Anchor Bridge, Brighouse
The canal in Brighouse flows under Briggate, encased in a stone-sided artery. For over 250 years it has brought life-blood to the town, and even in retirement, it still brings beauty.
John Shaw And The Photographic Bandwagon
This rather stern looking lady was captured by the Heckmondwike studio of John S Shaw. John Shaw was born near Halifax in 1815, and for most of his working life was a farmer in Staffordshire. Only when he was in his sixties to he return to his native West Yorkshire to climb aboard the commercial band-wagon which was studio photography. […]
Mill, Church And Car Park
An old mill, loomless and quiet; a church spire, bell-less and orphaned; and a busy car park: Halifax on a wet Sunday afternoon.
Memories Of India
Three photographs from an album of photos and postcards from India in the 1930s. They come from a family album which was put together by my wife’s uncle, Jim Carthew, and has been kindly lent to me by his granddaughter. I am slowly working my way through the album, scanning the photographs as I go. The three today must have […]
Old Market, Halifax
This 1904 postcard shows a view that will still be familiar to any Halifax resident: the grand facade of the Old Market Arcade, looking towards Market Street and the Woolshops area. The buildings at the bottom of Old Market have changed since this photograph was taken – and are changing again – but the gloroious building that dominates this scene […]
Across North Bridge
A vintage postcard of North Bridge, in Halifax, back in the days when it was the main route out of town to the north. Back then, the buildings hugged the side of the road at both ends of the bridge, and it did not have to live under the concrete shadow of the Burdock Way overpass. People streamed over the […]
The Shaw Syke Redemption
The final two negatives from a 35mm strip shot almost forty years ago show what was left then – and I suspect, what still exists now – of the very first Halifax Station. Built at Shaw Syke in 1844 as the terminus for a branch of the Manchester and Leeds Railway, it survived less than ten years before being replaced […]
Two Gentlemen Of Brighouse
If Shakespeare had been around in the days of Brexit, he might have written a play called Two Gentlemen Of Brighouse, in which two friends, Herbert and Wilfred, travelled to Bradford in pursuit of the same girl, Ethel. This lovely little Victorian photo from the studio of the Brighouse photographer, Martin Manley, would have made a perfect illustration for such a play. […]
Looking On
Hidden away at the corner of a throw-away old photo is a haunting image that transcends time and place. The child looks on and, in turn, we look on, whilst the supposed subjects look at us.
