Penistone Hill Country Park

Penistone Hill Country Park
The view north-west from the trig point in Penistone Hill Country Park
Type	Country Park
Location	West Yorkshire
Area	72 hectares (180 acres)
Operated by	City of Bradford MDC Owned by Yorkshire Water
Open	All year (unrestricted access)
Status	Open

Penistone Hill Country Park is an open space of moorland that is located to 0.31 miles (0.5 km) west of Haworth and 0.62 miles (1 km) north-west of Oxenhope in West Yorkshire, England. The park's highest point is detailed with a trig point which is 1,030 feet (310 m) above sea level. Since 1994, the park has been notified as being an SSSI as part of the South Pennine Moors.

Whilst Pen is an old word (notably Welsh for hill) and Penistone (South Yorkshire) means 'Farm on the Hill', it is believed that Penistone Hill derives its name from the gambling game Gamepenny Stone. It is known that men would gather on Penistone Hill to gamble over this game as the quarries afforded the opportunity to gather together easily. Partaking in the game often involved being brought in front of the local magistrates for playing on the local highway or even for playing on a Sunday.

The park is bounded on the western, northern and eastern sides by public roads, which between them have many access points on foot and eight car parks. The site covers 72 hectares (180 acres) and whilst being owned by Yorkshire Water is promoted and maintained by the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council on a long-term lease. The site was previously an industrial worked moorland that was extensively quarried for sandstone. The park has an uninterrupted 360 degree vista of the surrounding valleys and moorland and is the starting point for many moorland walks.

The park is mostly open heather moorland, which is abundant with bilberries during summer. Penistone Hill is scarred with lumps of sandstone and small ponds (known as forth ponds) that were used to drain the moorland when it was being mined for coal. One large pond is thought to be a depression caused by a previous mineshaft. The coal underneath the surface was a very thin seam and of poor quality, so when the railway arrived in the Worth Valley, better-quality coal was transported in.

Haworth Cemetery, which opened in 1893, is also within the park and was opened when the graveyard adjacent to St Michael and All Angels in Haworth was full in the late 19th century. The cemetery includes the grave of Lily Cove, who was a stunt parachutist in the early 20th century. As she was preparing to jump from a balloon over Stanbury in June 1906, she jumped free of her parachute and fell to her death. Some have maintained that when she was descending dangerously close to Ponden Water, she deliberately loosened her straps as she was a non-swimmer. However, no one really knows for sure.