SADDLEWORTH, a chapelry in that part of the
parish of ROCHDALE which is in the upper division of
the wapentake of AGBRIGG, West riding of the county
of YORK, 12 miles (S.W. by W.) from Huddersfield,
containing, with Quick, 13,902 inhabitants. The living
is a perpetual, curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese
of Chester, endowed with £200 private benefaction,
£200 royal bounty, and £1200 parliamentary grant,
and in the patronage of the Vicar of Rochdale. The
chapel is dedicated to St. Chad. There are five places
of worship for dissenters. A free school was founded
in 1729, by Ralph Hawkyard, who endowed it with
£2SO, and, in augmentation of the master's salary, John
Walker, in 1755, bequeathed £200; the income arising
from these sums is applied to teaching poor children
of the parish, and supplying them with books. The
Huddersfield canal passes through the parish, and the
manufacture of woollen and cotton goods is carried on
to a very great extent; the number of looms employed
in the former exceeding three thousand five hundred,
and in the latter four hundred; there are more than
one hundred mills on the river Tame and its tributary
streams. A few coal mines are worked, and excellent
freestone abounds within the chapelry. It is in contemplation
to establish a market, and to revive a fair
formerly held at the village. There are some interesting
natural curiosities at Greenfield, consisting of huge
caverns, rocks, and a stupendous rocking-stone, with
many Druidical remains. Castle Shaw is said to have
been a fortress of the Britons, round beads, similar to
those contained in the barrows on Salisbury plain, and
a brazen celt, having been discovered near it.