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BRIDGE END CHAPEL.

DIFFICULTY arises as to the most suitable title to be given to this little history, as Rastrick people are properly jealous of losing any honour due to them. The difficulty is not by any means a new one, for somehow the names Rastrick and Brighouse have been strangely interchangeable for many centuries. As to the reason, I do not care to speculate on this occasion, suffice it to note that five centuries ago Brighouse Court was sometimes called Rastrick Court; Brighouse Mill was Rastrick Mill; and in modern times Brighouse Fields, Brighouse Railway Station, Brighouse Friends' Meeting-house, and Brighouse Independent Chapel, are all in Rastrick. The Friends, however, previously had their meeting-place in Brighouse. It is evident that Brighouse has outstripped its neighbour in modern times.

The parish of Halifax embraces the old parochial district of Elland. Rastrick-cum-Brighouse is in Elland, ecclesiastically, the warden having been formerly chosen from Brighouse every third year. Yet Brighouse hamlet is a parcel of the township of Hipperholme-cum-Brighouse, Hipperholme being properly in the parish of Halifax.

It seems as though Hipperholme and Rastrick had quarrelled about the ownership of Brighouse, but the child has grown so strong that both have quietly yielded to its superiority.

This much is certain, that at the Rastrick end of Brighouse Bridge, is a small hollow, formerly called Bowling Green and Salforth, but more commonly ycleped Bridge End; whilst near Scotty Well there was, till recently, a field called Scotty Croft (so named from a Scotchman who was minister at the Chapel), which formed the centre of the hollow. The old houses have mostly disappeared, though it is little more than twenty years since the oldest of them (the Calder and Hebble Hall!) was pulled down.

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Just for a moment let us take a glance at the old scenery. The Rastrick Beck, once a beautiful, clear stream, here discharges its impurities into the Calder. The inhabitants are ashamed of it, and have for a considerable distance covered it like a common sewer. The Bridge End brats can no longer dabble their burning feet in its limpid waters; they hardly know of its existence. They hear of their fathers truanting from the Sunday School to wander up the stream to Jumble Dike and Brookrennels, but lo! where is the stream now? What a change! Overhanging this little hollow is now a village called Brighouse Fields. Brighouse, and yet in Rastrick! Fields, but where are they? The Manchester and Leeds Railway has come striding, like some monster, by its four archways, across this valley. Over Brighouse Bridge and up Rastrick Common was a very ancient and important road to Lancashire, from Leeds and the North East. Bishop Cartwright, Thomas Gent, of York, and other old travellers, mention it. It was founded on the great Roman Road, and was the common resort of carriers, bell-horses, and foottravellers. Several noted carriers lived in the neighbourhood, and from one and another news was constantly brought to the rustics of Brighouse and Rastrick. Brighouse had then neither chapel nor church, parson nor doctor; and was a very small place of about ninety houses, reaching to Slead Syke and Thornhill Briggs. Few could indulge in the purchase of the Leeds Mercury weekly. The old natives of Salforth would not know their once-loved place, the very name is obsolete; they would be bewildered, maddled, at their wits' end, like Livingstone's Sechewebe: True, they might find descendants of their own name, but so different in manners, customs, training, that, like the old woman, they would exclaim—

'Lack-a-day is on me! this is never mine.' Bonaparte is gone! George the Third gathered to his fathers; and our present Queen (his grand-daughter) an old lady. Rastrickers never now complain (as they once had occasion) that Brighousers have stolen their May-pole.

Brighouse and Rastrick each had a school, but we may

be assured there were few scholars at either, especially of the poorer class. The Friends had their silent meetings at Birds Royd, and Rastrick had an Incumbent in the person of the Rev. George Braithwaite, a man unblessed with much piety, and somewhat devoid of apostolic fervour. There was little to edify in his preaching, and very little to encourage in his example. He was, with many of his brethren, sad to say, strikingly in contrast with some clergymen whose labours will shortly be referred to.

In the Histories of Halifax, some interesting particulars may be found respecting the ancient chapel at Rastrick. In 1606, Dr. Favour, the Vicar of Halifax, found that at Rastrick"theere was ordinarye service so distincklye done and redd, and psalmes so well tuned and songe in that chappell that pleasyd him to encourage the people in well doing, to preach there," Shortly afterwards Mr. Kay was curate of Rastrick. He is described as a good preacher, holding Antinomian principles. He removed to Dewsbury, and thence to Leeds, where he was Lecturer, and conformed in 1662. Mr. John Robinson succeeded him at Rastrick, being, like Mr. Kay, inclined to the Antinomians. He is described as a Nonconformist of 1662, though I have been unable to find that he formed a separate congregation at Rastrick. A grave-stone in Elland Churchyard bears the following inscription: