Hartley House (ruin)

Extensive and interesting ruins with low stone walls (levelled for safety) and stone shelved dairies with a little spring well beside the path. The site was excavated and consolidated 1984 as part of the West Pennine Moors Project.

The original farmhouse building of Hartley House is said to date back to the 16th Century in the time of Good Queen Bess, but by 1790 the buildings had expanded to a second farmhouse and four cottages. The Hartley family owned the property in throughout the 16th and 17th Centuries farming the surrounding land and weaving cloth. When Hartley House was sold in 1827 the extensive buildings on the site included four farmhouses with loomshops and nine separate cottages, several of which also had loomshops attached.

Later tenants at Hartley House included John Lord, clog maker and farmer in 1881 and William Greenwood, farmer and quarryman. By that time there were only five remaining dwellings at Hartley House, one being vacant. Like most other nearby farms, Hartley House went derelict sometime in the early 1900s due to the construction of the reservoirs and the remaining land being bought up.