Skelmanthorpe combines a small museum dedicated to textile history with walking trails through the historic village and its surroundings. The Skelmanthorpe Textile Heritage Centre is housed in a former one-up-one-down weaver’s cottage at 6 Queen Street. This gives the village two clear focal points to consider when choosing a holiday rental: local industrial history and outdoor trails. When planning your trip, you can decide whether to focus more on cultural heritage or on routes of varying lengths.
Textile History in a Weaver’s Cottage
The ground-floor rooms are furnished as the family home of a weaver’s family around 1900. Upstairs, there is an authentic, working handloom, as well as exhibitions and artefacts relating to the local textile heritage. The layout places domestic life alongside the craft. Handlooms were still used to produce textiles in some weavers’ cottages until the mid-20th century. The Skelmanthorpe Chartist Flag was also woven locally: it was made in a house in Skelmanthorpe in 1819. From the flag, through the family home of around 1900, to weaving that continued into the 20th century, the timeline spans more than a century.
St Aidan’s Church
St Aidan’s brings together two periods in time. George Frederick Bodley designed the church in 1894. Inside is a medieval font from the church at High Hoyland. This places a late-19th-century design alongside a much older church object. The font’s origins also provide a specific link to High Hoyland.
Woodland and Walking Trails
Blacker Woods is a semi-natural, ancient woodland. It has been continuously wooded since records began in the 17th century. This continuity gives the natural landscape a long historical perspective, distinct from the dates associated with local and textile history.
The picturesque, three-mile Skelmanthorpe Village Trail loops around the historic village. It starts and finishes in the village centre and follows old tracks through ancient woodland and along streams. You can choose between exploring the village’s architectural and textile heritage and a walk that links the village centre with the surrounding landscape.
The Skelmanthorpe Circular Trail starts at Shelley Station and follows the Kirklees Light Railway for a few miles, almost returning to Skelmanthorpe. The updated route is a picturesque 9.2-mile walk that can be split into two sections; a local walking group reported the update in December 2024. Compared with the three-mile Village Trail, the Circular Trail is considerably longer.
Seasonal Train Rides
During Winter Adventure Days, Whistlestop Valley offers return train rides to Skelmanthorpe, departing from Clayton West. The service is part of a seasonal visitor programme and may change. If you plan to take this option, check the dates and specific train services before travelling.
Discover more destinations: Clayton, Denby Dale, Addingham, Farsley, Pudsey, Wetherby, Pontefract, Holywell Green.
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