THE COLNE VALLEY crosses the Pennines in West Yorkshire an unbroken range stretching from the Peak District in the Midlands, through the Yorkshire Dales and West Pennine Moors of Lancashire and Cumbrian Fells to the Cheviot Hills on the Scottish border. It takes its name from the River Colne which flows along the floor of the valley through the villages of Marsden, Slaithwaite, Linthwaite and Golcar. The River Colne and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal provided early transport links which were soon added to by road and railway links to Huddersfield and Leeds to the East and Manchester and Liverpool to the West.
The River Colne rises in the Pennines in West Yorkshire. It flows through the Colne Valley passing through the villages of Marsden, Slaithwaite and Milnsbridge to Huddersfield and then on to Cooper Bridge where it joins the River Calder. The history of the local area dates back to the Stone Age. A Mesolithic camp site, a Bronze Age burial site, and stone tools from the Bronze and Stone Ages have been discovered around nearby Trawden. There are also the remains of an iron age fort above Nelson and Colne at Castercliffe which has been dated back to the 6th century BC. The name Colne is of Celtic origin. It is currently thought to have been founded around the 1st to 4th centuries BC by the Brigantes. It was located along the Trans-Pennine ridgeway, a major trade route dating back to the Bronze Age.
Colne came under Northumbrian and then Viking rule. At its greatest the kingdom extended from the Humber to the Forth. The Humber is a large tidal estuary forming part of the boundary between northern and southern England. The Treaty of York of 1237, signed between Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland, set the border between England and Scotland. Northumbria, as a kingdom from the Humber to the Forth, then defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east).
The term WEST RIDING usually refers to the West Riding of Yorkshire in England, though Lindsey also possesses a West Riding. It is one of the three ancient divisions of the county of Yorkshire, its county town being Wakefield. Yorkshire's West Riding comprises an area roughly corresponding to its administrative successors West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire plus the Craven and Harrogate districts of North Yorkshire. Small parts lie in the administration of the Lancashire, Cumbria and Greater Manchester administrative areas and the post-1996 East Riding of Yorkshire. Of this area the southern industrial district, considered in the broadest application of the term, can be seen to extend northwards from Sheffield to Skipton and eastwards from Sheffield to Doncaster, covering rather less than one-half. Within this district are Barnsley, Batley, Bradford, Brighouse, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Halifax, Huddersfield, Keighley, Leeds, Morley, Ossett, Pontefract, Pudsey, Rotherham, Sheffield, Todmorden (partly in Lancashire), and Wakefield. Major centres elsewhere in the riding include Harrogate, and Ripon.
It starts at Faxfleet and the Trent Falls at the confluence of the River Ouse and the River Trent; it then passes the junction with the Market Weighton Canal on the north shore, the junction with the River Ancholme on the south shore; past North Ferriby and South Ferriby, under the Humber Bridge and past Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Kingston upon Hull on the North bank, where the River Hull joins, then into the North Sea between Cleethorpes and Spurn Head. Indeed the name Northumbria simply indicates the area North of the Humber. It currently forms the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire, to the north and North and North East Lincolnshire, to the south. The Firth of Forth (Abhainn Dhubh [Black River] in Scottish Gaelic) is the estuary or firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea between Fife to the north, and West Lothian, the City of Edinburgh, and East Lothian to the south. The river is tidal as far inland as Stirling.