Postcards From Home : Halifax’s Hospital On The Hill
No doubt the transport engineers who have spent a lot of time and money widening the road outside what is now Calderdale Royal Hospital would be jealous of the wide open spaces on this real photographic postcard from the early twentieth century.
The hospital was opened in 1901 and went under a variety of names in the early part of the twentieth century including the Halifax Poor Law Hospital, the Union Infirmary, St Luke’s Hospital, St Luke’s Military Hospital and finally the Halifax General Hospital. By the twenty-first century it had become the embryo of the new Calderdale Royal Hospital.
When it was built it was the largest public building in Halifax and it cost somewhere around £130,000 to construct, and that is equivalent to about £15 million today. The total cost of the current Salterhebble Hill roadworks is seemingly about £20 million. Discuss!
