My family lived at Number 8, Park Nook, Exley – the block is now uninhabitable.
In the garden to the left of Number 8 is a well – this had a huge slab laid over it when I lived there – which supplied the residents of the hamlet prior to the installation of running water.
George and Nellie Nichols, lived at Number 12. This and the cottage next door were used as the chapel for the residents of Park Nook. The porch at the front between Numbers 11 and 12 is far more elaborate than any of the other cottages.
Before we moved into Number 8, the woman who lived there laid out dead people in the front parlour.
During the War Years, Park Nook was considered a beauty spot, and photographs of the area were sold on postcards.
There was another small community up the road from Park Nook at West Lane, where Boyle's Farm is now. In the 1970s, these cottages were unoccupied and were used by the farmer as storage space.
A female occupant of one of these cottages was the equivalent of our modern day laundrette. She took in washing for the local residents and returned it washed and pressed. Another cottage was the local shop, with very limited supplies, and business was conducted from the kitchen of the cottage
The cause of the houses subsiding was the Elland Brick Works mining clay under the houses.
If you stand at the stile – if it's still there – in front of Number 11 & 12, and look down the hill, you can see a farm and to the left of that is a mine head. That mine links up with the mine at Siddal Bottoms, down Cinderhills Lane
Page Ref: M_116
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