Stainland

Early routes and tracks followed high ground to avoid the marshy and wooded valley bottoms and it was on one such high level packhorse route that Stainland developed. The Stainland Cross remains as evidence of man's activity there in the medieval times. The village's name comes from Old Norse and means Stony land; the land around Stainland is not very fertile. The village does not have a separate entry in the Domesday Book. An economy that was based principally on wool and textile production led Stainland to develop as a hilltop village, in much the same way as Sowerby and Heptonstall. With the Industrial Revolution, mills developed in the neighbouring valleys to take advantage of water…