Village of the Week: A public whipping and a most unfortunate wedding in the Yorkshire hamlet of Hebden

A list of clippings from 1785 until the modern day tells of other incidents that would be more than remarkable in the Yorkshire Post pages now.

A farmer had 11 pounds of butter seized for short weighting cheese in 1824, there was a prosecution for overworking children at Hebden Mill in 1835, the death of an 11-year-old miner on the moor in 1839 and the most unfortunate incident at a wedding in 1905 when the groom lost the wedding ring and had to borrow one from the congregation.

The vicar warned it was a bad omen but it was found at the church gates. The next day the bride’s father fell from his cart and suffered fatal injuries. He was found by the same person that had found the missing ring the day before.

There was also the search for a sheep killing Alsation, an unexploded bomb, cattle and horse theft.

Thankfully the news got a little cheerier throughout time with reports of a village concert in the new school in 1876, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee village celebrations in 1897 to a golden wedding in 1970.

However, these are incredibly detailed snapshots into life back then, social and working conditions and the people of the village some 230 years ago. Maybe some descendants of the people mentioned are still in and around the village, which sits between Grassington and Greenhow Hill.

A photograph shared on a website dedicated to historical data for Hebden is not hugely dissimilar to the view that we can see now peering through the trees.

Maybe that is what makes Hebden (not to be confused with Hebden Bridge) retain its unassuming charm?

There is no documentary record of the area until a mention in the Domesday Book of 1086, in which the settlement was referred to as Hebedene and that it was held by Osbern d'Arques, of Thorpe Arch near Leeds.

However, there is evidence that points to Hebden having origins much earlier than that.

There are two Bronze Age stone circles and remnants of huts on the moors above the village and a hoard of 33 silver dinari dating from 30 to 170 AD which were found in a local field indicates that the Romans had a presence.

The hoard is now on display at the Craven Museum & Gallery.

Also, apparently, during medieval times, an east–west droving route was used to move sheep between winter pastures around Fountains Abbey and summer pastures around Malham. It crossed Hebden Beck and broadly followed the line of the North Craven Fault avoiding the moorland peat bogs, and became a busy packhorse route for traders.

Living in Hebden as we may now recognise it though, only seems to go back as far as the 1600s.

None of the houses are really much older than the 17th century, but its layout reflects its development in medieval times as a planned village. Farming was largely arable, providing the village with most of its food requirements and the village manor house was on land now occupied by Hebden Hall at the south end of Main Street.

The River Wharfe was used to power a corn mill in the Middle Ages, and corn milling survived into the middle of the 19th century. At its peak the mill employed more than 70 men, women, and children.

By complete contrast, after the mills had run their course, the building was used for other purposes, including a roller skating rink until it was demolished in 1967.

Lead mining on Grassington Moor became prominent in the 18th century and from the early 19th century Hebden was a dormitory village for some miners, contributing to the population rising to more than 500 in the 1830s.

In the early 1850s profitable mines were established in the parish to the north of the village on veins associated with Grassington Moor, which helped sustain the population. Activity continued sporadically into the 1890s but it was likely that the accessible ore was largely exhausted by 1865, and the population declined to a low of 199 in 1901.

This rich history led to Hebden being designated a conservation area by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority back in 2006.

Nowadays, c utting through the middle of the village is the winding Main Street where you will find the Hebden Methodist Church, a tea room inside what used to be a school and the village post office, which has had its outside post box painted gold to commemorate the gold medal won by local rower Andrew Tiggs Hodge in the coxless fours at the London Summer Olympic Games in 2012.

You will also find one of the most popular country pubs in the Yorkshire Dales, if not the rest of the county.

The Clarendon calls itself a country pub with rooms but it is also an award-winning establishment with Frenchman Lionel Strub at the helm since taking over in 2014.

If it does date back to Medieval times it will have been built to serve passing trade and nothing much has changed there over the centuries.

While, as with many villages in The Dales, some of the houses now are second homes and holiday lets (unless you are buying a park home and still that is the best part of £250,000, the other property listed for sale is £600,000) there is still a thriving community in Hebden despite the argument that local families have been priced out and pushed away.

The pub is at the heart of it and promotes village traditions such as the Hebden shoot which started in 1801, still starts and ends at The Clarendon and of course supplies it with game for its menus which source 80 per cent of produce from the village.