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MIRFIELD: David Clay reports on a land between town and country with its own place in canal history. Pictures by Mark Bickerdike.

If Dewsbury is the company headquarters of the heavy woollen district then Mirfield is a branch office which has a hint of the country about it.

Travelling west, Mirfield begins after Ravensthorpe and peters out before you get to Bradley and Brighouse. Roberttown and Liversedge form solid neighbours to the north but eyes cast to the south of Mirfield will not gaze out over mill roofs and mountains of coal.

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Instead, the area that leads up to Hopton tends to be one of green fields and verges where sheep graze and canal boats chug their way along still waters.

This isn’t to say that there has never been a mill in Mirfield but the colour of this place is decidedly green when compared to the dark browns and blacks of nearby areas. Mirfield provides in many ways, the perfect interface between town and country and this position is reflected in the fact that it still has an annual agricultural show which takes place every third August Sunday.

The main artery, the A644 Huddersfield Road, runs from Dewsbury through Brighouse and can take the driver not only to Halifax but right up to Haworth and beyond. The Mirfield and Ravensthorpe section seems to have been afflicted with roadworks for the last 40 years, no doubt a consequence of what’s happened to the whole region since the collapse of the industrial age.

For the driver heading east, the Swan public house used to mark the start of the town opposite the Mirfield sign and was a major port of call for local nights out. Summer evenings used to see crowds spilling onto the pavement from this well known L-shaped watering hole. Now though the windows are sadly boarded up and the roadside incursions have become mere memories.

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The Marmaville on Church lane was the scene of many a 21st birthday bash and wedding reception. The magnificent frontispiece still survives.

Mirfield even has it’s own section of canal that begins at Shepley Bridge Marina and then rejoins the River Calder near Newgate Street.

This small but quaint waterway runs along the back of the cricket ground and the colourful Marina is the base for the Safe Anchor Trust who organise boat trips for people with special needs. Mirfield may not be one of the highest places in West Yorkshire and cannot boast a church spire that dominates the landscape like the one at North Ossett. But it has a striking presence on the skyline in the form of the tower of Mirfield Parish Church.

The present building was constructed in 1871 to house a growing population but the old building of St Mary’s was deemed too good to demolish completely and so today’s place of worship stands alongside the original bell tower.

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Several buildings have stone pillar fronts that betray their historic origins and set back from the main road is a more recent development that houses the local Co-operative store. The area also contains old-fashioned style hardware shops that provide a welcome roadside display of mops, clothes lines, aluminium buckets and watering cans. For the right person, Mirfield also offers that increasingly rare and hard to find prize – the specialist model shop. Mirfield Models is just off the main road on Nettleton Road and is one of those unique little places that begs the visitor, as well as the railway modeller, to peep round the door. Another major establishment that looms into view is the huge Speights lighting shop whose store window has provided superb illumination for many a winter passage through the Western town centre. The town eventually fades graciously away past Battyeford and on towards the Three Nuns and Cooper Bridge. Once on this stretch of the A644 the huge John Cotton factory reminds us that the reference number for Mirfield town, despite its greener leanings, is still of a textile nature. It is a memorable place in the West of West Yorkshire and retains a charm for both the resident and the visitor alike.

FACTS AND FIGURES

* Mirfield agricultural show is held every third Sunday in August.

* Mirfield has two secondary schools.

* Actor Sir Patrick Stewart is from Mirfield.

* One of five parish councils in Kirklees, it elects its own mayor.

* Notable clerics, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, both spent time in Mirfield.