One Month in Hebden Bridge

We’ve wrapped up our time here in West Yorkshire, specifically in Hebden Bridge. This was part of the UK was new to us. Stunning hillsides, peaceful canals, and welcoming people made our month long stay here special. Hebden Bridge is well connected by train to Manchester from the west and Leeds from the East, so there is easy access here if you don’t have a car.

The History of Hebden Bridge

Hebden Bridge lies in the Caulderdale Valley, and important region of textile mills during the Industrial Revolution. While many of the mills have now been converted to artists studios and apartments, the smokestacks are tell tale reminders of their past life. Before the railroads, pack horses used to carry wool and grains across the Old Bridge and on to towns like Manchester and Leeds.

During the 1960s and 1970s, an influx of writers, artists, musicians, and hippies came to town, and today, there is a thriving arts culture. It has become a regional tourist town, which is evident in the number of restaurants, pubs, and coffee shops in a relatively small village of only 5,000 residents.

A Vibrant Culture

The town square is bustling every day with buskers performing to audiences enjoying a coffee or a pint at outdoor seating in the coffeeshops, restaurants and pubs.

During July of each year, the local artists display their works at local shops and studios during Hebden Bridge Open Studios. Over three days, you can see a wide range of art, from photography, to paintings, jewelry, and mixed media pieces.

The Handmade Parade is an annual parade through the village center put on by the community. We absolutely loved seeing the creativity of the town. People of all ages walked the parade in marching bands, in costumes, on stilts, and carrying papier-mâché magical creatures. If the village wasn’t walking in the parade, they were watching it!

There is even a movie theater, built in the 1920s and a Little Theater that puts on local productions. We enjoyed both during our month long stay!

Local Shops and Dining

One of our favorite parts of Hebden Bridge were the weekly markets. Every Thursday-Sunday local vendors set up shop in the town square. Thursdays are for local foods, Fridays for local handcrafts, Satursdays for vintage goods, and Sunday for local produce. We frequented the market, purchasing olives, bread, baked goods, and produce.

We also really loved frequenting all of the local establishments. We found the local butcher (run entirely by women!), who remembered us each time we returned and had fantastic local meats. We also went to the local cheese shop for an amazing variety of English and European cheeses, along with gourmet jams, breads, and other charcuterie items. We each had haircuts here at a local salon and barbershop. Of course we found our favorite beverage locations: Vocation Brewery, a local brewery that distributes throughout the UK for great craft beer, and Drink, a local bottleshop that reminded us of our favorite bottleshop in London. We didn’t eat out much this month, but did manage to sneak in a few UK staples: fish and chips at the local pub Old Gate, and scones with clotted cream and jam at a local coffee shop.

Day Trips from Hebden Bridge

We did three great day trips this month by train. We returned to York, one of our favorite UK cities to visit as a tourist. Packed full of history, it is a 90 minute train ride from Hebden Bridge and makes a fantastic day trip. Next up was Liverpool. This was a new city for both of us. It is also about 90 minutes from Hebden Bridge. We had pretty crummy weather the day we were there, with wind a rain for much of the day. But we were able to check out some cool areas of the city around the river Mersey and see some of the very popular Beetles sites. Our last day trip was to Leeds. This was also a new to us city, and is one we’d love to spend more time in. It felt like there was a lot of investment happening around the city with new apartment construction in some of the older industrial areas of town. It was very walkable and had a great shopping and beer scene!

Walking Near Hebden Bridge

Our favorite part of our month long stay in Hebden Bridge was the access to fantastic walks. The Rochdale Canal runs through the Calderdale Valley and provides great access to flat, peaceful walking to visit neighboring towns. Narrowboats line the canal, which runs from Manchester to Sowerby Bridge. The boats navigate the canals through a series of locks, but many are permanently moored along the canal near Hebden Bridge and provide a cool alternitive housing option for residents! We really enjoyed our daily canal walks.

We also did some incredible longer distance walks through the area. Hardcastle Crags was one we did many times. It was a six mile walk from our airbnb to the old Gibson Mill, following Hebden Waters through the forest. We also walked up to Stoodley Pike, a monument to the Napoleonic Wars, up on the moors to the southeast of Hebden. Our final long walk was to the west of Hebden Bridge up on the Bridestones Moor and it provided incredible views of the valley from some pretty cool rock formations. Again, thankful for our AllTrails membership for the trail guides, and for our trusty Hoka trail runners which have made me a Hoka convert!

Lodging in Hebden Bridge

Our airbnb was cosy (especially the bathroom!), but was in the perfect location. It was an undercroft, which meant it was the bottom floor of a 4 story building built on a hill, accessible from the back side of the upstairs apartments. Traditionally it was the cellar or storage room, but many are now apartments. Our local grocery store, Co-op was just down the hill, and we were a 4 minute walk to the town square and a 10 minute walk to the train station. And best of all, we had a dishwasher, a microwave, AND an oven! The tri-fecta for full time travelers!

There are a lot of short term rentals in this area, along with several B&Bs, and boutique hotels and pub stays. This is a great resource to find local lodging.

Would We Return?

We were constantly amazed at how vibrant this small town was! We were never bored here on our month long stay, which hasn’t been the case with some of the other places we’ve lived as nomads. We were easily able to access the surrounding area by public transportation when we wanted to explore outside Hebden. I feel like we walked around with a smile on our faces for a full month.

We’d absolutely return here for another month (or two!) We would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities in the UK to slow down, enjoy nature and all that small town life has to offer!

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Exploring Great Britain on Foot: Our Love for Walking the Countryside