Hebden Bridge

The valley is so steep and narrow that houses were built in a form found almost nowhere else: double-decker or over-and-under dwellings, four storeys of stone where the lower two floors are one house entered from the downhill side and the upper two are a separate house entered from the road above, a solution to building on a slope with no flat ground. The town made fustian and corduroy until the industry collapsed, and cheap property in the 1970s drew an alternative population that has shaped it since, giving it a dense concentration of independent shops, a cooperative cinema and a reputation as one of the more unconventional small towns in England. The Rochdale Canal runs through the centre with a boat lift of locks. Hardcastle Crags, a wooded valley above, holds Gibson Mill, which runs entirely off grid.

What you actually see

• The double-decker houses - two separate homes stacked in one four-storey block.
• The canal through the centre - the Rochdale with its locks and moorings.
• The independent town - a mill town remade by its 1970s incomers.
• Hardcastle Crags - a wooded valley with an off-grid mill above the town.

When to go

April to October for the valley walks; autumn colour in Hardcastle Crags is the strongest season. The town holds arts and literature festivals through summer.

Honest expectations

The Calder valley floods badly and Hebden Bridge has been inundated several times in the last fifteen years, most seriously at Christmas 2015. Parking is very limited. The hills out of town in every direction are steep.

Nearby

Heptonstall stands on the hill above; Haworth and Halifax are short drives.