[7] Two Bronze Age stone circles and remnants of huts on the moors above the village show that the area has been settled since earliest times, [8][9] and a hoard of 33 silver dinari dating from 30 to 170 AD found in a local field indicates that the Romans had a presence.

[11][12][13] An Iron Age or Romano-British settlement has been tentatively identified on the banks of Gate Up Gill on the moors to the north-west of the village.

[15] There is no documentary record of the area until a mention in the Domesday Book of 1086, in which the settlement was referred to as Hebedene held by Osbern d'Arques, of Thorpe Arch.

[16][17][18][19] Hebden Manor was owned by the Tempest family from the middle of the fifteenth century, but it wasn't seen as an integral part of their estates, being regularly mortgaged.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the Trust Lords benefited considerably from the mineral rights and the enclosures of the manorial waste.

[21] It broadly followed the line of the North Craven Fault avoiding the moorland peat bogs, and became a busy packhorse route for traders.

Eight toft compartments are discernible to the west of Main Street, and the outline of the four surrounding common fields, now divided, may be identified from the pattern of dry stone walls.

It originally had a capacity of 22 spinning frames and was productive until about 1872 when it was driven out of business by the more efficient stream-driven machinery of the Industrial Revolution.

[34] In the early 1850s profitable mines were established in the parish to the north of the village on veins associated with Grassington Moor,[35] which helped sustain the population.

Although activity continued sporadically into the last decade of the century, the accessible ore was largely exhausted by 1865, and the population declined to a low of 199 in 1901.

[36] As the Hebden Trust Lords shared the mineral royalties,[37][38] the mines brought prosperity which gave rise to the remodelling and redevelopment of much of the village.

[39] The village school, with working clock and bell tower, was built in 1874,[40] and the Methodist Chapel was rebuilt in 1876 to front onto Main Street.

[41] The coming of the Yorkshire Dales Railway to Threshfield in 1902 opened up Hebden as a destination for day visitors and holiday makers.

[42] A purpose-built timber guest house was opened in 1909 at the south end of the village by the Co-operative Holiday Association, founded by Thomas Arthur Leonard.

Hebden was a township in the parish of Linton, part of the east division of the wapentake of Staincliffe and Ewcross in the historic county of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

[54] It became a separate civil parish in Skipton Rural District in 1866 as a result of the enactment of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866.

The geology is dominated by rocks Carboniferous in age but, as the parish straddles a complex section of the North Craven Fault, it is varied.

It has an inn,[69] and a tea room catering for visitors,[70] and within walking distance are the Dales villages of Appletreewick, Burnsall, Thorpe, Linton and Grassington.

It crosses the Wharfe at Hebden on a wrapped steel-cable suspension bridge, a few yards upstream of the reconstructed course of medieval stepping stones.

Made of recycled materials, it originally had a central supporting pier (the base of which can be seen in low water conditions), that was removed when the span was raised in 1937 after being damaged in a heavy flood.

[76] Hebden Beck flows down from Grassington Moor, which is dominated by the long-abandoned remains of the lead mining industry, through a rugged and wooded gill, past the hamlet of Hole Bottom, made famous by William Riley's novel Jerry and Ben,[77][78] and then over the 16 feet (5 m) Scala Falls.

In addition, the setting is very distinctive with natural topography of surrounding hills and adjacent steep sided valley combining with a man made agricultural landscape of some age and significance in its own right.

[89][90][91] Hebden is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Linton in the Skipton deanery of the Ripon episcopal area of the Diocese of Leeds.

[112] Yorkshire Water is responsible for wastewater disposal, and a small-scale treatment plant is located adjacent to the River Wharfe south of Hebden Beck.