Landmarks submerged under Lower Laithe Reservoir included this ruined Little Mill (above), also known as Robinson’s Mill after its first owner.
It featured in Halliwell Sutcliffe’s novel A Man Of The Moors, published in 1897, when he called its idyllic setting Hazel Dene.
The Stanbury Board School logbook, kept by its famous headmaster Jonas Bradley from 1890 to 1920, describes a visit by Sutcliffe and his wife on their way “to see the Little Mill ruins at the bottom of the School field. It figures in Sutcliffe’s A Man Of The Moors, Mistress Barbara Cunliffe etc, and as he had heard it was to be submerged when the new waterworks are constructed, they must go down to it once more...”.
Halliwell Sutcliffe, who died aged 62 at his Linton home in 1932, wrote some 30 novels, many set around Haworth and Craven, though he is now probably best remembered for The Striding Dales, a rather romanticised evocation of history and lore.
The photo has been supplied by Ian Brierley, of Bridgehouse Lane, Haworth.
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