Holmfirth (England)

Holmfirth is a little town nestled in the bottom of a steep valley, surrounded by green, rolling hills. It is situated in West Yorkshire about 6 miles to the south of Huddersfield. This is a place that has loads of charm but it lies slightly off the beaten track, yet this is also the sort of place that when visiting for the very first time you could quite easily get that feeling of deja vue, like you have been here before.

Everywhere ...
...summer wine."

Holmfirth is located 32 miles from my house yet when I decided to visit here last Sunday I chose to travel there not just by Public Transport, but entirely by bus. You may think that this would be a crazy idea but to me it all added to the experience of the day.

I had already checked out the bus times and knew that there was a direct bus that ran from Sheffield's main Interchange bus station to Holmfirth's ... more

Holmfirth is a little town nestled in the bottom of a steep valley, surrounded by green, rolling hills. It is situated in West Yorkshire about 6 miles to the south of Huddersfield. This is a place that has loads of charm but it lies slightly off the beaten track, yet this is also the sort of place that when visiting for the very first time you could quite easily get that feeling of deja vue, like you have been here before.

Everywhere that you look in Holmfirth there are things that seem to be slightly familiar. This could have something to do with the fact that since 1982 the BBC has used this quaint little place as the film set for one of their longest running sitcoms "Last of the summer wine."

Holmfirth is located 32 miles from my house yet when I decided to visit here last Sunday I chose to travel there not just by Public Transport, but entirely by bus. You may think that this would be a crazy idea but to me it all added to the experience of the day.

I had already checked out the bus times and knew that there was a direct bus that ran from Sheffield's main Interchange bus station to Holmfirth's bus station every Sunday. These buses are however rather few and far between so to maximise my stay in Holmfirth I knew that I had to catch the 10.30am bus. Since I had another bus to catch into the centre of Sheffield from my home this meant leaving my house at 9.30 am. All this, on a Sunday morning, after a night out on the town from which I didn't get home from until 1am.

I have a South Yorkshire Weekly travel pass that allows me to travel anywhere within South Yorkshire on First Mainline buses. Holmfirth however lies in West Yorkshire, eight miles over the County border so I knew that although my bus pass would take me to the boundary I would have to pay from there on. What I didn't realise was that I could purchase an "Add on" ticket for just £1. Therefore my 64 mile round trip cost me a total fare of £2 (including my return). The bus journey may have taken 75 minutes but it traverses some of the most beautiful parts of the Pennines, so to me this journey was fantastic and I arrived in Holmfirth in high spirits after taking in the wonders of the some of the most breathtaking scenery in England.

Historically, Holmfirth is a town that made its money from the textile industry and at its peak there were almost 50 different mills in the town. Most of these are now long gone, but a few of them do still survive.

Nowadays it is true to say that Holmfirth generates the majority of its wealth from tourism. There are references to "Last of the summer wine" everywhere that you look, yet in reality many of the places that actually feature in this TV Programme are not that easy to find. This is largely due to careful tweaking by the BBC who have changed the appearance of the locations quite cleverly.

Ivy's Café is one of the prime locations on TV and this is still quite easily recognisable in the shape of Sid's Café, it is located directly opposite the main bus station. From the outside things look pretty much the same, expect for the different name, but just in case you are in any doubt there is an almost life-size, stuffed effigy of Compo, perhaps the show's most famous creation, outside.

Stepping into Sid's Café however is where anyone who is familiar with the sitcom may pause for a moment and do a double take. The counter is not where you would expect it to be, instead it is on the opposite wall, and although this is still a traditional Café, most of the props are missing.

The walls of Sid's Café are adorned with photographs of the TV Stars stood inside and outside the Café. Sid is obviously a very proud man, and presumably quite a wealthy one too gauging from the amount of customers that flock here due to its "Last of the summer wine" connection.

The next location that we stumbled upon quite by accident was Auntie Wainwright's shop. This is tucked away on one of the many steep roads that cut into the steep hillside. The shop used on TV is actually known as the "Daisy Lane bookshop" and as its name suggests this is a bookshop. Unlike Sid's Café there is nothing here to indicate its alter ego to the uneducated passer by.

Finally we found the house that Nora Batty lives in, but only with the aid of a map. Or to be more precise we found the steps that we frequently see her standing on and sweeping. This location is actually the back of a Café called appropriately "The wrinkled stocking." It is located right next to the river, a feature that you never see on TV.

Holmfirth is a town that is full of Cafes. Sid's Cafe is obviously the most visited of these and here we paid £1.90 for a cup of tea. Later, during the afternoon we found another Cafe, tucked out the way, called the Riverside Cafe, where the prices were a little less severe.

Here we paid £1.05 for a pot of tea and also decided to have a bite to eat. I was quite fancying some homemade meat and potato pie but found that this was not on the menu. In the end I settled for an all day breakfast which was very nice, and quite a bargain at just £3.20.

For anyone that is a fan of "Last of the summer wine" there are plenty more things available to take your hard earned cash off you. These include a "Last of the summer wine" exhibition with a £3 entrance fee, or you can spend £2 on an official "Last of the summer wine" tour guide. I decided to give both a miss.

One thing that does become quickly apparent is that the locations used during the TV series are not very easy to find, with the exception of Sid's Café. This may be a deliberate ploy to get you to buy an official guide or to participate in one of the guided tours. These include an open top bus tour that costs £4 or a guided tour on foot that costs £2. Again I was not interested enough to pay for any of these but I did eventually manage to find a map of the town, located next to the market. This shows some of the locations including "Nora Batty's steps"

Holmfirth lies in an idyllic location at the point where two rivers meet, the River Holme and the River Ribble. These merge to form a fast flowing stream that was used to power dozens of different water wheels between the 16th and 18th centuries. Sadly these are now gone but there are still several mills in the town. A few of these still supply textiles to the local towns but the majority of these buildings have now been modified for other uses.

The majority of the tourists that come here do come here because of its association with the BBC sitcom, but speaking as someone that is not a fan of the programme, or particularly knowledgeable about it I still found Holmfirth to be a great place to spend a day. This recent visit was my first visit here and I was pleased to find that the town has a great deal of other things on offer.

I had heard the story of the town's great flood of 1852 since there were many parallels with the Sheffield Flood of 1864, so this was something that I learned about at school many years ago. I did find it interesting however to see that several of the buildings have markers on them showing the level of where the water reached. This certainly makes you realise just how deep the floodwater actually was since some of these are halfway up the walls of the houses.

There are several Churches in Holmfirth, including one that is located right in the centre of the town, opposite the bus station and Sid's Café. The sign above the door said, "Holmfirth Methodist Church welcomes all." So being the nosy sort of fella that I am I thought that I would have a look inside. Unfortunately it would seem that there is little truth in the sign since we only managed a few steps inside the doorway before being turned away and told that the Church was not open for "simply looking around."

This is in complete contrast to the town's school, which we found perched well out the way at the top of a very steep road, overlooking the town in the valley below. This looks like a typical country school, but since it was a Sunday the place was all shut up. However one of the residents came out of a house across the road and told us that if we visited during the week the staff would be happy to show us around. Indeed we then spotted another sign above the door that said, "we welcome visitors."

Back in the town below we had a good walk around, exploring many of the steep, narrow roads and alleys (or ginnels as we call them in Yorkshire). Many of these alleys are cobbled and they have a real old-world feel to them. Hidden out of the way we found several houses and buildings that had plaques on them telling a little history about the place. One such place that looked like a stone built garage at the end of a row of cottages advised us that this building was built in 1595 and had been used as a hospital, a mortuary, a fire station and an ambulance station. Another told us that it was a holding area for the "beasts" that were waiting to go to market.

Talking of the market, the market in Holmfirth came as a bit of a disappointment for me. There is nothing old or traditional about this. Instead we have a modern building constructed from corrugated steel.

Elsewhere in Holmfirth there are plenty of shops, these include gift and souvenir shops, as well as several charity shops. I also spotted at least one newsagents, several banks with cash machines, and an unusually large number of estate agents. As far as groceries go though there is a large CO-OP Supermarket but little else. Holmfirth also boasts 15 different Pubs, the majority of these serve food.

If you are visiting Holmfirth for the first time then the tourist information place is probably a good place to start. As well as providing information on what to see and do in the town they also have accommodation details, including a list of B&B's, Guest Houses and Cottages that have vacancies.

The tourist information place is located at:

Tourist information centre
49-51 Huddersfield Rd
Holmfirth
HD9 3JP

Telephone: 01484 222444

Before leaving Holmfirth if you fancy doing something a little bit different then you could always visit the Holmfirth Postcard Museum. This museum houses a vast collection of Victorian Postcards, including a large collection of saucy postcards from Bamforth & Co. Admission to the museum costs £1.20 (children 50p).

Finally I would recommend that you visit the old grounds of the chapel tucked away at the back of the bus station. We found this quite by chance and were very impressed by how lovely it was. There is a bridge here that spans the river with impressive flower beds on both banks of the river, that were in full bloom even at this time of the year, in mid February. The footpaths through this park have 19th century gravestones on the floor and there are further memorials around the edges.

If you are planning to visit Holmfirth then the easiest option is by car. There are several car parks but these are all pay and display, and parking on the side streets is strictly for residents only. 2 hours parking costs 60p. There are also many buses including a regular service from Huddersfield that runs every 20 minutes. There is no train station in Holmfirth, the nearest one being in Huddersfield 6 miles away.

Thank you for reading.
 

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