Elland - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

ELLAND, an urban district in the Elland parliamentary division of Yorkshire, England, on the Calder, 22 m. S. of Halifax by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 10,412. The church of St Mary is Decorated and Perpendicular. Cottonmills, woollen-factories, ironworks, flagstone quarries at Elland Edge, and fire-clay works employ the industrial population. Elland Hall, though almost rebuilt, retains the recollection of a remarkable family feud between the Ellands and the Beaumonts of Crosland Hall, the site of which may be traced in the vicinity. A nephew of Sir John Elland, in 1342, met death at the hands of a relative of the Beaumonts upon whom Sir John took vengeance, as also upon the heads of the allied houses of Lockwood and Quarmby. The children of these families were educated in the hope of avenging their parents, and after many years succeeded in doing so, cutting off Sir John Elland and his heir.