When the Midland Railway Company opened its new junction station at Hellifield on 1st June 1880, it also created a brand new railway community on what had previously been rural farmland. The June 22nd 1880 edition of the Leeds Mercury tells us more:
The quiet village of Hellifield, a few miles beyond Skipton, ... has been transformed into a busy place for railway traffic, and will henceforth be known as Hellifield Junction. Consequent on the extension of the Lancashire and Yorkshire line from Chatburn to Hellifield, and the increased traffic thereby brought to the Midland system, the latter company have had a new station built at Hellifield on a comprehensive scale. ... Near the station a house will be built for Mr. Tudor, the station-master (lately of Newlay Station), and a second house for the locomotive superintendent. A new road has been formed on the south side of the station. Here have been built forty cottages, in separate blocks of ten each, for the servants of the Midland Company. Unlike the cottages on the Settle and Carlisle branch of the Midland, which are handsome and villa-like in appearance, these cottages are very plain, and have evidently been designed for use rather than ornament. The outer walls of some of them are of stone, but others are composed of concrete blocks. They have gardens in front and rear, the latter large. The conveniences are placed at the end of the back gardens, and are approached by a road. Internally the cottages are as plain as externally. There is a front room on one side of the door and a pantry on the other, back kitchen, and a wash-house opening direct on to the back yard, supplied with rain water for washing, and a pump to every two houses for domestic purposes. The street is metalled, footways formed, and sanitary matters appear to have had attention.
The same source tells us that the contractor for the cottages was Messrs. Rhodes of Shipley.