Holmfirth: How Yorkshire Got Its Wine Town

In 2010 the last episode of the longest running sitcom in the world, Last of the Summer Wine, aired on BBC One. It was a charming look at life in a small Yorkshire town, filmed in and around Holmfirth, focussing on three older retired men and their last ditch attempts at having as much fun as possible in their twilight years. The show had captured the imagination of a nation and super fans would travel to this picturesque little town to see Nora Batty’s house and follow in the footsteps of Compo, Clegg and Foggy.

But as the show came to a close and the last of the summer wine was finished off, the new beginnings of Holmfirth as a wine town were already bearing fruit. Holmfirth’s first vineyard, The Holmfirth Vineyard had started its story in 2008 when Ian and Rebecca Sheveling bought a derelict Pennine sheep farm. It was after a night of drinking wine and running out of bottles mid party that Rebecca wandered outside and gazed at the field in front of her. “If we planted vines on here” she mused, “We would never run out of wine.” And so, as Last of the Summer wine came to a close in 2010, the Shevelings began wine production after yielding their first harvest. Just one year later, in May 2011, Holmfirth Vineyard opened its visitor centre, restaurant, and tasting room, and they began organising tours. It was a rapid expansion, taking on guides and wine experts to run the tours, and the expansion continues today as the vineyard now hosts weddings as well. In 2013 the vineyard opened The Retreat, a collection of seven five star apartments with views over the Peak District.

The wines they produce also keep expanding. They began with a solaris white wine and a rondo dry rose in 2010, but they’ve since added a rondo red wine. The rondo grapes began to mature in 2012, meaning the estate could now offer a fuller selection of wines. Their latest addition is their sparkling rondo rose and while there are currently no plans to add a sparkling white wine to the menu, Shevelings’ history of growing their business quickly tells us not to rule it out.

The Slow Pour

The transition from a town famous for a TV show to one famous for wine has been slow, but ten years on, in 2020 the town began to really shift focus and it became an attractive place for new businesses to open up shop, as Elena O’Brien, co-owner of O’Briens beer and wine café, found out. “We started O’Briens in 2020 during covid as an online shop, initially focusing on craft beer, natural wine and fine cider, delivering nationwide. As things grew, we decided to take on a physical space in Holmfirth. At the time, Magic Rock had just opened there, still independent then and doing some really exciting things, and it felt like the right moment to become part of the town. We took over the old Age UK building, which before that had been a butcher’s shop, and stripped it right back to its bones. In doing that, we uncovered some beautiful original features, including tiled walls and terrazzo flooring. We opened as a hybrid bar and bottle shop, but over the years we’ve adapted the business to reflect what customers actually wanted from us.”

And what people really wanted was wine. Or, at least, what people wanted was to spend time with friends and family again after the pandemic, and to simply enjoy a glass or two.

“Natural wine was part of what we did from day one, but if I’m honest, people weren’t really getting it at first, and we probably didn’t yet have the experience to guide customers through it properly. After lockdown especially, people simply wanted to get back out socialising again, so we leaned more into being bar-focused and simplified the wine offer to approachable favourites like pinot, sauvignon and a pale rosé, which really suited the moment.”

Young Vines

Meanwhile, in Meltham, a nine minute drive from Holmfirth town, a second vineyard was beginning its own journey. Alan Calder, a retired PHD industrial chemist founded Helme Edge Vineyard with his daughter Fiona Smith and her son Tom Smith. “I have been a winemaker for many decades,” says Alan, “and Fiona was in the wine business before establishing Caremark Kirklees, so with the land we have and its south facing position, it seemed natural to create a vineyard.”

Helme Edge only opened in April 2025 and, as such, doesn’t yet have the facilities of Holmfirth Vineyard. Helme Edge is a little more boutique so far, offering tours, tastings and nibbles. “We started experimenting in 2017 by planting 70 vines,” says Alan, “and in 2020 we made a little vintage which was very nice. We expanded in several stages from there and decided in 2022 to turn our hobby into a business.”

Tours are usually smaller, more intimate affairs than the ones at Holmfirth Vineyard, and this gives visitors a great chance to inspect the vines, ask questions, and enjoy a more personal experience. The tours are run by Tom, who talks about working with his grandad, his time gaining experience in vineyards in Australia, and his hopes for the future of Helme Edge. At the moment, their focus is on the wine. “We now have several thousand vines which will produce still and sparkling white wines and rosé.” Says Tom. “Our initial business strategy is to focus on tourism tastings, but we plan to increase our yields so we harvest more grapes, and the longer-term goal is to eventually make the actual wine here too.”

Although growing the same northern climate solaris grapes as Holmfirth Vineyard, Helme Edge are successfully producing a sparkling white wine, which sits alongside their still white and rose wines. As yet, there’s no sign of them expanding into producing a red wine, but hopefully there are even the smallest sparks of plans to.

Shop Talk

For now, the vineyards are the only places you can buy their wines. The town does have a well-stocked wine shop, Oakhams, but the shelves are filled with Spanish, French, Italian, Australian, and even Lebanese wines. At O’Briens the bottle shop is limited for space, so what to stock is a thoughtful process. “The wines we serve and stock at O’Briens are very much in keeping with the original aims and ethics of the business,” says Elena. “They’re artisanally produced, independently owned, environmentally focused, low and minimal intervention wines, often considered “natural”, made by people we genuinely respect, who share our values around creativity, sustainability and hospitality. Some of the wines are classically crafted, while others sit at the weirder and wilder end of the spectrum, but the aim has always been to make those wines approachable and enjoyable for everyone.”

The wine section of the business has become so popular they’ve taken on a sommelier, Fanny Pogson. “I’m almost obsessively passionate about the provenance of our wines, and I genuinely think people sometimes turn up just to listen to me babble on about them like some niche adult story time. But these little fleshy, juicy balls honestly bring me so much joy, and being able to share that joy with others is undoubtedly the best part of the job. The trust and honesty you get almost immediately from random strangers in this role is palpable. Folk want a wine to speak to who they are, but they also don’t always want to play it safe. I often enquire and absorb the details of their lives before suggesting a bottle. On the surface, it may sound like these are random questions, but each time someone tags a picture of themselves glass in hand, writes a review, drops a card off, or simply comes back to buy another glass or bottle, it reaffirms what I do, and how I do it.”

Business Is Booming

Despite this transformation, Holmfirth hasn’t given up on Last of the Summer Wine completely. That show still brings a lot of tourism to the town. There’s a Last of the Summer Wine exhibition, the Wrinkled Stocking Tearooms and you can stay in Nora Batty’s cottage for the night. But there’s no doubt the town has changed, and for the better. “It used to mainly be known for Last of the Summer Wine,” says Elena, “but now it feels like a genuinely vibrant independent town with loads going on. We’ve seen some brilliant businesses open, from bakeries and coffee shops to restaurants like The Whippet & Pickle, Bluebird Bakery, Graham’s Coffee and Woolflower. All of these independent businesses have brought something different and helped create a much more exciting atmosphere in the town.”

And the latest addition to the town is Cru Wine Bar, which opened at the start of 2025. It’s a passion project for Sam Tyrrel, who’s a clinical psychologist by day, and his business partner Troy Frayne, who’s an accountant. “We’re focused just on wine, and that’s pretty much all we do,” says Sam. “We change our wine list all the time, but we generally pour around twenty-five wines by the glass at all times. We do have a larger wine list than that, and we want lots of people to experience wine. We want people to come in and start the wine journey with us. We have lots of training points with our staff around gently pushing people out of their comfort zones to try new things, and have new experiences with us. And that’s why we do so much by the glass, so people can start exploring wine.”

Sam has a background in hospitality, previously living and working in nearby Huddersfield, but Holmfirth has captured his heart and he wouldn’t want to have opened this business anywhere else. “It’s is coming up to be a kind of funky, modern town, and the local community is very supportive of these kinds of individually owned operators like us, whether it be shops or whether it be bars. We’re a great community of people. We all look after each other really well. So it’s a pleasure to be part of it.”

Fanny at O’Briens agrees, placing wine at the centre of the town these days, and at the centre of the people who live here. “Wine can be such a big and positive part in the lives of families and friends. It’s a real honour to be trusted to select both our glass and bottle offerings, and I love hosting relaxed and informal tastings and celebrations. We’ve seen birthdays, baby showers, engagements, weddings, reunions, and even the odd group get together with no real aim book tastings. It’s a great way to relax, socialise and learn at the same time.”

So, what does the future look like for this quirky little Yorkshire town? As the memory of Last of the Summer Wine begins to fade a little and a younger generation, who’ve never heard of the allure of a wrinkled stocking, discover the beauty of Holmfirth, wine tourism is firmly establishing its foothold here. On 31st March 2026 the all new Yorkshire Wine Trail was launched. Ten Yorkshire vineyards from north to south and east to west Yorkshire, came together to create an official wine trail. Visitors wanting to complete the trail can pick up a wine passport which each vineyard will stamp. Anyone who visits all ten vineyards within a year is eligible for a prize from the Yorkshire Wine Trail. These prizes alter, but include a bottle of wine and a free tasting at one of the vineyards. Apart from York, a large touristy city, Holmfirth is the only town on the wine map to have two vineyards on the trail. Holmfirth has come a long way since Last of the Summer Wine, but the town can now consider itself to be Yorkshire’s wine town.

Photo credit Samantha Priestly, O’Brien’s, Helme Edge Vineyard, Cru Wine Bar.

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