Welcome to Wild Rose Heritage and Arts

Oral histories and visual archive

Who Are We?

Wild Rose Heritage and Arts is a community group which takes its name from the area in which we are located – the valley (“den”) of the wild rose (“Heb”) – Hebden Bridge, which is in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. We began as an oral history project, recording the memories of elderly people who told us about their lives growing up in the local valleys. Since then we’ve expanded our activities and our focus, working with a variety of age groups to understand the ways in which people both change, and are changed by, the places in which they live and work.

We believe that oral history can play a valuable role in the fostering of communal identity, by giving participants both a sense of belonging and the confidence to participate in the life and work of the community.

Latest News

23 November 2007, Website User Survey

Helping Wild Rose to Grow

Wild Rose has achieved a remarkable amount of work on limited funding. We are about to make a major application to the Heritage Lottery Fund and would like your help to develop Wild Rose over the next five years.

We would be really grateful if you could spare a few minutes to tell us what you think of our site. Please click on the ‘website users survey’ link below, and choose ‘open’ in order to view the questionnaire. Once you have completed the questionnaire, please save it to your computer, then email it to dean@eventus.org.uk All responses will remain confidential and your contact details will not be shared with any third parties. We would be grateful to receive completed questionnaires by 12noon on Friday 21 December.

19 June 2007, SINGING/SKIPPING GAMES AND RHYMES

We have gathered a few rhymes and songs about childhood in our interviews, such as used for skipping, plot night, Christmas and other occasions. This is a request to everyone who may remember a song, rhyme or ditty to do with play or special days or events.

19 June 2007, SHEILA’S STORY

Local resident Sheila O’Brien, wrote a story about her great aunt Hannah in the 1970’s and recently donated it to us for inclusion on our website. Read about the womanly wisdom of a local character and the ways of the past, which are slipping away and perhaps gone, but not forgotten.

19 June 2007, MIDGLEY PROJECT

In our ‘Age to Age’ project, 2008 onwards, Wild Rose Heritage and Arts wants to work with the Midgley History Group looking at a potential history project in Halifax and the Upper Calder Valley.

19 June 2007, THEN AND NOW

Volunteer Jefferson Hammond has taken about twenty photographs of old Hebden Bridge, kindly donated to us by the Alice Longstaff Collection, and taken modern day versions of the same photographs.