At the end of the eighteenth century, the agricultural revolution brought about many changes to farming, and it was not long before these changes affected even the remote areas of the Yorkshire Dales. The improved production of fodder meant that livestock could be kept through the winter and improved breeding techniques produced animals which were better suited to local conditions. The labour force was also more efficiently deployed and managed, but the increasing use of machinery required fewer workers. In some areas, landowners evicted tenants and farm workers in order to turn the land over to sheep and wool production. The effect of this was to depress wage rates and start a gradual decline in rural communities. Many farm workers were forced to leave the land and seek work in the more prosperous industrial towns of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire.

The Yorkshire Dales

The various Hebden communities were Dales Folk, earning a living in sheep farming on the high moors and homesteading in the valleys. For the landowners, there were rich pickings in wool, and the the cold uplands of North Yorkshire were not well suited to the growth of crops or arable farming. Cattle could be reared on the lower slopes and valley floors, and the villages were centres for trades which supported the agricultural economy, but for ordinary folk life would have been fairly hard.