49-51 Huddersfield Road, Holmfirth - 01484 222444 holmfirth.tic@kirklees.gov.uk

Holmfirth is a small town on the A6024 Woodhead Road in the Holme Valley, within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Centred upon the confluence of the Holme and Ribble rivers, Holmfirth is 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Huddersfield and 13 miles (21 km) northeast of Glossop. It mostly consists of stone-built cottages nestled in the Pennine hills. The Peak District National Park around Holme Moss is 4 miles (6.4 km) to the south of the town.

Holmfirth was once a centre for pioneering film-making by Bamforth & Co., which later switched to the production of saucy seaside postcards. More recently it has become well known as the location of the situation comedy Last of the Summer Wine.

The town originally grew up around a corn mill and bridge in the 13th century. Three hundred years later Holmfirth expanded rapidly as the growing cloth trade grew and the production of stone and slates from the surrounding quarries increased.

The present parish church was built in 1778 after the Church built in 1476 was swept away in a flood the previous year.

In 1850 Holmfirth railway station opened, on the branch line built by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company.

Holmfirth was the home of Bamforth & Co Ltd, who were well known for their cheeky seaside postcards - although around the time of the First World War, they produced postcards of a more sober nature. The printing works on Station Road has now been converted into residential flats.

Bamforth's company were early pioneers of film-making, before they abandoned the business in favour of postcards. During the early 1900s Holmfirth was well known for film making; the West Yorkshire film industry, for a time, surpassed that of Hollywood in terms of productivity and originality. Interestingly ancient documents have the town's name spelt 'Holm Frith' which can be translated as 'Holly Wood', though the word "Firth" is an old English name meaning 'wood and woodland' indicating the name means Holme woods.

Local men who served and died in World War I and World War II are commemorated on the Holme Valley war memorial found outside Holme Valley Memorial Hospital.

The town is particularly associated with an unusual choral folk song, known as the Holmfirth Anthem.