Current

Autumn 2025: PeatZine // Moorland stories along The Calderdale Way

This project focuses on the history and significance of Calderdale’s moors and peatlands, using a route along The Calderdale Way to tell some very local stories and consider how we’ve shaped the moors.

Artists, writers and naturalists from the Peat Appreciation Society collaborated with local heritage groups, students and youth groups to co-create material which is culminating in a pop-up exhibition and a zine, taking readers and walkers through a journey using sound, art and creative writing. 

During Autumn 2025, we ran a series of workshops:

• story gathering sessions with local heritage groups and people interested in local history, with landscape writer Paul Knights, sound artist Jo Kennedy and one of Culturedale’s heritage trainees, Rowanne Smith.
• creative writing workshops inspired by guided walks in the local area with poet Sally Baker
• a naturalist-art activity programme with a local youth group with Melissa Davie from Hey Nature!
• sphagnum moss study days at Ogden Water for local students with Sheila Tilmouth, artist-in-residence for Calderdale’s Sphagnum Propagation Unit
• map making workshops with cartographer Christopher Goddard
• a zine making workshop with illustrator Louise Crosby from LDComics

During 29th & 30th November 2025, there was a weekend of activities at The Local Motive, the newly re-opened old Station Building in Mytholmroyd.

• pop-up exhibition featuring work created in our public workshops
• zine making workshop with Louise Crosby
• map making workshop and walk with Christopher Goddard

We will launch the collaborative zine, with additional digital material, in early 2026.

We are working in partnership with the Culturedale Heritage team, the Calderdale Way team, and the Calderdale Sphagnum Moss Propagation Unit.

This project is funded by Culturedale Heritage through the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Past

Autumn 2024 – Winter 2025: Ancient Underlands // Calderdale’s Grassland Fungi

With funding from Community Foundation for Calderdale and Culturedale, we ran an arts programme highlighting the rare and amazing grassland fungi species in the Calder Valley.

We gathered 50 artists, makers and writers to contribute work to three exhibitions at Gibson Mill in Hardcastle Crags, a National Trust site above Hebden Bridge, Luddendenfoot Community Centre and Hebden Bridge Town Hall. These free exhibitions ran from October 2024 to March 2025.

In addition to the exhibitions, we ran 5 grassland fungi identification walks for local wellbeing groups, 4 creative workshops and a talk by local mycologist Steve Hindle.

You can read the project overview and evaluation here.

#ancientunderlands