Fabric of the Hills

Published by The Standing Conference of South Pennine Authorities Heritage/Landscape Working Group.

Project Officer:  Elizabeth Jane Pridmore.

Part of ‘Books That Made Me Week’ on Vulpes Libris.

When Nikki first mooted the idea of a ‘Books that Made Me’ week, I said “Yes” first and thought about it later.  For someone who reads as much as I do, it’s a little distressing to realize how few books seem to have had any sort of profound effect on me at all – unless you include ‘irritated beyond reason’ as a profound effect, in which case the list is fairly extensive.

After much mulling however I finally came up with what can only be described as an unlikely candidate.

Let me tell you a story.

I’ve lived in the North of England –  in Cumbria, to be precise – for about 25 years,  but I was born in Croydon.  (Embarrassing, but true.)

Shortly after arriving up here, I started exploring the pretty bits – the Pennines, The Dales, the Howgills, the Forest of Bowland, the Peak District – and, like many people before and after me, quickly discovered that driving from the Dales straight down the Pennines to the Peak District (or vice versa) was almost impossible because the terrain is such that you have to slalom from side to side, zig-zagging from  Oldham to Holmfirth to Rochdale to Halifax, skirting them all by a hair’s breadth (unless you miss a turn) and taking in boring old mill buildings, derelict warehouses and blackened stonework en route.  (It gets particularly tricky around Saddleworth, and whatever else you do, avoid Keighley like the plague …).

One day, when I complained about this geographical inconvenience, a friend – who was born and raised in Harle Syke, Burnley  – commented mildly:

“It’s an interesting area, though – the South Pennines …”

and handed me a slim and slightly battered paperback booklet published by The Standing Conference of South Pennine Authorities called Fabric of the Hills.

It languished untouched for a long time before I eventually, for lack of anything else to read one evening,  picked it up – and consumed it in one go.  I wouldn’t say anything as hackneyed as ‘the scales fell from my eyes” (except I just did, of course), but that’s  really not far from the truth.

Fabric of the Hills is nothing more nor less than a beautifully written, potted history of the commercial and  industrial history of the South Pennines – an area stretching approximately from Keighley in the north to the top of the Peak District in the south and from Burnley in the west to Halifax and Huddersfield in the east, with Hebden Bridge at its heart.  It is also, therefore, a potted history of the Industrial Revolution – telling the story of the upland farmers supplementing their meagre incomes by spinning and weaving; the age of the Yeoman Clothiers, the coming of the flying shuttle, the water frame, the spinning jenny and the powerloom;  the rise of the Cotton Masters;  the birth of the turnpikes, the railways, the canals and those dark satanic mills.  It’s all there, in 84 succinct pages, with carefully chosen photographs and illustrations, and plainly compiled and written by someone with a deep love for and knowledge of the area and its extraordinary history.

That someone was Liz Pridmore. The book’s dedication tells us that she never lived to see her project through to completion, but died in 1988 at the age of 34, the year before Fabric of the Hills was published:

This book, the last piece of work she conceived and prepared, is dedicated to her memory.  It exemplifies her appreciation of the rich diversity of both the natural and constructed heritage of the South Pennines, whilst demonstrating her skills for interpretation and communicating to others.

She certainly connected with me.  My attitude to the area underwent a sea change.  I looked at it with completely different eyes and have since returned to it again and again.

THAT’S how profound the effect was.  I can’t explain it, and quite probably somebody else could pick up the book and be bored to tears by it.  All I can tell you is that for me, now, Mr Arkwright’s invention is a thing of beauty and Salts Mill is one of the most handsome buildings in England.

Recently, when one of those bothersome cold callers rang up and started quizzing me on my holiday destination of choice, I startled them into incoherent disbelief by saying that if I could go anywhere in the world, money no object, I’d go to Heptonstall.  Or Saddleworth.  Or even, heaven help me, Keighley.

The Standing Conference of South Pennine Authorities Heritage/Landscape Working Group.  1989.  84 pp.  (Still occasionally to be found on eBay and via Abe Books.co.uk)