THE PARISH OF HALIFAX. XV11. 



The only interruption is between Luddenden Foot and Norland, 

 where the valley slopes are largely occupied by Sowerby 

 Bridge, and Allen Wood formerly occupied the site of the 

 station there. Whilst the valley bottom has long ago been 

 deforested, these woods have been retained because their sites 

 were worthless for any other purpose, as will be recognised by 

 anyone familiar with Long Wood or Woodhouse Scar in 

 Skircoat, North Dean Wood, or Hathershelf Scout Wood. 

 Further, the numerous " royds " of the parish are almost all 

 situated on these same hill slopes, and are the places where the 

 ground was cleared to make a habitation ; and frequently the 

 woods still remain surrounding the clearance, or royd as at 

 Akroyd, Mayroyd, Fallingroyd, Binnroyd, &c. Other ancient 

 place-names like Woodhouse and Shaw originate in the ad 

 joining woods, and the Calder itself is the " wooded water." 



The soil is too shallow and the ground too rocky to admit 

 of a valuable growth of timber. The trees that attain the 

 greatest dimensions appear to be the beech, ash and sycamore. 

 The oak is very common in many woods, as North Dean and 

 Elland Park, and though, perhaps, it offers the most prolonged 

 resistance to unfavourable circumstances, it nowhere reaches a 

 great size. Birch woods may be found in Luddenden Dean 

 and Broadhead Clough, near Mytholmroyd; and pines and 

 firs have been planted freely in the Hebden valley and Crims- 

 worth Dean. It would seem, from the absence of early 

 botanical records from them, that the woods around Hardcastle 

 Crags were not formerly as accessible to the public as they 

 are to-day. For not only does the parish possess, for a thickly 

 populated manufacturing district, an unusual wealth of wood- 

 land scenery, but the public are free to enter almost all the 

 woods, and facilities are generally granted on application in the 

 few cases where there is no right of way. 



Whilst Halifax shares in the mild, equable and damp 

 climate enjoyed by Britain as a whole in virtue of its insular 



position, the situation and elevation of the 

 Climate. parish introduce local modifications, chiefly in 



the form of a lower average temperature and 

 a greater rainfall. 



The following table presents the results of two series of 

 meteorological observations made in Halifax at different periods, 

 setting out in each case the monthly average for a term of eight 

 years of the adopted mean temperature, which is derived by 

 combining the morning and afternoon readings of the dry bulb 



