The Logo

The Valley Weft
The Valley Weft represents everything that binds the Valley together, connecting people and landscape through common purpose and common function.

From along the tops and down to the valley floor, from east to west and from north to south, the Renaissance of the Valley will be created from the unique combination of its human and natural heritage.

Action Groups have already come together to deliver the Renaissance of the Valley in terms of its setting, rural economy, tourism, culture and heritage, creative and small businesses, marketing and information technologies (IT), housing, youth and social wellbeing.

The Valley Warp
The Valley Warp is made up from the horizontal threads that run along the valley floor: the river, the canal, the road and the railway. Due to the narrowness of the Valley, these four elements are already woven together. Some would say they are, as yet, merely knotted together by historical coincidence, rather than by any newfound sense of purpose that could beneficially weave the Valley together again.

Given that their control lies beyond the boundaries of the Valley, their Renaissance will need to be framed within a much wider context, and may therefore be more difficult to deliver.

The Five Towns
In each of the major settlements and for the hinterlands they serve, enterprise and ingenuity will be nurtured through the creation of a 21st Century Marketplace, a place for exchange, congregation, fertilisation and facilitation in every shape and form: physical, social, cultural, spiritual, economic and virtual.

In Todmorden, the existing Marketplace will be further enhanced, in Hebden and Sowerby Bridge they will be relocated and in Mytholmroyd a new Market Town will be created.

The Flying Shuttle
The Flying Shuttle is a conceptual project, symbolising the weaving together of the warp and the weft of the Upper Calder Valley in an interconnected series of physical, environmental, cultural, social, spiritual and virtual projects; some visible, some invisible.

Just as the Flying Shuttle revolutionised the weaving process in the late 18th century, moving faster than the eye could see to bring economic prosperity to the Valley, so will its 21st century equivalent give collective expression to the quality and creativity of the Valley and its communities.

Marking the Valley will give physical expression to the Flying Shuttle, a public art project that will create eleven Renaissance Way Stations on the tops of the Valley. Just as the Flying Shuttle carried yarn, so Marking the Valley will allow 'shuttles' to carry light, sound and messages from side to side across the Valley and down into the towns themselves. It has the potential to become the largest permanent public art project in the world.