At one time Rastrick was larger than Brighouse, today it’s a village off Brighouse, most people know it as one part of the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band although it has other historical and notable merits of its own, did you know it’s the home of Wrights Brandi snap and they have been in Rastrick since 1900, The Brighouse Rail Station is actually built on the boundary of Rastrick.
Rastrick is a highly populated village with properties spreading its entire length and breathe it also had an amazing number of pubs (maybe copying from its neighbours Elland who at one time had a pub on almost every corner) in fact even today Rastrick still has around a dozen pubs along with several clubs and array of shops, takeaways and business’s it also still has a working open caste quarry on its border with Elland, Rastrick is another village built on a steep gradient although unlike Clifton its vast developments start at the Brighouse boundary and just goes on and on to the top of village where it joins Huddersfield via Fixby, Ainley Top and Elland via Upper Edge and Lower Edge boundaries.
At one point almost all Rastrick especially the lowland was Leasehold (See News off our home page for the latest news on this January 2021) although in more recent years the land leases were available to buy for most of this village. Rastrick also had its share of Chapels & Churches make of this what you will? One theory on this is that the large stones required to build the churches was ready available from all the small and large quarries scatted around the village, when you also compare this village with others in the area you cannot help to notice most of the village is built out of stone, most other villages tended to use bricks for the of cheaper end properties in the 19th 20th century, in neighbouring Elland were they had the large Wilkinson Brick Works dominating the town most of the lower end properties were built with Wilkinson’s Bricks. Another theory is because they did not sell the house with the freehold the landowners insisted on properties been built out of the more expensive stone so if a person forecloses, dies and the property reverts back to the land owner they have a more expensive property to sell?
