Berry Brow

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Berry Brow
Berry Brow shown within West Yorkshire
Metropolitan borough	Kirklees
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	HUDDERSFIELD
Postcode district	HD4
Dialling code	01484
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
European Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Huddersfield
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Coordinates: 53°37′10″N 1°46′50″W / 53.6195, -1.7805

Berry Brow is a semi-rural village in West Yorkshire, England situated approximately 2 miles south of Huddersfield. It lies on the eastern bank of the Holme Valley and partially straddles the A616 road to Honley and Penistone.

The village has a Victorian infants' and nursery school, some shops and a railway platform on the Penistone Line. It lies between Armitage Bridge, Taylor Hill and Newsome. Berry Brow is served by two public houses (The Railway and The Golden Fleece) and a liberal club. The site of a third public house, The Black Bull, has now been converted into an Indian restaurant.

View of the northern end of Berry Brow showing school and the Caldercliffe Road area

In the bottom of the valley are two high rise buildings consisting of local authority flats and bedsits. These reached public notoriety in the 1980s when they were found to contain high levels of asbestos, which had been built into the fabric of the building under the regulations in force at that time. Expecting to take approximately 6 months to complete the task of removing the asbestos, Kirklees Council temporarily re-housed the tenants in other areas, the majority of whom consisted of mature and eldery residents. As the 6 months dragged on into first 2 then 3 years, the tenants were offered more permanent housing elsewhere. The two blocks were eventually refurbished at a cost in excess of £6,000,000. They were then used to house younger single people and asylum seekers from other countries.

Notoriety again began to rise due to the escalating amount of drug use, violence and drug-dependent crimes from a minority of tenants. This entailed an increased use of security staff, concierges and CCTV cameras, plus evictions by the housing authority.

In the 18th century, Berry Brow was the site of an executioners gibbet, which was reportedly situated at Deadmanstone next to Hangingstone Road, above The Golden Fleece public house, which is on the opposite side of the A616 road to the high rise buildings.

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