Featured Buildings.

A Memory of Ruswarp.

The large building on the left edge of the photograph is Ruswarp Mill. A mill has been here since Saxon times and the first written record of this mill appears in the Domesday book. The name Ruswarp may have originated from the mill. The mill was water powered and the river would have been dammed to make a mill race. Dams in this area are known as 'scarps' and if the dam was made of wood, the brushwood was called 'rise'. Hence 'Risescarp' - brushwood dam. Alternatively, it may have arisen from the use of brushwood to divert fish in to fish traps known as 'salmon hecks'. The old local term 'warp' describes a bank of mud deposited by a river as the flow slows down after coming down from the high moors. Some of these mudbanks sprout vegetation - brushwood from seed and twigs carried down by the river. Hence 'Risewarp'. The present mill building shown in this photograph was erected by Philip Williams engineer and was paid for by Nathaniel Cholmley in 1752. It was burned to a shell by a fire in 1911 caused by a lightening strike. It was rebuilt and ran until 1962 under various owners. It is now used as apartment housing. Above the mill is the lighter coloured tiled roof of Turnerdale Hall. The single building at the meeting of the road and rail bridges is the Bridge Inn. The church is St Bartholomew's which opened in 1869 and the large house to the left of the church was the vicarage. The house between the church and the Bridge Inn has now gone so improving the road junction behind the house.