Heptonstall Old Church

The sketch and description are from The Calderdale Sketch Book by JL Berbiers, published in 1973 by The Halifax Courier Ltd. Destroyed by a storm in 1847, the ruins of the Church of St Thomas a Becket at Heptonstall strangely hold the same aura of sanctity today as they must have held when it was in regular use as a centre of worship. The cold, stark walls are now clothed in ivy, the stout tower is held together with iron bars: both are overlooked by the imposing Victorian Gothic tower of the replacement church of St Thomas the Apostle which was completed in 1854. The ruined church, at the heart of the village’s conservation area, was founded between 1256 and 1260. Very little of the original building remains, the bulk of the present ruin dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The fact that there are two churches in one churchyard is a near unique feature, for it is thought that no more than three other places in Britain can claim a similar peculiarity – one being the yard of Westminster Abbey. PH/25.