Mayroyd
Members of the families who are recorded here have included In the winter of 1643 when Yorkshire was largely the theatre of operations in the English civil war, Mayroyd was a stronghold for the royalists.
Several local attorneys – including Thomas Sayer and Robert Alcock - lived and practised here from the early 18th century.
Subsequent owners and tenants have included These records are derived from late 19th century newspaper articles together with an abstract of a paper titled “Three Old Homesteads” by Mr J.H.Ogden, dated 1903.
A document, which evidently relates to the estate, dated the feast of St Thomas the Martyr in the first year of Henry IV [28 December 1399] reads as follows:- “Know all men present and future that I, Robert Mathewson of Illyngworth, give, concede, and by this my charter confirm to Richard, son of Henry Rowtenstall, one messuage built at Hepden- bryge, called Thyrneholin, Dodnas, and Pyper Stubbing, with one parcel of land, called Falloroyde, and one croft of pasture called Mayingcroft adjacent , under Brodbotham, above the River Calder in the town of Waddesworth.”.
According to the Historical Notes in the Halifax Guardian, 1882, and the Times & Gazette,1896, “the Sutcliffes of Broadbottom, Fallingroyd and Mayroyd were all descended from the Hoohole branch.
Mayroyd, Fallingroyd, Akroyd and Hollingroyd are all names of neighbouring places once part of a forest but cleared and brought into cultivation in pre-Conquest times.
The same John Sutcliffe married Margaret Holdsworth of Ashday Hall, Southowram and had two sons, Matthew & Adam, and on 17 January 1553, in the reign of Queen Mary, conveyed the Mayroyd estate in trust to be made over on his death to Matthew Sutcliffe his son & heir, with an annuity of £3 to Margaret his wife for life.
It remained in the possession of William Cockroft’s descendants, the Halifax Guardian of 1851 records, “until the present time” but in fact even longer than that.
In 1588 Matthew Sutcliffe was confirmed Dean of Exeter and had the idea of building a College of Polemical Divines “ to be employed in opposing the doctrines of Papists and Peligianising Arminians and others who draw towards Popery and Babylonian slavery”.
This became a key part of King James I’s plan to encourage a Protestant riposte to the doctrines of the Counter- Reformation emanating from Rome.
The project ultimately failed for want of funds and the buildings were acquired by the Government in 1660 to house Dutch and Scottish prisoners of war.
In 1666 the buildings, now dilapidated, were granted by the Crown to the newly created Royal Society of which Christopher Wren was a founding member.
In 1682, sponsored by Charles II, Stephen Fox paid £1,300 for the site on which to build Wren’s Royal Hospital for Soldiers.
The will of Dean Matthew Sutcliffe of Hoohoyle, yeoman, dated 20 August 1612, records his wish for his body to be buried in the church or churchyard of Heptonstall.
In 1750 this William Cockroft of Mayroyd and others obtained from Sir George Savile the right to bore and search for coal ‘in the wastes of Wadsworth’.
A marble slab in Heptonstall church is inscribed as follows ‘Here lies interred William Cockroft of Mayroyd, Esq., who died November 29, 1773, aged 68.
According to a notice of Sale by Auction in 1796, Robert Alcock of Mayroyd sold Moss Hall and Daisy Bank Farms, described as “Very Improveable Freehold Estates”.
In 1896 the Times and Gazette reported that “ the Mayroyd estate which recently changed hands has been in the Cockroft family for over 300 years.
William Henry [1853-1913] the youngest of the three on marrying in 1897 Mary Helena Greenwood [1867-1946] of Harehill, Todmorden bought Brearley Hall, Luddenden Foot, where Harold Sutcliffe was born in December 1897.
