Heckmondwike Town, Norristhorpe & Roberttown

Heckmondwike Town, Norristhorpe and Roberttown form a compact cluster in the Spen Valley, within the Kirklees district of West Yorkshire. Heckmondwike sits where the main road crosses the valley and has a long High Street of shops, civic buildings and terraces that grew up to serve the 19th- and 20th-century woollen mills. Norristhorpe and Roberttown are the smaller settlements on the slopes and beside the valley; stone-built mill premises and rows of workers’ houses are still visible beside the River Spen and its tributaries. The A638 provides a direct road link to neighbouring towns and the pattern of former mill sites and narrow streets reflects the area’s industrial past.

Community life centres on neighbourhood schools, churches, community halls and sports pitches, with local bus routes linking to Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Walkers and cyclists use sections of the Spen Valley Greenway and footpaths that follow old railway lines and streams through the valley. Small-scale commercial activity and pockets of converted mill space sit alongside residential streets, giving the area a mix of working and residential uses rooted in the valley’s textile history.