Faded Jewel

These days we are used to saying that the Piece Hall is the jewel in the crown of Halifax (or Calderdale, or Yorkshire, or England, or Europe: depending on the degree of our xenophobia), but it was not all that long ago that the building was facing an uncertain future. Those with long enough memories might remember the building as a bustling wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the fifties and sixties, or as the home of market stalls in the eighties and nineties. In the early 1970s, however, when I took these two photographs, it was abandoned, tired and lost. Thanks goodness that it survived and was restored to the fine showcase that it is today.