Ramsden Estate (Huddersfield)

At the time of the purchase, the estate comprised the whole of the town centre, together with nearly half the land within the county borough boundary, a total of more than 4,300 acres (1,700 ha).

[4] The market charter proved important for the development of Huddersfield as a centre of the textile industry, but for many years the town's cloth merchants were forced to sell their goods in the local churchyard.

In 1766, Sir John Ramsden, 3rd Baronet remedied this by the construction of Huddersfield Cloth Hall, which confirmed the town's status as a mercantile centre.

His son, Sir John Ramsden, 4th Baronet, built the Huddersfield Broad Canal, at a personal expense of £12,000, to connect the town to the River Calder and provide a link to the outside world more economic than the pack animals that had been used up until then.

[3][4][5] The Ramsden Estate had already built a hotel in 1726, known as the George Inn and located on the north side of the Market Place, and rebuilt it in 1787.

Another recounts an approach made to a town councillor by a member of the Rothschild family, during a trade mission to Austria as early as 1894, suggesting the council might buy the estate.