Crow Nest, Lightcliffe was originally a farm.
A building is recorded here in 1592 when it was occupied by the Booth family.
Subsequent owners and tenants have included
A new house – almost a replica of Pye Nest House – was built for William Walker, and designed by Thomas Bradley.
For extensions in 1775, designed by John Carr, William Walker brought timber from the Baltic coast of Russia, then to Hull and finally by canal to Brighouse. The estate occupied 700 acres.
It is recorded that the rooms were 16 ft in height.
Sir Titus Salt was tenant from 1848 to 1854, but he had to leave when Evan Charles Sutherland-Walker wanted to live there himself. In the 1860s, Sutherland-Walker further extended the mansion with the construction of the entrance and the gatehouse.
When he lived at the house, Sutherland-Walker had his own gas works which supplied Crow Nest and Cliffe Hill.
In 1867, when Sutherland-Walker fell on hard times, the estate, comprising 2 mansion houses – Crow Nest and Cliffe Hill – other property including the Sun Inn, Lightcliffe and the Travellers' Rest, Hipperholme and almost 700 acres of land, was sold at auction at the New Assembly Rooms in April 1867. Crow Nest was sold to Sir Titus Salt for £26,000.
Salt built the lake in the grounds, and added his arms to the gatehouse depicting rams and llamas. During construction of the lake in 1869, the foreman William Nicholl drowned himself.
After Salt's death in 1876, the house was bought by Richard Kershaw for £34,000 Richard Kershaw discovered the beds of stone which lay beneath the land, and carried out quarrying on the land around the mansion.
When Kershaw died in 1917, the house was sold to Joseph Brooke.
Sulphur emissions and picric acid from Brooke's nearby chemical works had contaminated the stream through the grounds of Crow Nest – thereby bringing down the price of the property when Brooke was buying the property – and Kershaw's solicitors sued the company for compensation, but lost their claim.
In July 1918, the house & park – together with Hoyle House Farm & laundry – were sold to R. K. Pickles of Mytholmroyd.
The company exploited the grounds and the house for stone. During World War II, it was used to billet soldiers from Dunkirk. They damaged the house, and a lorry collided with Titus Salt's gateway, damaging the pillars and breaking a decorative urn. The building fell into decay after World War II, and was finally demolished in the mid-1950s.
The gatehouse at [82] Wakefield Road is now a private house and is listed.
The mid-19th century single span segmental arched bridge which still stands on the Coach Road is listed
See Cliffe Hill Mansion, Crow Nest Park, Lee's Buildings, Hipperholme, Lower Crow Nest, Brighouse, Memories of Salt's Mansion, William Nichols, Smith House housing estate and The Grange, Lightcliffe
This & associated entries use material contributed by John Brooke, David Nortcliffe, Darrell Prest & Alan Shaw
Page Ref: MMC214
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