Pennine Heritage

Pennine Heritage is based at the Birchcliffe Centre in Hebden Bridge. Set up in 1978 with the goal of preserving and celebrating the heritage of the upper-Calder Valley, Pennine Heritage now operates the former Birchcliffe Baptist Chapel as a multi-purpose space. As a community hub, we lease our spaces for a variety of events and groups. We are also home to a number of diverse tenants who specialise in wellbeing, the creative arts, architecture and more. We are largely run by volunteers who play an enormous role in keeping the organisation going, and are always on the look-out for others interested in helping at our wonderful Grade-II listed building.

We have a number of unique historical possessions, first and foremost being the Alice Longstaff collection. We have worked hard to preserve Longstaff’s photographs and make them accessible to the public. The collection was the start of our Pennine Horizons Digital Archive, which now has over 65,000 digitised images. We’re also home to the physical archive of the Hebden Bridge Local History Society, making the Birchcliffe Centre a prime location for celebrating local history and heritage. Our partnership with the University of Huddersfield has allowed us to use our collections to develop educational sessions for school children, adults with learning disabilities, and others. We are keen to develop partnerships across the Calder Valley to help bring our resources and materials to as many people as possible.