Huddersfield hamlet founded upon religion still operating today

Yorkshire is full of beautiful little towns, villages and Hamlets - and Kirklees has some fantastic examples if you're looking for new places to explore. High Flatts is a small hamlet,

sitting around seven miles from Huddersfield town centre, just south of Shepley. Surrounded by farmland, the village dates back over 600 years. In the 2001 census, Upper Denby and High

Flatts had 719 people living in it, among a series of stone houses which make up most of the village of High Flatts itself. One key feature of High Flatts is the old Quaker Meeting House,

which still operates to this day. A Grade II listed building since 1965, Historic England says the building probably dates back to the 19th Century, although its origin is likely even

earlier. It is around this meeting hall that much of the hamlet was built - although the first mention of High Flatts is in 1453. The Meeting House was founded when John Firth, a Quaker,

found a host in the area to hold Quaker meetings in 1652, with the original house being built in 1697. As such, the road the Quaker Meeting House sits on is known as Quaker Bottom. Most of

the people in the area at the time were farmers, and so it was the introduction of the Quakers which strongly influenced people in the area to build their homes in High Flatts, building the

small collection of houses which stands there today. According to Kirklees Council, the first record of human settlement in the High Flatts area dates back all the way to the Iron Age, with

the remains of a hill fort to the west of High Flatts itself. However, it was the Meeting House which really founded the hamlet as we know it today. Despite this, the fort is a point of

interest for archaeologists, as earthworks, flint arrowheads and tools have been found nearby. Some of this can be seen at the Tolson Museum in Moldgreen, Huddersfield. Modernity has also

made its impact, as the A629 Penistone Road passes right by High Flatts and its historic sites. _GET ALL THE LATEST AND BREAKING HUDDERSFIELD NEWS STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX BY __SIGNING UP TO

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