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.

## 2025

|           |  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      | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th                    | 5th closed; 12th closed; 19th closed; 26th           |
| July      | 2nd;  9th; 16th; 23rd; 30th            | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th; 31st                     |
| August    | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th closed               | 7th; 14th; 21st closed; 28th                 |
| September | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th               | 4th; 11th; 18th closed; 25th                 |
| October   | 1st; 8th; 15th; 22nd; 29th           | 2nd; 9th closed; 16th; 23rd; 30th                    |
| November  | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th            | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th                   |
| December  | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th closed                | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th 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.

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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

First, an admission: this wasn’t the advertised talk of two halves. Stephen Dean, Senior Archaeologist with the Environment Agency, had so much to explain at the meeting of Hebden Bridge Local History Society, that the glitter of the Staffordshire Hoard was squeezed out by the potential for rather greyer discoveries on our doorstep. 

The Hebden Bridge Flood Alleviation scheme has not yet received planning permission, but already the archaeologists are doing preliminary surveys and identifying areas of interest. Steve was keen to make links with local historians to draw on their knowledge and to see what questions they would like answers to. Archaeology in an urban setting is obviously constrained by existing buildings and by the necessity to preserve the heritage assets of the town. Maps identifying the areas of interest and historic value will form part of the planning for the flood alleviation work. The river is part of the town’s identity, and even the sounds of the water over the weirs can be seen as part of the heritage.

The packhorse bridge that gives Hebden Bridge its name is a major focus for potential investigation. The bridge has the protection of being a scheduled monument dating back to 16th century, but repairs and rebuilding over time means that its extent is not entirely clear. The chance to dig into its buried past may reveal evidence of the life around this important river crossing in earlier centuries. There was a manorial corn mill on this site which hasn’t been definitively located and suggestions that there might also have been a smithy and possibly a tannery close by.

Archaeologists like to dig, of course, and small trial pits in Old Gate and the St Pols car park have uncovered different building materials such as hand made bricks, and large flags implying floors below the current ground level. There is nothing glittering hidden here, but to an archaeologist there is significance in the use of lime mortar and the laying of stone sets and slabs – these were buildings that were meant to last, evidence of a settled population. Things will start to get more exciting when finds emerge which are connected with everyday life. Items such as stoneware or porcelain can provide dating evidence and fill in the details of the town’s story. Rubbish dumps provide some of the richest resources.

The Environment Agency archaeologists work to a strict protocol aimed at protecting the built and buried heritage. As well as working on small below ground sites, they have a watching brief to monitor the work as it progresses. If planning permission is successful the first phase of archaeological research should begin in June 2026 with interim reports made available. Steve hopes that there will be some community involvement uncovering new stories and answering old questions about the history of Hebden Bridge.

We were left with some tantalizing pictures of the gold in the hoard uncovered when Steve was County Archaeologist in Staffordshire. He promises to return next season to complete the planned second half of his lecture and to share his thoughts about the people who made and used these highly decorative objects.





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Archaeology, a talk of two halves: From the Staffordshire Hoard to Hebden Bridge


Idyllic scenes of hay-making in the woodland meadow near where High Hirst Farm used to stand seem to capture old times. Paul Knights, speaking to Hebden Bridge Local History Society, described how the grand 16th century building once dominated the skyline, looking over Hebden Bridge from the hilltop now occupied by the Dodnaze Estate, high above Birchcliffe. The meadow is now home for a community project and once a year local people gather in the harvest, using traditional methods – scything and raking the cut grass, forming small haycocks to speed up the drying and carrying the hay to an improvised baler. 

They hold a traditional harvest picnic, celebrating the end of a cycle. Once the harvest is gathered, local people with livestock to feed collect the bales and sheep belonging to a local farmer are brought to graze the aftermath. Volunteers ensure that the sheep are cared for during their short stay, and the slow rhythm of the year continues. The community undertake surveys of the bio-diversity, studying fungi, moths and insects. They coppice hazel and grow fruit in the community orchard. The result is an area richer in species and helping with flood mitigation.

The echoes of the past are unmistakable and Paul has been drawn to discover as much as he can about the history of High Hirst Farm. The house, demolished in 1960, is thought to date back to the 14th century, when it would have been a timber framed building, but like other grand houses in Calderdale, it was either re-built or encased in stone in the early 17th century. There is evidence from wills and other documents that an Abraham Nayler was the owner of the farm at the time of its rebuilding, dated to 1629 on a surviving plaster datestone.

But by the mid-19th century the house suffered the fate of many grand houses and was divided into five cottages. Censuses confirm that farming continued on the site through the centuries, with one of the cottages occupied by a farmer, while the others housed weavers and tradesmen. No longer an isolated farm, High Hirst grew in the 19th century into a small hamlet of working people. 

Auction notices provide an insight into the kind of farming they practised, advertising herds of dairy cattle, a thriving milk round and poultry, alongside traditional agricultural tools. In the farming survey of 1943 the land was largely given to pasture and meadow with a small field growing oats. There was no mechanisation, and a working mare rather than a tractor. 

The last person to farm the land was Thomas Greenbank, and in 1946 the farm was bought by Hebden Royd council, the land ear-marked for housing development. There is little sign of the house that once stood there, but celebrations of the harvest echo long gone gatherings at Whit, the cricket clubs and the flower shows. 

Remarkably, in the audience was a stronger link - someone born on the farm in 1936, one of the Greenbank family, with his own clear memories of the place.

Image courtesy of Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

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Echoes from the Meadows: a History of High Hirst Farm

Twenty five years after the passing of the Countryside Rights of Way Act granted a (limited) legal right to roam, CROWS volunteer Paul Degnan explained to Hebden Bridge Local History Society how the volunteers work to maintain the network of footpaths so people can access this special moorland landscape. In the Upper Calder Valley and Ryburn Valley there are about 1000km of path and bridle ways. The volunteers of the Community Rights Of Way Service clear the paths, check  drainage, renew stiles and gates, install steps on slippery slopes and improve signage. 

CROWS is a registered charity, and most of its funding comes from individual donations and legacies, but there is also generous support from businesses and national organisations as well as from Town and Parish Councils. The project to write guided walk leaflets, centred on different villages, was a joint venture with Friends of the Calderdale Countryside. Post-Covid enthusiasm to meet and work as a community gave it impetus and local residents were keen to be involved.

There are three walks centred on Pecket Well, following packhorse routes and causey ways. From 18th century times people practised a dual economy, combining agriculture with weaving. This required routes across the moors to bring the yarn and carry finished pieces of cloth, as well as lime to make the acid soil more productive. Names like weavers’ and limers’ gate still record these routes. The volunteers have uncovered the old stone causey ways which made the trek a little easier. These names and stories like that of a woman from Heptonstall known as the ‘human packhorse’ who tramped to Denholm over hills often thick with snow, carrying the woven cloth, add a special sense of history to the walks.

There are reminders of more recent history too. Smeekin Pike is another sign of a close community which memorialised the local men who died in the First and Second World Wars. Pecket Well Mill with its red striped chimney was a cotton and fustian weaving shed and a major employer in the village right into the 20th century. 

Walks on the Calderdale Way and on Midgley Moor have vistas across the valley and the heather moorlands. Here the volunteers have to combat the mud, sometimes providing board walks to keep walkers keep on track. On Midgley Moor there are ventilation shafts, reminders of the engineering needed to get water along stone culverts from the reservoirs to the towns. The shafts cause suction which drives the water along its route. Keelham Gutter is an open stone gully from the spring to a reservoir providing essential water to Old Town Mill. Also on the moor are reminders of ancient inhabitants, making art on the stones with their cup and ring marks. 

Stones guide today’s walkers, with boundary markers and new stone paths across the water-logged moorland, maintained by the CROWS. Given the wetness of the Pennines, if you fancy volunteering, ask yourself ‘Do you like playing in mud?’  It's obvious that Paul does!







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A Crow's eye view of 'walkin round Pecket' The making of the Pecket Well village walks leaflet

Scotland Yard, the Titanic, Rochdale Town Hall… and St James’s Church, Hebden Bridge: how did a church in a small town like Hebden Bridge come to be listed in such illustrious company? As Dave Smalley explained, the answer lies in its wonderful array of stained glass windows and their illustrious designers and craftsmen. In the late 19th century the clergy and congregation of St James’s embarked at great cost on a programme of restoration including windows by the firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne, one of the best in the business.


St James’s was just one of the hundreds of churches being built or restored in the 1870s. This boom of church building arose from a fear that the Anglican Church was being side-lined as the Non-conformist chapels became more dominant in people’s lives and in the landscape. Population moves from country to town, driven by industrialisation, had left many places without a nearby church, and attendances were falling.

An added complication was the deep and often bitter theological differences in the Church, which led different clergy to want very different things in the design of the church building. There was a middle ‘broad’ church, but at the extremes was mutual suspicion. For the ‘low’, church the essence was the sermon, the scriptures and therefore the pulpit. ‘High’ churchmen valued the rituals and symbols of the mysteries of their faith, with a focus on the altar, set in a theatrically dramatic space, with rich colourful hangings and illuminated by decorative stained glass windows. 

At St James’s, the minister George Sowden,  a high church man, was a driving force to restore the church, with a new chancel and changes which included the very best stained glass windows. Somehow he guided his congregation to support the costly project, selecting Richard Norman Shaw, a prominent architect, to take charge. It was he who brought in the firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne. 

The three men each brought a different skill to the making of stained glass, emulating the sparkle of Medieval glass. There were some constraints – the subjects were biblical, and the shape of the long windows precluded  landscapes. Artist Robert Turnill Bayne produced the paintings. James Butler did the skilful and crucial job of designing the lead framework that held the glass and contributed so much to its final success. John Aldam Heaton was the colour man – selecting the colours for the design which would be fired into the glass. The effects were brilliant, with fluid movements and glowing colours. Inconsistences in the surface produced swirls and sparkles of light. 


Such highly skilled craftsmen and the complexity of the technique did not come cheap, but guided by Sowden, over a period of years, the congregation raised enough to pay for a complete scheme. The design team themselves contributed, with Norman Shaw making a gift of money, and Heaton’s wife herself financing a window. It was finally decided to raise the money by encouraging people to pay for Memorial windows, marking the life and loss of their relatives. What we have is beautiful design acting as a social record.



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Scotland Yard, the Titanic, Rochdale Town Hall and St James's Church Hebden Bridge

The new season of talks to Hebden Bridge Local History Society began with a broad sweep view of local history, as writer and journalist Brian Groom outlined the astonishing growth and achievements of Manchester and its influence across its satellite towns, including Hebden Bridge. 

The Romans, of course, left their mark, (though the Castlefield site was largely buried by the rush of 19th century development) and by the time of the Norman conquest Manchester was still a small village in a sparsely populated area. 

At the time of the Civil War Manchester was a Parliamentarian stronghold, playing a significant role in withstanding a Royalist siege from its Salford neighbours. But a general war-weariness meant that with the Restoration of the Monarchy, Manchester put its energy into its rapidly growing textile industry. Soon the landscape was changed, with the Bridgewater Canal and Arkwright’s mill marking the rise of industrialisation.

Rapid change led to prosperity for some, but also considerable unrest. This was the time when Manchester’s radicalism took hold. The most famous event was the brutal suppression of protest at ‘Peterloo’, but there was also a groundswell of radical thinking growing from Chartism, Trades Unionism, Communism and later the demand for Women’s Suffrage. 

The power and influence of manufacturers was also strong: Manchester after all was the home of Free Trade, and grew prosperous on the basis of trade in cotton produced by slaves in America. So, there was a conflict of ideals: Manchester people could be strong in campaigning for abolition of slavery but others were very much the beneficiaries of the system, amassing great fortunes. 
 
The difficult days of the mid-19th century saw horrific poverty alongside growing wealth, documented by writers such as Mary Gaskell and political thinkers such as Friedrich Engels. But change was unstoppable, with canals and railways transforming the landscape, especially visible in the narrow Calder Valley. In Manchester the industrial projects were even bigger, with the Manchester Ship Canal successfully moving essential port access away from Liverpool and close to the manufacturing heart of its Lancashire rival. Alongside, the Industrial Estate of Trafford Park saw engineering entrepreneurs becoming massive employers and boosting Manchester’s place in the world as the source of invention.

Manchester’s fortunes may have suffered a post-war decline, but there has undoubtedly been a resurgence of growth in the 21st century. It is making a physical mark on the skyline with the proliferation of shiny office blocks. Manchester remains a powerhouse of business and culture, and a strong influence on its surrounding towns. Though that gulf between the wealth of the city (and its closest towns) with the deprivation of old industrial centres such as Oldham.

Brian’s books *Northerners* and *Made in Manchester*, available in bookshops and on-line, tell the wider story, expanding on the city’s musical and cultural heritage, its world-wide influence and other social trends.



Lecture reports

Archaeology, a talk of two halves: From the Staffordshire Hoard to Hebden Bridge

Echoes from the Meadows: a History of High Hirst Farm

A Crow's eye view of 'walkin round Pecket' The making of the Pecket Well village walks leaflet

Scotland Yard, the Titanic, Rochdale Town Hall and St James's Church Hebden Bridge

Made in Manchester: the story that shaped the world