bell cote and Venetian window, survived later changes on the site and has now been converted into apartments. The 1841 census recorded the fact that around 500 men, women and children, three-quarters of the Cononley workforce were working in the textile industry. No less than 112 of these people lived on Club Row. By 1881 the proportion of textile workers had declined to under a half of those employed in Cononley. The opening of the railway in 1847 will have helped to increase the diversification of occupations. By 1851 the population of Cononley had grown to 1,272. The 1840s and 1850s saw the high point of production at Cononley Lead Mine which was owned, then as now, by the Dukes of Devonshire. The Dukes of Devonshire had inherited the manor once owned by the Earls of Cumberland. Although there were exceptions, most of the men employed in the mine had moved relatively short distances to Cononley from other lead mining areas in Yorkshire. By 1861, at the peak of employment, some of the younger miners had been born in Cononley. Production of lead ore, latterly very limited, continued until 1881. Many miners left Cononley when the mine was in decline and only about two dozen men remained to take up other employment in the village. In the late 1860s the 'New Mill', officially known as Aireside Mill, was built across the River Aire, in what was then, Farnhill. In 1880 it was bought by John Turner who was the owner of the mills near the station. At the end of the 19th century Station Mills were rebuilt to form a single building parallel with the road, also incorporating the 1837 High Mill and the earlier mill chimney, which remains a Cononley landmark. This development may have been one of the causes of the bankruptcy in 1901 of George Turner, one of John Turner's sons. The economic situation did not favour a plan to build an extensive estate of houses in 1897, partly on the land now occupied by the village playing field, and the scheme failed. A strike in both of the Turner family's mills coincided with a community based plan to promote the erection of a further textile mill in the village with the aim of broadening the workers' choice of employer. These two projects, had they come to fruition, would have radically altered the appearance of Cononley. The