HEPTONSTALL – A Walk around a Secret Village

We recently spent a couple of hours wandering around this ancient yet still fully-functioning village. What a delight it was to see a place like this whose character hasn’t been changed by tourism (Though this did mean that the pub wasn’t open for lunch on the day we visited, and the public toilets were closed for the season. These two conditions curtailed our visit somewhat. Note to self : Check pub opening days for next trip. Pub has good food AND toilets)

We saw most of the points of interest on the map, though didn’t manage to photograph all of them.

“Old ruined Church, Victorian Church, Sylvia Plath’s grave, Hexagonal shaped Wesleyan church were John Wesley preached; old school house. Quaint typically old Yorkshire streets with magnificent architecture. Historic old village pubs. So much too see and hardly any tourists.”

“The lack of crowds makes it one of Yorkshire’s best kept secrets”

“A woder ful village which seems as if nothing has changed for hundreds of years.”

Tripadvisor Reviews

The first mention of Heptonstall can be found in 1087 in the Domesday Book in , the first survey of life in England which was commissioned by William the Conqueror. Centuries later it was the site of a battle in 1643 during the English Civil War. The oldest house in the village is Stag Cottage which dates back to 1580 (Note to self: Photograph this next time!)

From the 1800’s the village was a centre for hand-loom weaving; the cottages and terraced houses have large first floor windows to maximise the light for weaving, a reminder of the days when weavers worked from home.

Today the village is home to around 1400 people.

Here are just a few of the sights we saw on our stroll around the village:

The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that all the images in this post are square. (Well, HAD you already noticed?????)

After a break from regular blogging, I was inspired to put this post together by Becky B whose SQUARES CHALLENGE for November is #WalkingSquares. The criteria for this being, unsurprisingly, all pictures have to be in square format and also have something to do with walking.

Thank you Becky for your encouragement to this of us in the Blogging Community who sometimes need a “kick up the proverbial” to get going.