Deanhead

It is hard now to imagine the Pennines near Hudersfield without the M62 or Scammonden dam. Where the large deep reservoir lies was once a sheltered, fertile valley. For centuries the valleys only sound was children playing in Deanhead school playground, sheep and the call of the lapwing. To stand in the church yard in Deanhead on a hot summer day and look across the water seeing the boats and parked cars is a poignant experience. Imagine not the M62 or Dam but hay fields and farms, lambs playing in the fields, stone walls and trees. On the gravestones you can see the generations of families that lived in the valley.

Peter had started to paint and take photos of the farms and empty buildings before they disappeared, his paintings the only memorial of the lives and people that once lived there. The farms had been emptied of stock and humans. Now five centuries of lives have nearly been fully eraed first by bull dozer and now by nature. By the 1930’s the community of Dean head was in decline and by the time of the compulsory purchase orders in the 1960’s there was only 230 voters on the electoral roll. There was much anger by farmers fighting eviction, even with guns and dogs.