CLIMATE, VEGETATION AND MAN
IN THE HUDDERSFIELD DISTRICT
BY T.W. WOODHEAD

12. PLANT ASSOCIATIONS IN 1900

TOPOGRAPHY AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLACE-NAMES

That the sites selected by man for occupation and cultivation are determined by topography, climate, and vegetation, is strikingly brought out in Model 11. as in previous models, three zones of altitude are indicated by distinctive colours, lowland, 150-600 feet; spurs and foothills, 600-1,200 feet; and upland, 1,200 – 1,900 feet. A square black sign is used to indicate the position of those places with names suggesting human occupation and cultivation, also those which include personal names, e.g., Huddersfield, Cartworth, Emley, Flockton, Gunthwaite, Honley, Lepton, Liversedge, Bradley, Denby, Birkby, Grange, Lindley, Meltham, Netherton, Paddock.

Another set, purely topographic, physiographic, or indicating uncultivated land – woodland or moorland – are shown by a red dot, e.g., Deer Hill, Delph, Elland, Ogden, Stanedge, Thornhill Edge, West Nab; or the many names which include the words moss and moor. An examination of the model will show how the topographical names, and those indicating native vegetation, predominate on the high, wet and cold zone; while those suggestive of occupation and cultivation to the more congenial lower, drier and warmer zone.

It is of interest that the ancient names “moss” and “moor” distinguish with great clearness the cottongrass moss on the one hand, and the grass-heath and Calluna moor on the other; the mosses being predominant on the wet, peat-covered summit plateau, while the moors are characteristic of the spurs and foothills where the sandstones of the Millstone Grit series or those of the Coal Measures come to the surface. Woodland names are of common occurrence in areas now treeless, but occupied by a moorland flora – a modified relic of the ground flora of the former Oak-Birch-Heath Forest.

The significance of these place-names is shown by comparing two parallel zones:- one among the summit plateau, twelve miles long and one mile broad, and the other of the same extent to the east of this crossing the spurs and foothills:-

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