The Heaton Lodge and Wortley Railway was constructed by the London and North Western Railway, to provide a duplicate route between Huddersfield and Leeds, leaving the existing line at Heaton Lodge Junction, east of Huddersfield and rejoining it at Farnley junction, south west of Leeds.

An early casualty of the construction of the railway was Mirfield Cricket Club, who stated in the Report and Balance sheet of the Annual General Meeting held at the Black Bull Hotel on Wednesday 18 December 1895: Owing to the construction of the Heaton Lodge and Wortley Railway; it became necessary at the end of the season 1894, to select a new ground, lay a new cricket pitch, and erect a new pavilion.

The next station was Northorpe Higher which was originally built of wood, north of the bridge over Shillbank Lane.

[3] The line then ran parallel to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Mirfield Branch, crossing it and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Ravensthorpe Branch before entering Heckmondwike in a series of cuttings and a short tunnel.

In 2007 the Spen Valley Ringway was a 3.3 kilometres (2.1 mi) greenway route linking two schools at Littletown and Millbridge.