Huddersfield is a large town near the
confluence of the River Colne and the River Holme. It is in the
Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire and is located within
the historic borders of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Major areas and
suberbs include; Colne Valley, Golcar, Linthwaite, Marsden, Denby Dale,
Skelmanthorpe, Scissett, Holme Valley, Holmfirth, Meltham, Kirkburton,
Shelley and Lepton.
There had been a settlement in the vicinity since Roman times, as
evidenced by discovery of the remains of a Roman fort at Slack, just
west of the town. Castle Hill, a major landmark of the town, was
originally an Iron Age hillfort. Huddersfield itself was noted in the
Domesday Book as a village known as Oderesfelt. Huddersfield has been
known as a Market
town since Saxon times.
The town became a University town in the early 1990s when the
Polytechnic was granted University status.
Huddersfield is notable for its abundance
of fine Victorian architecture. It has the third highest number of
listed buildings of any town or city in the UK. The most conspicuous
landmark in the Huddersfield area is Victoria Tower on Castle Hill.
Overlooking the town, the tower was constructed to mark Queen Victoria's
60th Jubilee Year. A picture of the Victoria Tower features on the New
Zealand wine Castle Hill.
The colonnaded Huddersfield railway station in St George's Square was
once described as 'a stately home with trains in it', and by Sir
Nikolaus Pevsner as 'one of the best early railway stations in
England'.[13] A bronze statue of Huddersfield-born Harold Wilson, Prime
Minister 1964-1970 and 1974-1976 stands before the entrance in St
George's Square.
Huddersfield Town FC is the town's senior association football
team, founded in 1908, and currently playing in Coca-Cola League One.
In 1921-22 Huddersfield won the FA Cup and between 1923-26 they became
the first club to win the League Championship three times in a row, an
achievement matched only by three other teams. The club left its ground
on Leeds Road in 1994 and now shares the Galpharm Stadium with the
Huddersfield Giants rugby league team.
Huddersfield Giants are a
professional rugby league club based at the Galpharm Stadium in
Huddersfield, in the Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire. They play in
the Super League in a distinctive strip of a claret shirt with thin gold
hoops, claret shorts and claret and gold hooped socks and are known
colloquially as "Fartown". They are sponsored by the University of
Huddersfield.