Between the months of September and March, the Society runs a fortnightly lecture programme with talks on a wide variety of aspects of local history. These take place at the Methodist Church in Hebden Bridge (opposite the Co-op) on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 7.30 pm.

Recordings of presentations are usually made available to members for two weeks after the lecture on Vimeo. Information on how to access these is sent to members when each one is available.

For reports of lectures during the last 12 months go to [Lecture Reports](/lecture-report). Reports of lectures from previous years are available in the relevant Spring [Newsletters](/newsletters). Events for the next season will appear around the beginning of September.

Reports of lectures from previous years are available in the relevant Spring [Newsletters](/newsletters).

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Privacy Policy

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**Membership benefits**  
- Free entry to lectures including access to recordings of those lectures for a short time afterwards (where the lecturer gives consent)
- Free access to the archive when open
- Borrowing rights for the archive (published items only)
- Reduced fees for research enquiries
- Free membership of Family History and other special interest groups
- Two newsletters a year with news, lecture information and short articles
- Regular email news on society and local history matters

Membership costs £15. The membership year runs from 1st September to 31 August each year. If you join after the end of the lecture season in April your membership will include the following subscription year. Renewal invitations to existing members are sent out at the end of August each year.

The information you supply is used by us in accordance with the Data Protection legislation to administer your membership of the Society. Our privacy policy is available [here](/pages/privacy-policy) or you can contact the [Membership Secretary](/contacts/membership-secretary). Your personal information will never be passed on to third parties without your consent. 

## Download the membership form:

[Download a membership form](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/raw/upload/v1661940918/Email_membership_form_2022_fe8eafeb33.doc)

##  Or pay online:


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Join the Society

**International customers**  
Please note that the shipping prices quoted below are to United Kingdom addresses only. Before ordering, please [contact us](mailto:orders@hebdenbridgehistory.org.uk) for details of shipping costs to addresses outside the United Kingdom.

**UK shipping costs**  
Prices quoted below are for individual books. Shipping costs for multiple books are calculated on checkout.

**Publications Mailing List**  
If you would like to be added to our mailing list so that we can inform you of future publications, [please click here.](/contacts/join-the-mailing-list)

**Your privacy**  
The contact information you supply when buying a publication is used by us in accordance with the Data Protection legislation to administer your purchase. Our privacy policy is available [here](/pages/privacy-policy) or you can contact the [Membership Secretary](/contacts/membership-secretary). Your personal information will never be passed on to third parties without your consent.


Browse the books published by the Society

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Publications

The archive will normally be open every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon from 2-5pm. However, this is subject to volunteer availability. Any closed days are indicated below. Numbers at each session are limited and pre-booking is required by emailing the [Archivist](/contacts/archivist-1). If possible, please indicate which documents you would like to look at. Our catalogue can be searched here:  [Catalogue search](/catalogues/hblhs-archive-catalogue).  
Non-members who wish to visit the archive are very welcome to do so but must pay a visitor’s fee of £3.00.  
It may be possible to arrange alternative visiting times if you are unable to visit at the standard opening times.

## 2023

|           |  Wednesday 2 – 5pm |  Thursday 2-5pm |
|-----------|--------------------------|-----------------------------|
| January   | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th                     | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th                  |
| February  | 1st; 8th; 15th; 22nd                    | 2nd; 9th; 16th; 23rd                     |
| March     | 1st;  8th; 15th; 22nd; 29th                     | 2nd; 9th closed; 16th; 23rd; 30th                        |
| April     | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th                      | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th                        |
| May       | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th closed; 31st                     | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th                        |
| June      | 7th closed; 14th; 21st; 28th closed                    | 1st; 8th; 15th; 22nd; 29th                     |
| July      | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th                     | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th                        |
| August    | 2nd; 9th; 16th; 23rd; 30th                    | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th closed; 31st                        |
| September | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th                 | 7th; 14th; 21st, 28th                  |
| October   | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th            | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th                    |
| November  | 1st; 8th; 15th; 22nd; 29th            | 2nd; 9th; 16th; 23rd; 30th                    |
| December  | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th closed                 | 7th; 14th; 21st; 28th closed                  |


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Visit our archive

The Society will do its best to answer queries about the history of the Upper Calder Valley using the expertise of members and our archive but cannot guarantee to provide a complete or satisfactory result. The Society does not accept any liability for the accuracy or completeness of information provided.

There is a nominal charge for queries of £2 for members of the Society and £5 for non members. These sums go towards helping to maintain the Archive. Your request may be submitted using the form below which will take you to our shop for payment. Unfortunately we are unable to answer any queries for which payment has not been received.

It may be possible to supply copies of documents by email or post subject to the completion of a copyright declaration form. Basic digital copies are free. Photocopies are charged at 10p per page and £1 for postage. These charges are additional to the query charge


## Information request

Please follow the links below. When you click to submit the form you will be then asked to make a payment of £5 for non-members or £2 for members.

The information you supply is used by us in accordance with the Data Protection legislation to administer your enquiry. Our privacy policy is available [here](/pages/privacy-policy) or you can contact the [Membership Secretary](/contacts/membership-secretary). Your personal information will never be passed on to third parties without your consent. We would like to keep your information on file to keep you updated on this query and to let you know about other information that may be of interest. Please select Yes in the cart summary if you consent.

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Research service

The Family History Group is a sub-group of the Hebden Bridge Local History Society and meets regularly at the Birchcliffe Centre to further our knowledge of the people who live and have lived in the Upper Calder Valley. We also are happy to help local people who are researching their own families in different parts of the country.

The aim of the group is to promote and assist the study of genealogy and family history, the prime interest being the study of people and where they lived. We do this by:
- offering members an opportunity to meet like-minded people locally and to share their interests, resources and experience
- helping people with online research sources and we welcome visitors to our drop in sessions for this purpose. We have access to genealogy and other resources. More experienced members are always needed to help at these sessions.
- building up a database of local families and welcome any contributions to this. There are a number of surnames local to the Upper Calder valley such as Greenwood and Sutcliffe.
- welcoming visitors from other parts of the country and from abroad, who are researching families that originated in this area. 


**Meetings 2023**

Meetings are usually held on the Thursday afternoons between 2pm and 5pm at the Birchcliffe centre. There is a visitor's charge of £3. Numbers at each session are limited and pre-booking is essential to ensure that there is a volunteer available to help with your enquiry.  If you are not able to visit on a Thursday please let us and we may be able to arrange for you to visit on another day.

You can book by using the [contact form](/contacts/family-history-session-bookings). Please also use this contact form for further information about the Family History Group.

**Research enquiries**

We try to answer research enquiries from people who are unable to visit us. Enquiries can be submitted via our [Research Service](research-service) for a small fee.

**Monumental inscriptions**

We have now completed transcribing the gravestones in the Heptonstall Old Churchyard which has taken several years. It was an enormous task, especially when working on the older graves. The results can be accessed on the [Monumental inscriptions](monumental-inscriptions) page. Another team has transcribed the graves in the ‘new’ churchyard and these are also accessible on the same page. All these transcriptions can also be found on the [Calderdale Family History Society](https://www.cfhsweb.com/index/select/). We hope to continue the task in other local graveyards.


Family history articles from HBLHS Newsletters

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Family history

For some years now a small group of friends has been exploring the evidence for prehistoric activity in the South Pennines, roughly from the M62 up to the Stanbury-Colne road and from the main Pennine watershed in the west across to the urban fringe in the east. There is no particular prehistoric or archaeological significance in these boundaries, this is simply the present extent of our fieldwork.

The images below illustrate some of the features we have examined. Below the images are articles and updates that provide summaries of our work over the years.

![Arrowhead](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648910930/Arrowhead_a416f2f455.jpg#medium)

Arrowhead: a typical barbed and tanged arrow-tip from the early bronze age. It would have been fixed to the shaft using wool twine and birch bark glue. This one seems to be made from grey Wolds flint – flint does not occur naturally in the South Pennines and was traded across country. These arrowheads are often found damaged from use. This undamaged one, from Midgley Moor, may be a hunting loss or a ritual deposition.

![Millers Grave](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911057/Millers_Grave_d11ae23650.jpg#medium)

Miller's Grave: a singular feature. The name is modern but the thing itself is prehistoric. 
The central element, either two slabs of rock close together or one that has split, has been surrounded and concealed from view by a substantial bank of earth and stones. Robin Hood’s Penny Stone – another modern name for a much older feature – can be seen on the skyline.

![Letterstones](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911126/Letterstones_53d1b9f460.jpg#medium)

Letterstones: Prominent stone overlooking Green Withens valley and oriented toward where the sun rises in November and again in February marking the pre-Christian festivals of Samain and Imbolc (which were later adopted and adapted as All Souls and Candlemas), essentially straddling winter and denoting the end of the harvest season and the coming of spring.

![Linear feature, Widdop](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911192/Linear_feature_Widdop_5927d5b8eb.jpg#medium)

Linear feature, Widdop: a curious wall of erect slabs curving down the valley side edging a one-time re-entrant. The reservoir water here, as elsewhere, has stripped off the peat and soil to leave the prehistoric land surface exposed. Where erosion has continued the slabs have fallen over. This linear feature may have been a ritual boundary or the basis for a stock-proof barrier to keep animals away from the stream people were using.

![The Gorple Dagger](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911298/The_Gorple_Dagger_286beb338c.jpg#medium)

The Gorple Dagger: a high status, prestige item which would have been worn for show. The flint dagger is a copy of early bronze forms and would have had a handle of decorated bone, horn or wood. This is one of the best examples in the country and is similar to north European forms. It was found adjacent to a washed-out burial on the shore of Upper Gorple Reservoir. The acid soils of the South Pennine uplands have destroyed many traces of prehistoric people; bone, wood, leather, horn, textile and ceramic are very unlikely to survive.

![Recording rock art](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911387/Recording_rock_art_2_55880f2956.jpg#medium)

Recording rock art: a camera-on-a-stick is being used to take a vertical photo (as an alternative to making a scale drawing in the field)

![Standing stone, Heptonstall](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911478/Standing_stone_Heptonstall_aecbb9e0c9.jpg#medium)

Standing stone, Heptonstall: sited just above the break of slope, and now incorporated into a wall, this stone may well have a stellar reference. There are several stones that appear to point to a position on the horizon too far south of east for the sun or moon. In fact they all indicate a place where the constellation Capricornus rose in 1500BC.

![Cupmarks, Higher Moor](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911643/Cupmarks_Higher_Moor_d56f5cfba2.jpg#medium)

Cupmarks, Higher Moor: just south of Stoodley Pike. The cup-marks - the circular depressions – are a common form of prehistoric rock art. These cups seem to have been placed in a particular configuration.

![Midwinter sunrise](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911748/Midwinter_sunrise_ac53012722.jpg#medium)

Midwinter sunrise: From Robin Hood’s Penny Stone the midwinter sun appears to rise out of the Miller’s Grave. This kind of alignment to significant solar and lunar events is quite common in prehistoric features and is unlikely to have occurred by chance here.

![Robin Hood's Penny Stone](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911839/Robin_Hood_s_Penny_Stone_9104094c9d.jpg#medium)

Robin Hood's Penny Stone: a large block of a gritstone called Huddersfield White Rock. HWR outcrops further down the moor and this stone may have been moved some 300m to its present position

![Barrow, Ridge](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648910930/Barrow_Ridge_5f9741d9f4.jpg#medium)

Barrow, Ridge: a turf-covered mound of stones with a ditch around it. Another form of prehistoric burial.


Evidence of prehistoric activity in the South Pennines

Articles and updates

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Prehistory Group

From generation to generation, people pass on their own ways of doing things to families, friends, colleagues and anyone they spend time with. These fragments of their culture can include all sorts of information - how to dress, games and rhymes, customs to keep around the house or community, what seasonal festivals to observe and how, sayings and expressions and much more.

This body of acquired knowledge can be thought of as cultural tradition, and varies from place to place, helping to foster a sense of identity from family to village to school or larger unit, such as a country. It is more widely known under the name of folklore.

John Billingsley collates the folklore side of local history for the society. The Folklore Section covers the everyday customs and expressions of local people as well as the stories they tell and the customs they observe. We would invite anyone to share folkloric memories or documentary material on the folklore of our area, either for publication here or for inclusion in our expanding database. Please contact John through the [Society Secretary](/contacts/secretary).
 
John has been involved with local folklore for thirty years, as a speaker and writer, and as a tutor for Bradford University’s Lifelong Learning Department. He also leads guided walks with strong folkloric content for Calderdale Heritage Walks and is the author and editor of several books, as well as the ‘new antiquarian’ magazine, Northern Earth (www.northernearth.co.uk). Readers wishing to follow up local folklore may find the titles below of interest:
- A Stony Gaze: Investigating Celtic and other stone heads. Capall Bann 1998
- Charming Calderdale. Signs and customs used to protect the home folk-magically. Northern Earth 2020
- Folk Tales from Calderdale. Place legends and their context. Northern Earth, 2007
- Hood, Head & Hag: Further folk tales from Calderdale. Special focus on Robin Hood, the severed head motif and witchcraft. Northern Earth, 2011
- West Yorkshire Folk Tales. History Press, 2010
- The Mixenden Treasure: A true tale of magic in 16th-century W Yorkshire. Northern Earth, 2009

Below are articles, including photographs, that offer a flavour of the stories that are still told in Calderdale communities in the surrounding areas.




Articles

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Folklore

THIS PAGE IS HERE JUST FOR THE INFO TO PLACE ON THE HOMEPAGE. DO NOT ADD TO OR AMEND

Our Newsletters are usually published in September and April, at the start and the end of the lecture season

Newsletter Archive

Through our lecture programme, archive collections, special interest groups and publications, we offer a variety of ways to enhance your knowledge of the history of the Upper Calder Valley.

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Welcome to Hebden Bridge Local History Society

In looking at the traditional woollen cloth production of our part of Yorkshire, the role of tentering – drying and stretching the cloth on a frame – is often seen as a straightforward step in the process. But as Dr Graham Cooper explained nothing could be further from the truth. He has spent many years looking into the history of tenters, discovering a world of challenges, cheating and regulation. 19th century maps show the prevalence of tenter fields in the landscape of the West Riding and East Lancashire. However, unlike other equipment used for cloth production, very little evidence of tenters has been found, probably because they were mainly made of wood. 

Tentering was an essential part of the finishing process, stretching the woven cloth, shrunk and wet from the fulling mills, to a standard width laid down by statute. The cloth was hung on the hooks in the top bar and bottom bars of the tenter frame, and the bottom bar was gradually lowered to stretch the cloth. It was important to avoid overstretching, which made it likely that holes would appear in the thin fabric, and it would also be liable to shrink again. 

Throughout the centuries authorities were seeking out potential cheating. Deliberate overstretching of the cloth was seen as a scourge and condemned by preachers as ‘the greediness of gain’. There were hundreds of laws, statutes and regulations governing the production of cloth, which was a major part of the trade of England. As well as the clothiers potentially cheating, there was a huge risk of theft, sometimes from the tenter fields, sometimes from the highway. Punishments for stealing cloth ranged from fines to transportation or even a death sentence.

Tenters were recorded in paintings such as JMW Turner’s view of Beeston Hill near Leeds and John Holland’s view of Brearley, and some early photographs. Near Marsden and Dobcross there are the remaining stone frames of tenters, but the only standing tenter frames with their wooden beams are a remarkable survival at Otterburn Mill in Northumberland (pictured). These suffered damage in recent floods, but look likely to be saved with the help of a grant from the Heritage Lottery fund.

Attempts to counteract the problems of wet weather have also left some remains. In Dublin a tenter house was built which would provide ‘a perpetual summer’ allowing the clothiers to continue to earn a living. There are also some castle-like ‘wet houses’ such as one at Helmshore used for the same purpose. 

A satisfying link of maps, Google Earth and footwork can reveal evidence of where the tenters stood, and Graham has photographic evidence of such tenter banks or terraces preserved in the landscape. Inevitably though, most have been built over. Graham found evidence of nearly 400 tenter sites in his survey of the cloth districts; 72% now covered over. 

Place names can also give clues to the site of a forgotten tenter field, and Graham is still looking for evidence and further information. Visit his website  www.tenters.org


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Tenters in the landscape: a remarkable history


Anne Kirker, local historian and volunteer guide with Calderdale Heritage Walks is used to exploring the history of Calderdale as preserved in the landscape. But in this talk she took the audience on a different kind of trip, through a very different landscape. We enjoyed a visual travelogue of a cruise along the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the most important civil engineering projects of its time, completed 130 years ago.

The cruise took us 36 miles from Salford Quays to Pier Head in Liverpool. The canal was needed to support the trading links of the fast growing city of Manchester by allowing large ships to gain access. More than 16000 navigators (navvies) were employed in digging ‘the big ditch’ and there were many deaths and injuries.

The glittering buildings at the start of the cruise reflect the more recent regeneration of the area, with cutting edge architecture in the Lowry Building and Imperial War Museum. The Ship Canal shares the route with rivers Irwell and Mersey, as well as the Bridgewater canal, and a road network, all demanding access across, under and over the canal. The transitions between river and canal involve sophisticated systems of locks and sluices, monuments to the industrial age. We were introduced to a medley of bridges, aqueducts and viaducts, ever more ingenious in their response to problems – lift bridges, swing road bridges, high level bridges and even a swing aqueduct (an audience member who had sailed her own canal boat across explained how rubber wedges held the water back when the bridge swung). 

The canal had to accommodate the people living and working nearby, so there are passenger ferries at 25p a trip, and a pedestrian swing bridge to safeguard an old right of way. The differences in scale and purpose are seen at Thelwall where the M6 roars endlessly over the double bridge of the viaduct. Nearby was a little rowboat to ferry people to work and a pontoon, carrying farm animals across the water.

Anne pointed out places of historical interest along the way: 12th century Norton Priory; Halton Castle, now a luxury hotel; Trafford Park, home once of an elegant deer park, now of the Trafford Centre. There was Davyhulme Harbour, where Manchester’s sewage was shipped off to Liverpool, and Partington Basin, an unloading place for Shell and BP, where in the 1970s there was a disastrous spill and fire. At Runcorn Gap were the quarries which provided the distinctive red sandstone of Liverpool Cathedral.

Approaching Liverpool we were again aware of modern bridge building. An incredibly engineered transporter bridge from 1905, which carried cars and people across the structure at 4 miles an hour, was replaced by the Jubilee Bridge in 1968. This itself is now dwarfed by the 2017 New Mersey Gateway, gracefully arcing the river. And at Pierhead the still proud three graces of Liverpool waterfront, the Liver, Cunard and the Port of Liverpool Buildings speak of the regeneration of this part of the city where the Ship Canal, with all its echoes of the past, reaches its end.


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Manchester Ship Canal: from Quays to Pier

Up on the hillside steeply rising from Hebden Bridge is Birchcliffe Chapel, housing the remarkable archive of books, papers, deeds and documents cared for by Hebden Bridge Local History Society. Anne Mealia is an assistant archivist and very familiar with the extent of the treasures to be found there. As someone who makes her living as a genealogist and whose researches into Todmorden families have fed into historical walks and talks about the area, she is also well placed to know how essential it is to preserve such records. 

The oldest record, a deed written in Latin on vellum, dates from the 16th century, and probably matches what most people think an archive might contain. But it is important to remember that an archive is a living organism, and that collecting from this century too is essential if people in the future are to get a glimpse of how life was lived.

The archive collects and holds documents relating to the Calder Valley mainly from Todmorden to Sowerby Bridge, and the holdings include deeds, diaries, maps and even artifacts such as old farming tools and samples of lichen. There is also a library of books by local authors famous and obscure, including some rare survivals. To get a vivid sense of how people entertained themselves over the years, you could consult the many programmes and flyers relating to entertainment. These are still being collected, to keep adding to the mosaic that makes up the cultural life of this part of the valley.

Clubs, societies, pressure groups and chapels have always been part of that environment. The battle to save Hardcastle Crags from flooding was a key event in the last century, and the archive holds many documents from the organised struggle, including parliamentary bills, posters, petitions and minute books. These would provide real riches for someone to investigate. So would the large collection of items relating to industry. The archive from manufacturers Redman Brothers of Foster Mill includes illustrated catalogues, sample books, billheads and plans, which give a real insight into how this local business operated.

Maps and plans record how the valley developed with turnpikes, canals and railways opening up the valley. And it’s easy to lose an hour or two scanning one of the large scale OS maps held by the Society. The audio-visual collection includes oral histories and examples of dialect and films such as a trip down the Leeds Liverpool canal. 

The archive is open to visitors on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 2 pm and 5 pm. On Thursdays you can also get help with family history research. Booking through the website is essential. The website also lets you access the catalogue, which can be searched in various ways to find the items that might interest you. Maybe a visit to the archive will lead to a new talk or a future publication.


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The Treasures of Hebden Bridge Local History Society Archive

How do you get inside the mind of someone who has been dead for over 300 years?
Luckily the Reverend Oliver Heywood was a keen diarist and Sheila Graham told the Society how she used lockdown hours to trawl through the strange things he recorded to find a sense of his thoughts and feelings.

Oliver Heywood was a Puritan; an English Protestant in the 17th century, when puritans sought to rid the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices. They had strict moral beliefs and were censorious of licentious behaviour. Heywood, with other dissenters, believed that his right and duty to preach came direct from God, and was confirmed by the excess of emotion he called ‘the melting season’.

Heywood was born in Bolton in 1630 to puritan parents and, following education at Cambridge, he was ordained and became the incumbent of the Chapel at Coley in 1650, living nearby in Northowram. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1658, a series of Acts attempted to bring the dissenters back under the control of the established church and Heywood found himself suspended from the ministry. For many years he travelled throughout Yorkshire to preach. Life was sometimes dangerous; he was even imprisoned for a short time. From 1688 when the reliably Protestant William came to the throne, Heywood’s life until his death in 1702 was relatively peaceful.

So what do we learn about him from his diaries? Can we get inside his mind? The diaries were transcribed by a local antiquarian, J Horsfall Turner, in the late 19th century and through them we can get a taste of his thoughts and beliefs.
He was apt to pass judgement on notable men of Halifax whom he thought degenerate, not bland obituaries but incisive and opinionated with a marked preference for scurrilous gossip. ‘Charles Best, killed himself with intemperance, degenerated into licentiousness’ ‘Robert Gledhill, a clipper ‘tis said’. He was especially fascinated by sudden death and the horror of facing judgement day unprepared.

Heywood also reported on the behaviour witnessed at events in Halifax, annual celebrations such as Mayday, ‘a heathen custom which attracted a number of people of the baser sort, gradually through the day descending into drunkenness and chaos.' He was a good storyteller and described events fully but always with his puritanical bias. He was looking for evidence that ‘all hell had broke loose’ and judgement day was close. Another source of wonder were comets, storms and unseasonable weather that also suggested the end of days.

Heywood was still writing his diaries days before his death in 1702. He had sold his horse and even records the price he got for the surplus hay and a week before his death, writes his will. With his accounts up to date and ready for the judgement, he died. Not for him the ill prepared death: everything was accounted for.



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The melting season: inside the mind of Oliver Heywood

‘A brighter, happier, more joyous life’: the vision of what co-operative housing could offer to working people at the turn of the 19th century. 

Andrew Bibby is a writer and journalist well known to the Hebden Bridge Local History Society for his particular interest in the British co-operative movement, and the special role played by Hebden Bridge in this history. His recent research has focused on housing co-operatives. After the founding of the Rochdale Pioneers at Toad Lane in 1844, a wave of co-operative societies and institutions spread, creating ‘a valley of co-operation’. There were soon retail co-ops in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge and by the 1860s most hillside villages had their own co-op. There was also the nationally famous Nutclough Fustian Workers’ co-operative. By the end of the century co-operation was a powerful national movement, and had extended into wholesale, banking, insurance and flour making. But despite the provision of homes being one of the its original aims, there was as yet no real co-operative housing movement. 

Some local street names provide evidence of small scale investment in housing in this area, with names such as Industrial Street, Co-operative Street, and Co-operative Terrace.  By 1903 about £8 million was invested in 37,200 houses, but this was mostly in mortgages, not co-ownership, and the houses were the conventional  close packed terraces deemed suitable for the working classes. There was no grand vision. Elsewhere the garden city movement proposed building homes, not in serried streets, but on green-field sites, with open spaces and room for leisure. These principles were a good match for co-operation and the aims of a newly formed Labour Association launched in Hebden Bridge. Nutclough was its northern centre and  Crossley Greenwood (son of Joseph, founder of Nutclough) became a leading proponent of its ideas. This Co-operative Tenants’ Society model was based on shared investment and shared ownership and a central aim was to provide communal spaces – meeting rooms, sports facilities and room for a social life. 

Seeing beyond the provision of basic houses to a vision of community living was the work of George Lister Sutcliffe, a Hebden Bridge architect (designer of Birchcliffe Chapel). After a move to London he became the in-house architect for the Co-operative Tenants’ Society. The movement was widespread before 1914, with dreams of a brighter more joyful life becoming reality across the country. Hebden Bridge came close to having such a village at Eaves Bottom – ‘a site fitted to become an arcadia and to ring with song and happiness’, but a fall in trade made this uneconomic. And when the first world war ended, the urgency of housing need dictated a different route of mass municipal housing, and many of the co-operative partnerships were broken up. Ten co-operative estates survive, including two in Manchester at Fairfield and Burnage, still boasting the gardens, playgrounds, meeting halls and bowling greens of the original vision. The houses are owned collectively, as the title of Andrew’s latest book on this fascinating history claims ‘These houses are ours.’


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The early co-operative housing movement and Hebden Bridge’s part in it.