Fisherman's Hut, Hebden Bridge (Document ID: 101087)
View of Fisherman's Hut, Hardcastle Crags, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.
Author: Unknown
Date: not dated
Location: Hardcastle Crags
Format: Postcard - Colour
Document ID: 101087
Library ID: 34562538
Colour postcard of the Fisherman's Hut, Hardcastle Crags, near Hebden Bridge.
This natural ravine is a beauty spot with its woods and rocky crags lying along Hebden Water below Heptonstall. It was popularised as a tourist spot in the early 20th century in Edwardian times. Together with Gibson Mill, it was part of the Greenwood Lee estate of the Gibson family.
In 1934, Halifax Corporation's plan to build a reservoir was opposed by many local people - including Phyllis Bentley, Lady Fisher-Smith, and Sir Harold Mackintosh. The proposal was revived in 1948 but was rejected by the House of Lords, and again proposed by Calderdale Water Board in 1965 only to be opposed by the Hardcastle Crags Preservation Committee. In 1969, a House of Lords Select Committee approved a plan for a reservoir, but in 1970 this was overturned in the House of Commons.
The area now [2003] belongs to the National Trust. In 1948, Lord George Halifax Lumley-Savile gave 250 acres of land at Hardcastle Crags and Crimsworth Dean to the National Trust. The Trust raised an appeal to buy a further 168 acres, and was boosted, in 1950, by Henry Mitchell Ingham who gave money and left woodland to the National Trust. In 1957, Abraham Gibson the Fifth left woodland and property to the National Trust in his will, including the family home Greenwood Lee and Gibson Mill.
