About Wild Rose Heritage and Arts

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.