A ten-thousand-year-old axe was discovered near Ringstone Reservoir, providing evidence of human activity in the area now known as Barkisland dating back to the Stone Age.

John Watson, vicar of Ripponden church between 1754 and 1769, theorised that "Barsey or Barkesey are Anglo-Saxon words meaning low-lying enclosures where birches grow.

[4] Barkisland is a village in the civil parish of Ripponden, which is part of the Ryburn ward of Calderdale, a metropolitan borough within the ceremonial county of West Yorkshire in England.

[10] Barkisland is situated on a hilltop that gently rises from Greetland in the north-east and declines westwards to Ripponden and eastwards to Stainland.

The village stocks are located on Stainland Road roughly 550 yards east of the post office and are a Grade II listed structure.

[12] Barkisland Hall is a grade I listed country house built for John Gledhill in 1638, constructed in stone in three storeys to an F-shaped floor plan.