A CHARITABLE trust which has helped many people in Wilsden and Denholme over the centuries has handed out its last grants.

The James Sagar Trust has given cash to the villages – plus Clayton, Allerton and Thornton – under the wishes of its founder, landowner James Sagar, since he died in 1666.

Organisers say changes in interest rates and inflation have resulted in the amount being handed out becoming less.

The charity’s ten trustees, two representing each area, decided to make a final distribution to the five villages and wind up the cause.

Its final round of grants will be used to fund a number of projects, with each village receiving an equal share of the trusts’s surplus total of £2,138.

In Wilsden, its £427.70 grant will support the community post office, ensuring a postal and pension/banking service can be maintained in the village following closure of the original post office.

Denholme’s grant will be used to provide funds to encourage groups to use Denholme Mechanics' Institute, by free funding an initial month’s use.

This is the only community hall in the village. Bradford Council, the present owner, intends to release ownership next year as a result of funding cuts.

Robert Whitehead, James Sagar Trust clerk, said it was not known how much money had been handed out during the trust’s tenure.

He said: “James Sagar could hardly have envisaged his charity lasting for such a long period in time.

“We decided to distribute the remaining capital of the budget. It was a very sad decision to wind up the charity, but we all realised it was the right thing to do. We have given the villages a share of £150 each year for the last few years.”

In 1821, grants were given to the five villages by the sale of land at Randall Well, which included a spring ideal for brewing beer.

The Bradford Brewery Company produced beer, Yorkshire Stingo, and the Bradford city centre site later became the Gaumont entertainment complex which housed a cinema and dance floor, at the time the largest of such outside London. It later became the Odeon cinema.

Funds were later swelled by the sale of valuable land at Leventhorpe near Thornton, which is now the site of Thornton Grammar School.

The charity held meetings in Bradford city centre hotels attended by all the councillors of the recipient villages.

In its later years the charity was administered from Wilsden Village Hall, always with two trustees from each village attending.