Heptonstall is an ancient hilltop village which is about 8 miles to the west of Halifax and overlooks Hebden Bridge and the Calder Valley below. The photograph (left) shows the steep cobbled street known as Towngate in which there are the village's two pubs (the Cross Inn and the White Lion), the Post Office, the old Cloth Hall and many weavers' cottages in Weaver's Square. In the past the village was a centre for handloom weaving of both cotton and wool. Heptonstall Pace Eggers Festival takes place every Easter when a medieval Mummer's play known as the Heptonstall Paceaker's Play is enacted in front of the Cross Inn or in Weaver's Square. Pace eggs are decorated hard-boiled hen's eggs which were the forerunner of the modern chocolate Easter egg. One of the characters, Old Tossip or Toss Pot, carries pace eggs in his hat which he gives out to bonny lasses in the audience as a symbol of fertility said to be more effective than in vitro fertilisation.

The first church in Heptonstall was founded in the 13th century and was dedicated to St Thomas a Becket. Several remodellings and enlargements over the centuries meant that by the 19th century it could seat a congregation of over one thousand. However a storm in 1847 caused severe damage to the church. It was then decided to build a new church and the ruins of the old church were left as a monument (photo left). Near the porch of the old church can be found the grave of David Hartley known as the "King of the Cragg Vale Coiners". He was hanged in York in 1770 for taking clippings from gold coins of the realm and using them to make conterfeit coins.

A new Victorian church dedicated to St Thomas the Apostle was built in 1854 just a short distance to the west of the ruins of the old church. In the church graveyard across Back Lane is the grave of Sylvia Plath, the American poet and feminist icon. She was the first wife of the British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes who had spent his early years in the nearby village of Mytholmroyd.

The Methodist Church (photo left) is off Northgate and is an unusual but attractive octagonal building in local stone. The foundation stone was laid by John Wesley himself in 1736 and he subsequentley preached there on several occasions. It is said to be the oldest Methodist Church in the world to have been in continual use since its opening.

Heptonstall Grammar School was founded in 1642 by Rev Charles Greenwood. It closed in 1898 but has subsequently been restored as a museum which, amongst other things, has on display much of the original school equipment including desks and books and a room furnished as the interior of a weaver's cottage. The museum is open on Weekends and Bank Holidays from Easter until the end of October.

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