History of Hardcastle Crags

Gibson Mill was first built in 1803 to harness the power of Hebden Water to spin cotton. Later in the 19th century, the tranquil setting of the surrounding Hardcastle Crags valley saw the mill reinvented as a popular entertainment destination that attracted locals and day-trippers to spend time away from hard-working lives. This role continues today under the care of the National Trust.

Hardcastle Crags

Hardcastle Crags is named after the rocky outcrops that line part of the valley of Hebden Water, north of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

This wooded valley has been used by people since at least the Middle Ages, particularly those who lived and farmed the open pastures above. As well as providing timber for building and fuel, charcoal manufacturing and iron smelting were undertaken over many centuries in the valley’s interlocking set of woods. The trees were often carefully managed to provide the right type of wood needed.

The Cotton MiIl

The Calderdale area of Yorkshire was also a major centre for textile production. During the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, this moved out of family cottages and into larger mechanised mills, of which Gibson Mill is an early surviving example.

The main structure was built between 1800 and 1803 for local farmer and textile manufacturer Abraham Gibson (1745-1834). Officially named Lord Holme Mill (for reasons that remain unclear), the site was next to the river on flat land below Gibson’s house at Greenwood Lee. The river provided power to drive the new cotton spinning machinery he installed in 1805. The finished yarn was probably supplied mainly to local weavers making fustian (a type of heavy-duty cotton cloth used for clothing), a Hebden Bridge speciality.

In common with the wider Lancashire and Yorkshire cotton textile industry, the cotton spun at Gibson Mill was imported via Liverpool and transported by river and canal to Hebden Bridge. Most was sourced from plantations in the southern United States, which used enslaved labour until the end of the American Civil War (1861-65).

The Gaukropers

In 1833 the mill was leased to Titus and James Gaukroper. A factory inspection at the time listed 21 hourly-paid workers, mainly women and children, who worked an average of 12 hours a day with two breaks a day, for six days a week. Some probably lived on site, with others walking up from Hebden Bridge.

The Gaukropers added a weaving shed and warehouse to the mill in the 1840s, but declared bankruptcy in the 1850s. They struggled to compete with larger steam-powered mills built closer to both their workforces and the canals that carried the cotton, coal and finished products back and forth.

The end of the business

The Gibson family had returned by 1861 and installed their own steam engine and chimney in 1867. While this helped them compete, the coal required further added to their transport costs. In 1881 they attempted to sell up, but with no buyer forthcoming they seem to have continued as a small-scale business until the 1890s.

Women in the river at Hardcastle Crags | © Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

“The Most Beautiful Valley in Yorkshire”

Hardcastle Crags was already famous for its beauty and tranquility. The railway arrived at Hebden Bridge in 1840 and before long, large groups were coming from nearby towns to explore the Crags. An 1878 newspaper report of the Todmorden Early Closing Association’s 5^th annual picnic records that one entrepreneurial mill employee had laid on catering in the mill yard. This was the future.

The Entertainment Emporium

By the turn of the 20^th century, all production had ceased at the mill and it had been transformed. It was now an entertainment emporium to serve the large numbers using their increased leisure time to visit the Crags on public holidays. By the 1920s, over 500,000 people arrived a year, many from Halifax and East Lancashire mill towns.

A restaurant (leased to former mill worker William Shackleton) was installed on the top floor. Divided into first and second class, first class diners got a view of the mill pond. Other facilities included a dance hall on the first floor, a roller-skating rink in the old weaving shed, pleasure boats on the mill pond, and an ice cream parlour in one of the cottages. In 1926, a hydro-electric turbine was installed to meet the increasing demand for power.

The Savile Family

In parallel to the growth of this popular leisure market, a major local landowning family had developed a private hunting lodge up the valley at Walshaw. The Saviles built an approach drive through new woodland plantations and also earned them revenue from tolls paid by visitors travelling to the Crags by vehicle.

Gibson Mill as an entertainment emporium | © Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

A Watery Fate?

In 1934, plans emerged to dam the southern end of the valley and flood it to form a new reservoir to supply growing demand in Halifax. Gibson Mill and the Crags would have been submerged deep underwater. Popular outcry helped stop both this project and a revised scheme drawn up in 1948-9. A third proposal in the late 1960s involving land higher up the valley was also rejected by the House of Lords in 1970. These all provoked much debate about how to balance preserving special places with the needs of growing cities.

The National Trust

As part of the campaign to save the Crags, George Lumley-Savile (3^rd Baron Savile, 1919-2008) announced in 1948 that he was donating 214 acres of the lower part of the valley (and part of neighbouring Crimsworth Dene valley) to the National Trust. The deeds were handed over in 1950, along with a further 112 acres of land bequeathed to the National Trust by another local landowner, Henry Ingham.

The End of the Emporium

In the meantime, the mill continued to serve visitors to the valley, but tourism habits were changing and by 1953 the business had closed. Following the death of the last Abraham Gibson (1887-1956, the 5^thgeneration of that name since the original mill builder), the mill and surrounding woodland also passed to the National Trust in 1960.

‘Off-Grid’

Hardcastle Crags continued to be a popular place to relax and explore for locals and visitors. The mill and cottages were used as a base by local scouts during the 1960s. After a period left empty, a programme of restoration began to conserve the historic buildings and adapt them for modern visitors. By 2005 Gibson Mill was reborn as a different kind of entertainment emporium, with café, community facilities and new displays.

In a pioneering development, the mill remained ‘off grid’. The old 1920s turbine was refurbished and augmented with new solar panels on the mill roof and a biomass boiler. Even the water supply comes direct from the natural spring water in Hardcastle Crags.

Over 220 years after it was first built, Gibson Mill stands as one of our flagship sustainable places.