Todmorden has a complex geo-administrative history.

Since the local government reforms of 1974, Todmorden has been administered as part of the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, within the Metropolitan county of West Yorkshire.

There has been a great deal of regeneration activity and Todmorden is now increasingly a commuter town for people working in Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield and smaller towns.

Todmorden has a very busy nightlife, for a small town.

Todmorden has several attractions, the foremost being a large town hall that dominates the centre of the town.

Todmorden has the look of a Victorian mill town and has some notable buildings including Dobroyd Castle ( completed in 1869 ), now used as a residential activity centre for schoolchildren ; the Edwardian Hippodrome Theatre ; an imposing Greek Revival town hall ( built 1866 – 1875 ) that dominates the centre of town ; the Grade I listed Todmorden Unitarian Church ( built 1865 – 1869 ); and the 120 ft Stoodley Pike monument ( built 1814 and rebuilt in 1854 ) atop the hill of the same name.

Todmorden has been used as a filming location for the 1980s BBC TV police drama Juliet Bravo, Territorial Army series All Quiet on the Preston Front, parts of The League of Gentlemen, BBC TV miniseries Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the award-winning BBC1 series Life on Mars and a film adaptation of the novel My Summer of Love.

Fred Lawless, Liverpool born theatre playwright has a house in Todmorden ; he was also a writer for the BBC 1 TV series EastEnders, as well as several other TV and radio programmes.

Todmorden actress Claire Benedict has appeared in UK TV shows Waking The Dead, Prime Suspect, Unforgiven, Holby City, Casualty, Doctors, Grange Hill, The Bill, and the Lenny Henry Show.

Other police stations are located in Todmorden and Brighouse which has recently reopened.

The Incredible Edible Todmorden project which began in 2008 has meant that food crops have been planted at forty locations throughout the village.

The Town Hall, which was presented to Todmorden by the Fielden family and opened in 1875, straddles the Walsden Water ; thus, from 1875 to 1888 it was possible to dance in the Town Hall ballroom, forward and back, across two counties of England.

Older buildings include two 18th-century pubs ; Todmorden Old Hall, a Grade II * listed manor house ( Elizabethan ) in the centre of town and currently in use as a restaurant ; and St. Mary's Church which dates from 1476.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, widespread development occurred in Burnley Wood, the residential elements having two distinct characters: large stone-built houses in spacious grounds, flanking Brooklands Road and Todmorden Road and largely providing accommodation for wealthy mill or mine owners and senior employees, and high density terraced housing.

Large scale urban development therefore took place on both sides of the river whereby by the 1880s, Burnley Wood and the district of Fulledge just north of the river between Plumbe Street and Todmorden Road had developed into a densely populated area of terraced housing laid out in a classic grid iron pattern of horizontal and vertical rows of mainly identikit two bedroomed houses.

Further progress was not made until 1791, when John Rennie was asked to make a new survey in June, and two months later to make surveys for branches to Rochdale, Oldham and to a limeworks near Todmorden.

* 1984 – The Summit tunnel fire is the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derails near the town of Todmorden in the Pennines.

Keith Noel Emerson ( born 2 November 1944, Todmorden, West Yorkshire ) is an English keyboard player and composer.

The major towns of Burnley and Accrington are to the north and northwest respectively ; Todmorden, Walsden and the county of West Yorkshire are to the east ; Rochdale and the county of Greater Manchester are to the south ; Rawtenstall, from where Bacup is governed, is to the west.

He started work at Pontefract General Infirmary in Pontefract, West Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1974 took his first position as a general practitioner ( GP ) at the Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre in Todmorden, West Yorkshire.

The designation of Halifax, Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden illustrate such an example.

This was followed by the Rochdale Canal, which passes through difficult country between Rochdale and Todmorden.

A 2004 profile of the Calder Valley ward, covering Hebden Bridge, Old Town, and part of Todmorden, estimated the population at 11, 549.

It is served by frequent rail services to towns and cities in Lancashire, Greater Manchester, as well as West and North Yorkshire including Leeds, Blackpool North, York, Manchester Victoria and Todmorden.

Todmorden is a market town and civil parish, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England.

Todmorden town centre occupies the confluence of three steep-sided Pennine valleys, which constrict the shape of the town.

Todmorden is surrounded by moorlands with occasional outcrops of gritstone sandblasted by winds.

The administrative border was altered by the Local Government Act 1888 placing the whole of the town within the West Riding, whereby today all of Todmorden lies within West Yorkshire.

The town is served by Todmorden railway station and Walsden railway station.

The name Todmorden first appears in 1641.

In 1898 Blackheath Barrow — a ring cairn monument situated above Cross Stone in Todmorden — was excavated and proved to be a site of " surpassing archaeological interest ", according to J. Lawton Russell, one of the men who carried out the excavation.

The various finds from the 1898 dig are now housed in the Todmorden Library, on permanent display.

Todmorden c. 1870

Settlement in Medieval Todmorden was dispersed.

Todmorden grew to relative prosperity by combining farming with the production of woollen textiles.

In 1801 most people still lived in the uplands ; Todmorden itself could be considered as a mere village.

A second railway, from Todmorden to Burnley, opened as a single line in 1849, being doubled to meet demand in 1860.

A short connecting line, from Stansfield Hall to Hall Royd, completed the " Todmorden Triangle " in 1862, thus enabling trains to travel in all three directions ( Manchester, Leeds and Burnley ) without reversing.

A double murder took place at Christ Church, Todmorden on 2 March 1868.

Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the population of the Borough of Todmorden remained constant.

Centre Vale Park in Todmorden is the setting for several pieces of local art, including tree carvings by the sculptor John Adamson.

John Fielden ( 1784 – 1849 ), land and factory owner in Todmorden and scion of the town's Fielden family, was a Member of Parliament and national leader of the Ten Hours Campaign for factory reform.

John Kettley ( born 1952 ), the former BBC weatherman, grew up in Todmorden.

* John Ramsden and Richard Holt of Todmorden 1834-a new automatic weft stopping motion