AEG Trail #9: Town Head
The cache, a camo-taped preform tube, is hidden at Town Head (or Townhead), the eastern end/start of the path which connects the Daniel Palmer Nature Trail in Marchup Ghyll with Addingham village.
This is the last of a series of 9 caches in an enjoyable 2.6 km circuit taking in some varied scenery and environments to the south of the village. See the Trail Map in the Gallery for the route and points of interest - including cache locations.
The trail originally had 6 caches marking key points of interest as per the guided tour at the annual Environment Day held in May 2017.
The cache may be done in sequence, as a stand-alone park 'n' grab using the parking area at the end of the access road for the industrial area adjacent to the cache, or as the starting cache in a reverse sequence.
From #8 continue east crossing Big Meadow Drive and picking up the trail on the other side and onwards up, across and down the meadow to the cache location near the access gate.
The Townhead Industrial Estate consisting of light industrial units is built on the site of the Townhead Textile Mill which was destroyed by fire in the 1960s.
The following information [with added notes] is taken from 'Woolcombers, Worsteds and Watermills - Addingham's Industrial Revolution' by Kate M Mason.
. . . In 1802 Ambrose Dean bought land at Townhead for £900 which enabled him to control Town Beck which runs through the village and thus obtain power to run Townhead Mill which he had built about 1797. [Marchup Beck joins Town Beck just upstream of the mill site]
Although he was described as a [cotton] weft spinner in 1803 he was using water frames. However, the beck was small and thus generated limited power to run the mill machines, so in order to supplement this, 3 years later he bought a 6 HP Boulton & Watt steam engine. This was carried from Birmingham to Leeds by canal and from there to the canal warehouse at Silsden, from where it was taken by road over the old turnpike. The journey and installation of the engine was of great interest to villagers.
By 1811, he was spinning with thostles, 10 frames each with 126 spindles. He was described as a calico manufacturer and sold his products in Manchester. He retired in 1820, his only son having died young, and offered the mill for sale 'with [4-storied] warehouse, waterwheel, and steam engine - both can be worked together'.
John Cockcroft ran the mill in 1838 and Thomas Beck in 1845 and the only other mention of the mill until 
the last quarter of that century was in 1850 as a sawmill . . .
20%;">The trail originally had 6 caches marking key points of interest as per the guided tour at the annual Environment Day held in May 2017.
From #8 continue east crossing Big Meadow Drive and picking up the trail on the other side and onwards up, across and down the meadow to the cache location near the access gate.
The Townhead Industrial Estate consisting of light industrial units is built on the site of the Townhead Textile Mill which was destroyed by fire in the 1960s.
The following information [with added notes] is taken from 'Woolcombers, Worsteds and Watermills - Addingham's Industrial Revolution' by Kate M Mason.
. . . In 1802 Ambrose Dean bought land at Townhead for £900 which enabled him to control Town Beck which runs through the village and thus obtain power to run Townhead Mill which he had built about 1797. [Marchup Beck joins Town Beck just upstream of the mill site]
Although he was described as a [cotton] weft spinner in 1803 he was using water frames. However, the beck was small and thus generated limited power to run the mill machines, so in order to supplement this, 3 years later he bought a 6 HP Boulton & Watt steam engine. This was carried from Birmingham to Leeds by canal and from there to the canal warehouse at Silsden, from where it was taken by road over the old turnpike. The journey and installation of the engine was of great interest to villagers.
By 1811, he was spinning with thostles, 10 frames each with 126 spindles. He was described as a calico manufacturer and sold his products in Manchester. He retired in 1820, his only son having died young, and offered the mill for sale 'with [4-storied] warehouse, waterwheel, and steam engine - both can be worked together'.
John Cockcroft ran the mill in 1838 and Thomas Beck in 1845 and the only other mention of the mill until the last quarter of that century was in 1850 as a sawmill . . .