Heptonstall, West Yorkshire

Welcome to Heptonstall - one of West Yorkshire's best kept secrets!

Some Heptonstall facts:
The ruined church which you can clearly see here is St Thomas a Becket, named after the Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered on the order of the King not long before building started on the Church. After it was damaged by a gale in 1847 it was decided to build a new church across the yard - which you can just see facing the door of the ruin.

The graveyards are supposed to hold the remains of more than 100,000 people, with the visible gravestones representing just a fraction of those buried there. It is also here that the American poet Sylvia Plath is buried. Her grave is in the newest part of the Churchyard across the Back Lane.

Plath was the first wife of the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes who spent his early years in nearby Mytholmroyd. She committed suicide in 1963 - she had made previous attempts - and her gravestone was attacked on several occasions by feminists trying to remove her married name.

Last, but certainly not least, Heptonstall holds some special memories for me personally - my boyfriend and I came here on our first date :-)