Hebden Bridge from Horsehold Road c.1885

This photograph was taken in the closing years of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th. The Rochdale Canal running from the bottom to the top right makes a useful guide to the town as it was then. The road over the narrow bridge at the bottom has come up from Hebble End bridge and after crossing the canal forks left to Fairfield and right to Horsehold. The small building nestling under the bridge wall was the workshop of a plumber usually called Billy Putty and the larger building was the Neptune Inn, which doubled as a canal warehouse, where the first meeting to consider a canal was held, and where the Inquiry which resulted in the formation of Hebden Bridge as a single unit was held in 1866. The large four storey mill became known as Melbourne Mill, is now the site of the supermarket, with Salem Mill next to it. Beyond that is the new Central School with its new stonework showing up against the darker mill buildings. A second storey was added to the school in 1895 which helps to date the picture, as does the open field next to it which became the site of the Grammar School (now Riverside) in 1908. In the background, the arches help to identify Stubbings School (opened 1878) and the frontage of Hope Chapel is quite clear, again looking on to open fields. Central Dyeworks is adjacent to the canal just before the further bridge which is near to Black Pit lock and it at the end of what is now Holme Street.