While the textile industry originally relied on local supplies of wool and water power to get it started, much of the industrial expansion of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was only possible because of what lay below the surface of the ground. As the scale and range of manufacturing output increased, so did the demand for additional resources to power and build the mills and factories that employed a rapidly growing urban population, which in turn needed new housing. Without the locally available source of coal and good quality building stone, it is unlikely that the industrial expansion that took place around the uplands of the South Pennines would ever have been possible.
Survey projects on Baildon Moor, Todmorden Moor and Oxenhope Moor aim to record what still survives, and to research the available written and oral evidence. It is hoped that by drawing all of this evidence together, we can start the process of understanding just how important the uplands have been as a resource for industrial expansion.
