Dunford Bridge is a remote

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depi ...

in the civil parish of Dunford, lying northwest of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. I ...

, England, from the border with

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exis ...

and from the border with

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the no ...

. It lies in the

Peak District The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It includes the Dark Peak, where moorl ...

, west of

Penistone Penistone ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 22,909 at the 2011 census. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is west of Barnsley, ...

and south of

Holmfirth Holmfirth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England, on the A635 and A6024 in the Holme Valley, at the confluence of the River Holme and Ribble, south of Huddersfield and west of Barnsley. It mostly cons ...

, within the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley. Before the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

the area covered by South Yorkshire was part of the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

. The settlement, consisting of a few houses, lies beneath the

Winscar Reservoir Winscar Reservoir (also known as Winscar dam), is a compensation reservoir on the headwaters of the River Don in South Yorkshire, England. The reservoir is located at Dunford Bridge, northwest of Sheffield, and is just inside the Peak District ...

. Water draining from the moorland around Grains Moss forms small rivers that join together to form the source of the River Don, which feeds into the reservoir. The reservoir had suffered from leakage for many years, until Yorkshire Water, the reservoir owners, employed a construction company to correct the problem, using £400,000 worth of specialist

grout Grout is a dense fluid which hardens to fill gaps or used as reinforcement in existing structures. Grout is generally a mixture of water, cement and sand, and is employed in pressure grouting, embedding rebar in masonry walls, connecting sec ...

ing and artificial membrane. The eastern end of the Woodhead Tunnel is in the centre of the hamlet. The site of the former railway station is now a parking area with the old rail line forming the route of the Trans-Pennine Trail. In 1974 the two terraces of railway cottages at the eastern tunnel portal, comprising 19 houses, were bought by the Lifespan Educational Trust to establish a commune based on the principles of Summerhill School. The Lifespan Community Collective, which set up a registered housing cooperative and in 1976 opened a wholefood shop in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into t ...

(the cooperative was dissolved in 1987). In the 1980s the community launched a

worker cooperative A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...

in printing and publishing. The community continues today with about 20 residents; it farms according to

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principle ...

principles and produces the quarterly ''Communes Network'' magazine. The Stanhope Arms Public House (former hunting Lodge belonging to the Stanhope Family) was the only public house in the hamlet of Dunford Bridge. The Stanhope Arms closed down in the early 2000s. It was used as a theatrical and drama training workshop for a short time afterwards but has been a private residence since 2015. Windle Edge Road leads 1.5 miles southwest from the hamlet to the Woodhead Pass A628 and northeast to the B6106

road. The A628 gives access westwards to the M67 and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

and southeast to the M1 and

. Dunford Bridge is a centre for watersports enthusiasts. It benefits from walkers exploring the Pennine moorland surrounding the hamlet, using it as a base. There is a car parking area next to the road bridge and further parking along the side of the Winscar Reservoir on Dunford Road, to the north. The reservoir is used by a local sailing club. On 15 September 2015 the National Grid announced a plan to bury underground electricity cables and remove overhead pylons from the village. File:Dunford Bridge (RLH).jpg, Dunford Bridge File:Dunford Bridge Aerial (RLH).JPG, Aerial photo of Dunford Bridge and Winscar Reservoir

References

External links

{{Commons category, Dunford Bridge
Yorkshire Water - Winscar Reservoir

Pennine Sailing Club
Hamlets in South Yorkshire Towns and villages of the Peak District Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley