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. Talks are free to members. Visitors are welcome (£4).

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 from September 2025 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
- One newsletter a year with news, lecture information for the season 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.

## 2026

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

Meetings are usually held on Tuesday mornings between 10am and 1pm at the Birchcliffe centre. There is a visitor's charge of £3. Numbers at each session are limited and 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 Tuesday please let us know 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 Newsletter is usually published in September, at the start 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

It may be a hundred years since the General Strike, but the words have such a resonance in labour history that it comes as something of a shock to realise that it lasted only nine days. Also, as Alan Fowler reminded the audience at Hebden Bridge Local History Society, it remains a unique event. That action in May 1926, when workers from different industries were called out in solidarity with the coal miners, was never repeated.

Alan has spent his working life teaching Economic and Social History, so was able to put the events of the strike into a wider context. The immediate trigger was a lock out of the workers in coal mines, but it was shaped by events and decisions far away from the pits. 

War had brought full employment but was followed by instability, with a boom in the very speculative stock exchange followed by depression and a decision to deflate the economy. The postwar settlement saw the rest of the world catching up with industrialisation, closing down some of the export markets England had relied on. 

A crucial decision was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Winston Churchill, freshly back in the Conservative Party) to return the UK to the gold standard, a mistake that massively over-valued the pound. The English economy was weakened as the US gained power as the greatest creditor nation. 

Coal mines returned to private ownership, and collective bargaining by miners on a national basis was ended. But the owners did act together, proposing to cut the wages and extend the hours worked.

The labour movement had been growing in power and influence, with membership of trades unions quadrupling from 1910 to 1920, from 2 million to 8 million. Half the labour force of England belonged to a Union, so when the miners defiantly called for ‘not a minute on the day; not a penny off the pay’, and the TUC gave its support to the miners, there must have been some expectation of success. There was also considerable alarm, with a shadow of communism and constitutional crisis.

After the miners were locked out on May 3rd the TUC called the General Strike, still believing that they had the strength to negotiate and reach a compromise. Different sectors were to be called out in sequence, with some of the first strikes being in transport. Newspaper editorials emphasised the threat, and there was a movement to organise volunteers (especially University graduates and women) to step into the roles of transport workers. There might have been a spirit of jollity, but there were also accidents, and a threat of violence with convoys of food lorries accompanied by tanks. By May 12th it was called off.

The miners continued in their struggle for another six months until forced back to work on savage terms. There was never another general strike, but despite the apparent humiliation of trade unionism, sympathy for the miners remained and in the General Election of 1929 Labour was the largest party. 

The movement had shown solidarity, but there had been no gains for the miners.




Lecture reports

The General Strike of 1926

Lecture reports 2025 to 2026