East Riddlesden Hall – West Front

Slide 3 – The west front consists of two gables of three storeys and mullioned and transomed windows in groups of threes, and are exceedingly picturesque. At the north end of this front is a porch with semi-circular arched doorway and a fine wheel window over. Here for two Centuries was the home of the Paslaw family, but most of the present edifice was erected at a subsequent period. It continued to be held by them until the end of Elizabeth’s reign, when John Rushworth who married a sister of Francis, the last Paslaw, the property passed into the hands of James Murgatroyd, a wealthy neighbour, in the period of the Commonwealth, Rushworth reserving one room to live in and sufficient produce for his maintenance. The Murgatroyds became so reduced in circumstances that in about fifty years they disposed of it to the Starkeys, to whose descendants until recently it belonged.