During the Hippy era of the early 1970's, after the decline of industry, people moved away to find work and this left many houses empty. The local government decided to sell them for as little as one penny, and then gave taxpayers' money to the new owners to modernise them. This resulted in an influx of hippies.

The Rochdale Canal runs through Hebden Bridge and, where once the narrowboats transported manufactured goods to the ports and coal to the mills, this is now used entirely by tourists and a few people who live on these vessels.

Hebden Bridge is a small Yorkshire town in the Pennines on the border with Lancashire. Once a "cotton town", where mills produced cotton fabric to supply the British Empire, it now produces virtually nothing and its mane interest is tourism.