Hinchliffe Arms) with New and Vale mills in Withens Clough. Next down Elphin Brook were Castle, Paper (opposite the Robin Hood Inn), Cragg, Hoo Hole, and Scar Bottom mill (Mytholmroyd). By the 1820s these were said to be no place for "any decent human, let alone the children of the poor". It is on record that children died at their work in the mills of Cragg. Died from long hours and harsh treatments handed out. While the mill owners William Greenwood ('Old Billy Hard Times') and the Hinchliffe family amassed their fortunes. It took the 1833 factory act just to begin to address the appalling abuse of child labour and workers A turnpike known as the Mytholmroyd Bridge & Blackstone Edge Turnpike, and also as the Cragg Vale Turnpike was established in 1815, The road runs from County Bridge, Mytholmroyd and up Cragg Road to link with the Halifax to Blackstone Edge turnpike over Blackstone Edge to Rochdale. Tolls were discontinued on 1 November 1873 Governance The village is part of the Luddendenfoot ward of the Metropolitan borough of Calderdale, part of the Metropolitan county of West Yorkshire. Current day Although Cragg Vale is a small linear village, it has two pubs The Robin Hood Inn and the Hinchliffe Arms, as well as the former Cragg Vale J and I school and a Caravan and Motorhome Club Site. In the last few years the village has expanded with a children's nursery called The Ark, a recording studio Aspire Technology and an online fancy dress retailer Atlantis Fancy Dress being added to the village. One of the businesses to launch most recently is Preserve Shop, a retailer of jam jars, jam making equipment and kitchenware for home preserving. The main business areas in Cragg Vale are the Top Land Country Business Park, as well as the Craggs Country Business Park further up the valley. Local enterprises include The Little Valley Brewery which produces such locally named brews as Cragg Vale Bitter, Stoodley Stout, Hebdens Wheat & Tod's Blonde among others, Zikodrive Motor Controllers, Visiosound and Vocation Brewery. Today, Cragg Vale has a population of about 650. It is located at the start of arguably the longest continuous gradient in England (after perhaps Pishill in The Chilterns)- 968 feet over 5.5 miles There is an annual bike race up it; this is a hill climb and normally run by the Yorkshire road