I always admired the story that the owner refused to sell the farm for the M62 construction until I just read…
their farm was saved because the land beneath the 15 acres which now lies between the carriageways was too steep - making it impossible to build all six lanes on.
I always rooted for the david against goliath, but I was wrong. Sad face
i always imagined the farmer would be a grim faced old curmudgeon such as on All Creatures Great and Small 
Is this the place just over windy hill, the place stuck in the middle of the two carriageway?
Me too, I hoped for an anti establishment surly faced grumpy git that stuck two fingers up to the government.
But I was wrong, just a geological reason that peed on my fireworks.
Yeah, the little house on the prairie. I was always told the same story from when I was a kid and had my bubble burst a couple of years ago.
Apart from a few weeks back havent traversed the M62 (certainly not that part anyway) in 25 years but always wondered at the time how that little house became marooned…
It wasn’t because of the hills being too steep, it was the geology or more precisely the boggy peat ground that caused them to divert the road. They lost several machines which sunk in the bog. There’s a very good BW 50’s video on YouTube that shows the building of the road. Yorkshire water actually own the farm which is leased to the current tenant who moved in around 1989, a recent tv news story disclosed that Yorkshire water are re-wilding the area planting spagnum moss etc to restore the land
Reminds of of nail houses in china
Rumour was that compensation was paid to the land owner and the poor tenant in the farm got nowt.
Snarley:
I always admired the story that the owner refused to sell the farm for the M62 construction until I just read…
their farm was saved because the land beneath the 15 acres which now lies between the carriageways was too steep - making it impossible to build all six lanes on.I always rooted for the david against goliath, but I was wrong. Sad face
Yep the truth doesn’t make half as good story as the myth. 
the version i heard was that being of your normal myopic miserly farming fraternity, he assumed he could hold them to ransom and asked for a fortune knowing they would need to buy him out.so they just shafted him by building round him…thats my 40 year old bubble burst now…
must be a terrible noise for the owners,the racket must be 24/7 .