Editing Heptonstall (section)

==Community==

A small local-history museum is based in what was once the village grammar school.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.heptonstallmuseumfriends.org.uk |title=Friends of Heptonstall Museum |publisher=Friends of Heptonstall Museum |access-date=14 February 2022}}</ref>

A local park is used for sport and includes a playground for children. Adjacent to Heptonstall lie the [[National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty|National Trust]] woodlands of [[Hardcastle Crags]] with walking paths and a restored 19th-century mill.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardcastle-crags |title=Hardcastle Crags |publisher=National Trust |access-date=18 May 2016}}</ref> Half a mile out of the village is Lumb Bank, the second of the [[Arvon Foundation]]'s residential centres for writers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.arvon.org/centres/lumb-bank/ |title=Lumb Bank |publisher=Arvon Foundation |access-date=18 May 2016}}</ref>

Each year on [[Good Friday]] there are performances of the Heptonstall version of the traditional [[Pace Egg play]]. These are held in Weavers' Square next to the old graveyard.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} Heptonstall Festival, a free, day-long music festival, is usually held in early July also in Weaver's Square.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://heptonstall.org/heptonstall-festival-2017/|title=Heptonstall Festival 2017|website=Heptonstall Parish Website}}</ref> It usually begins with a [[Fell running|fell race]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://heptonstallfestivalrace.wordpress.com/|title=Heptonstall Festival Race|website=Heptonstall Festival Race}}</ref>

The village is a day-trip destination for tourists and walkers, especially in the summer months. The two public houses are the Cross and the White Lion. There is a small post office – the original post office, on Smithwell Lane, is now a residential property. A cafe/delicatessen is situated in Towngate.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

The village's oldest house is Stag Cottage (c.1580), which is within a small courtyard called Stag Fold. At the back of the cottage, on the level of a public car park, is a doorway to a dungeon, once used as a [[Village lock-up|lock-up]].{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} Nearby there is a [[pinfold]], built to hold livestock, but now a picnic area.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}
[[File:Sylvia Plath grave.jpg|alt=Sylvia Plath's grave, Heptonstall|left|thumb|[[Sylvia Plath|Sylvia Plath's]] grave, Heptonstall]]

===Parish church===
{{multiple image
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|image1=Heptonstall bells 1912.jpg
|caption1=New tower bells before being installed in the tower in 1912
|image2=Heptonstall bells 2012.jpg
|caption2=Heptonstall bells on their return with new bearings to the tower in 2012
}}
Heptonstall's original church was dedicated to [[St Thomas Becket]]. It was founded c.1260, and was altered and added to over several centuries. The church was damaged by a gale in 1847, and is now only a shell. A new church, [[Thomas the Apostle|St Thomas the Apostle]], was built in the same churchyard. This suffered a lightning strike in 1875.<ref name=BBC/>

The church is used for the annual Pennine Spring Music Festival, held every Spring Bank Holiday week. This includes workshops, masterclasses and performances.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.penninespringmusic.co.uk/Whatis.html |title=What is Pennine Spring Music?  |access-date=9 February 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127071352/http://www.penninespringmusic.co.uk/Whatis.html |archive-date=27 November 2011  }} Pennine Spring Music</ref> The old church ruin is occasionally used for open-air services.

The tower of the new church contains eight bells, cast in 1912 by [[John Taylor & Co]]. These were removed to a bell foundry for refurbishment on 31 August 2012 and were returned, with new bearings, in October 2012.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://heptonstall.org/2012/07/09/refurbishment-of-the-bells-of-st-thomas-church/ |title=Refurbishment of the bells of St Thomas' church |last=Pask |first=Reverend Howard |date=9 July 2012 |work=Heptonstall Parish Website |access-date=3 September 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111071448/http://heptonstall.org/2012/07/09/refurbishment-of-the-bells-of-st-thomas-church/ |archive-date=11 January 2014  }}</ref>

The American poet [[Sylvia Plath]], who was married to Poet Laureate [[Ted Hughes]] from nearby [[Mytholmroyd]], is buried in the graveyard extension, to the south-west of St Thomas Becket's churchyard.<ref name=RD/><ref>{{cite book|last=Kirk|first=Connie Ann|author-link=Connie Ann Kirk|title=Sylvia Plath: A Biography|year=2004|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CN|isbn=0-313-33214-2|page=104}}</ref> Plath's headstone has been several times vandalised by removing Hughes's surname from the memorial.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-08-ca-1304-story.html|title=Plath's Grave Now Quiet After Years of Desecration|first=JESSICA|last=BALDWIN|date=8 February 1993|via=LA Times}}</ref>

Another poet buried here is the American [[expatriate]] [[Asa Benveniste]], a co-founder in London of the publisher Trigram Press.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://heptonstall.org/loocal-history/|title=Local History|publisher=Heptonstall Parish Council|access-date=11 January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/mlc/trigram/trigram.html|title=Trigram Press Archive<!-- Bot generated title -->|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207200125/http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/mlc/trigram/trigram.html|archive-date=7 February 2012}}</ref> In the 1980s Benveniste and his partner Agnetha Falk ran a second-hand bookshop in Hebden Bridge.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Wt_xvTDcof0C&dq=%22asa+benveniste%22&pg=PT18 Iain Sinclair, ''London: City of Disappearances'', London: Hamish Hamilton, 2006.]</ref> His gravestone reads: "Foolish Enough to Have Been a Poet".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.co.uk/2006/10/asa-benveniste-poet-and-printer-in.html|title=Gabriel Gudding blog, 10 October 2006.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111130103/http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.co.uk/2006/10/asa-benveniste-poet-and-printer-in.html|archive-date=11 January 2014}}</ref>

===Methodist chapel===
[[File:Heptonstall Methodist Church (29893427316).jpg|thumb|right|The Methodist chapel and graveyard]]
[[John Wesley]] laid the foundation stone of the octagonal chapel situated off Northgate, which was completed in 1764 – he recommended the shape to avoid conflict with the established church. Local people attended the parish church and [[Methodist]] preaching. The chapel also provided teaching in reading and writing for the poor. The chapel was originally built as a symmetrical octagon but by 1802, with the Society including 337 members and 1,002 scholars, one end of the chapel was pulled down and the side walls were extended to provide extra space.<ref>Heptonstall Trail, A Calder Civic Trust publication, 1996</ref>