THE TONG AND FULNECK VALLEY

by Sam Greenhough

The Tong Fulneck Valley is an area of Green Belt land to the South East of Bradford, bordered by the historically important Moravian settlement of Fulneck to the north and the Domesday village of Tong to the south, both of which are designated conservation areas (see below for Bradford County Council’s own definition of the Tong Conservation area) because as well as being areas of outstanding natural beauty, they contain a larger concentration of listed buildings than any other in the district.

Fulneck, which was founded in the 1740’s by Count Zinzendorf is a unique unspoilt example of a self contained religious community , with houses for the ‘brethren’ and ‘sisters’ together with a Chapel, Museum, Golf Course (which extends into the Tong/Fulneck Valley) and is dominated by extensive terrace buildings of the famous private school. The whole of the Terrace, which enjoys beautiful views across the valley to Tong is grade I listed, whilst numerous other buildings in the settlement are grade II listed.

Similarly, the village of Tong , which sits right in the middle of the greenbelt between Bradford and Leeds, was once part of the Manor of Tong, whose Lords occupied Tong Hall (grade I listed) and whose lands extended over the whole of the area from Dudley Hill, Holme, Tyersal and Black Carr to Cockerdale including a number of ancient and historically important outlying farms such as Gib Stubbing, Calverley Clough, Rycroft Hall, Raikes Hall, Tyersal Hall, Scholebrooke and Maythorne (see aerial photo).

Both the 17th century Rycroft Hall, home of the Nettleton family and Tyersal Hall, which boasts a minstrel gallery, are not only grade II listed but were considered of such historical significance to the Bradford District that the celebrated antiquarian Wilfred Robertshaw wrote lengthy articles on each during the 1930s.

Within Tong village , as well as Tong Hall and its adjacent Home Farm and Park, St James Church (also grade I listed), which has Saxon origins and is one of the oldest churches in the district, there is also a grade II listed Manor House, Schoolroom, the Greyhound Inn, Cricket Ground, water pump and Pinfold, together with numerous other 17th and 18th century listed buildings. Thanks to the Tempest family who occupied the Hall for over four centuries and the generations of tenant farmers (some of whom still occupy these farms), the district was able to remain rural in character which to a large extent is still the case today.