a local landowner. The houses are awkwardly placed at the front, adjacent to but lower than the busy Haworth Road and with hardly any space to park a car. You must need to be on good terms with the neighbours, as the arrangement must entail some swapping about.

Perhaps the wonderful view from the rear makes up for it! It's a sweeping vista from this high vantage point, ranging round from Sandy Lane in the west, past Cottingley and right over to Bingley in the distance, with the moors behind and then round to Hope Hill, above Saltaire, to the east.