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Mackworth in turn was chased from Halifax less than a month later as the Scottish army, allied to the Parliamentarians, pushed South. By July Thomas Cromwell had secured the North of England for Parliament with victory at Marston Moor.
However, as well as freeing our locality from Royalists, the army brought a deadly present with it - the Plague. In just 4 months alone over 500 people died in Halifax out of a population of circa 3,000.
It is understandable that the constables in Sowerby Bridge barred the road to Halifax by chain guard so as to keep out the infected.
(Sadly, captain Hellewell, the last Parliamentarian, no longer rides the roads and wild moors around Cragg seeking to recruit men. He died in 2001. Certainly those of us who remember his startling and ad hoc visits to the Robin Hood on horseback in full regalia with arms and armour miss him).
There was increased land enclosure from 1730 to 1860, which divided Cragg into smaller fields, as a result of the steep rise in sheep rearing as a highly profitable occupation.
Industrial growth during this period was quite rapid, as was the building of farms in Cragg, and the sheep and the wool trade grew to govern most locals lives.
Continued >>
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