Malsis Hall at Glusburn, seen here as a private residence, was one of several great local houses from the mid-Victorian era.

Built in the Italian style in the 1860s from stone quarried on its own 750-acre estate, it amply fulfilled a favourite adjective of the period – massive. The scale of its interior features matched: one painting, called The Egyptian Feast, measured 13ft by 7ft.

Malsis Hall’s proud owner was James Lund, worsted spinner and manufacturer of North Beck Mills, Keighley.

Magistrate, Deputy-Lieutenant of the county, Freeman of the Borough, James Lund epitomised the successful Victorian industrialist.

He employed more than a thousand workers, by whom he was “held in great estimation for his uniform kindness and generosity”. His funeral cortege in 1903 mustered no less than 70 carriages.

James Lund was responsible for the erection on Earl Crag of Sutton Pinnacle, sometimes still called Lund’s Tower, and for Keighley’s Lund Park, opened in 1891 on 15 acres he had given. Appropriately, the adjoining thoroughfare is named Malsis Road.

The mansion opened as Malsis School in 1920.