Cross Roads History

[connor]

Hi

I am trying to gain more recognition for Cross Roads on the internet.

From my experience there are people from nearby who know about Keighley and Haworth, but they are not aware of a village called Cross Roads existing in between those two places!

I am currently unable to confirm the full history of governance of the Cross Roads area with exact dates to add to the Cross Roads Wikipedia page. I understand that through history the village area has been in different hands. Is anyone able to confirm the years of the beginning and end of each governance?

At one point in history the area was considered a part of Bingley. There is still a sign on a wall next to Halifax Road which includes reference to "Bingley". There is evidence of Barcroft, Cross Roads and Lees within Bingley on GENUKI which states that the information is from the 1820s;

www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Bingley/index.html 

Following this, I am guessing that it was transferred to Keighley Borough Council at the beginning of that council's existence in 1882? From then, it would have stayed within Keighley Borough Council until that was abolished and then absorbed into Bradford Council in 1974.

If anyone has any other useful information relating to the history of Cross Roads which I could use on Wikipedia, please can you respond? Anything which Cross Roads may have been noted for through history can be useful to add. I would like to have a Wikipedia page with lots of information. I am aware of some good information on this website; www.haworth-village.org.uk/history/places/crossroads/crossroads.asp

The Wikipedia page for Cross Roads can be found here;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Roads,_West_Yorkshire

[barcroftlad]

Hi Connor,
How nice to read of someone else's interest in Cross Roads. You have a good start in the Haworth village site with a history of Cross Roads village compiled by Ian Shackleton in 2001. See if you can make contact with Tito Arana of Cross Roads, local councillor and is also trying to build a history of the place. I will email him to make sure that he sees this request from you.

For my part I lived the early part of my life in Cross Roads so consider myself a Cross Roads lad, before moving down under. I have written my memoirs of those days, 1936-1954, with the idea of mentioning the village people who made Cross Roads tick in the 40s and early 50s and are now long forgotten and unknown by the current generations. If you want to take this a bit further just let me know.

Cheers, Bill.

[Andy Wade]

If you're on Facebook, there's a village group run by Tito Arana here:

www.facebook.com/groups/506818496153281

It's a closed group so you'll have to join it first before you can post.

[connor]

Thanks for the response. I'm an admin on the group you responded with.

I know Tito Arana but was hoping someone would be able to help with the history of governance and that kind of thing. Wikipedia want web addresses and books as evidence of everything you state on there which has its difficulties.

I shall speak to Tito about this and try get more information on the Wikipedia page that way. In the long run, I hope this can become a useful resource for anyone wanting to know about the village.

On Facebook, at some point in the future it should be possible for people to add "Cross Roads with Lees" as their "Hometown". Currently people need to select nearby places like either "Haworth" or "Keighley" as their hometown. This is another way of raising awareness of the village and allowing people from the area to connect more easily. This is on Facebook's list of things to do but the question as to how long it will take them is a similar answer to how long a piece of string is!