Christmas is a time for good cheer, festive gatherings, and seasonal entertainment treats: and what better Christmas treat could you imagine than a concert by the Lancashire Bell Ringers! This is the prospect that was on offer to the citizens of Halifax back in 1843, when "lovers of music and novelty" were "earnestly solicited to … Continue reading The Theatre Will Be Well Aired
Category: Old Halifax
A Faded Version Of A Faded Memory
The provenance of this picture of Commercial Street in Halifax is interesting. It started life as one of the "real photograph" postcards from the golden age of picture postcards in the years leading up to the First World War, Fifty or sixty years later it was republished by the Halifax Courier as part of a … Continue reading A Faded Version Of A Faded Memory
Fruit Inflation And Silhouettes
This is a “Cabinet Card” - a pasteboard-backed Victorian photograph - of an unknown woman sat reading under a tree. I suspect it might be from an amateur photographer - clues being the outdoor location and the lack of studio details on the rear of the card. Halifax Borough Market. Not sure exactly when I … Continue reading Fruit Inflation And Silhouettes
Concrete Days
Today's desktop calendar image takes me back to my days in Sheffield. In the late 1970s we lived in Crookesmoor, and a short walk down Oxford Street would take me to the Upperthorpe flats, where I took this photograph more than 40 years ago. When Burdock Way was built 50 years ago, Pellon Lane and … Continue reading Concrete Days
Familiar Concerns
100 years ago today, and the adverts in the Halifax Courier reflect familiar concerns. Keep warm this winter with a seal-lined motor coat, protect yourself during the flu season with Dr Beach's Essence, and "no general election is required" if you plump for Crossleys!
Salterhebble
A messed-about version of a photo I originally took back in 1967 which shows the bottom of Salterhebble Hill and Exley Bank. So much has changed : the mill on the right (Nahum's Union Mills) is long gone, and the pub and many of the houses have now gone as well.
Five Miserable Men From Ovenden
This is an Edwardian studio Cabinet Card featuring five unknown men. On the reverse is a studio stamp which reads “B Collier, Photographer, Ovenden, Nr Halifax” I have not been able to find any record of such a photographer in any of the lists of Victorian and Edwardian studios, nor in census records, but that … Continue reading Five Miserable Men From Ovenden
Doesn’t It Look Grand?
The splendid British Newspaper Archives has just added copies of the 19th century Building News and Engineering Journal. Look what turned up in an 1891 issue - Halifax's New Market and Arcade. Doesn't it look grand! Here's the introductory article. What a bargain for £40,000. True Victorian levelling-up at its best.
Smokey Elland
I know Elland reasonably well, but it still took me quite some time to work out where I must have been standing when I took this photo fifty or so years ago. The amount of smoke coming out of the Power Station reminds you how much cleaner things are these days.
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