I am fairly certain that I was stood on the corner of Lister Lane and Rhodes Street in Halifax when I took this photograph some 55 years ago. If you squint in the right direction you can just about match up the curved corner stones with the current view on Google StreetView. My question, however, … Continue reading A Question Of Religion
Category: Old Halifax
Nostalgic Sudoku
Here's a little challenge for you nostalgia lovers. I must have taken this photograph of Bull Green, Halifax in the 1960s, so you can have fun trying to spot all the shops you can remember. To make it that little more challenging, however, I took the photograph of a reflection of the scene in a … Continue reading Nostalgic Sudoku
Crime Scene
It is not often that you find yourself with a picture of a crime in progress, but this particular scan from my old negatives must be one such case. It shows Commercial Street in Halifax in the midst of redevelopment. I certainly do not take the view that all modern buildings in the town are … Continue reading Crime Scene
Tuscany With Industry Grafted On
As I trawl through my negative archives, I keep finding scenes that I have photographed on multiple occasions. I have this particular view of Bank Bottom in Halifax either with steam or without it. The without steam option has a more stately feel to it - a bit like Tuscany with industry grafted on.
Concrete Artery
I think I must have taken this photograph in the 1980s, which makes it rather late in my black and white days. By then the Burdock Way overpass had become part of the very body of Halifax; a vital artery rather than a varicose vein. Key buildings had shifted their positions to benefit from its' … Continue reading Concrete Artery
Plain John Wainhouse
John Edward Wainhouse did not do plain. Ask him to build a dyeworks chimney and you would finish up with a monumental tower; ask him to build a row of cottages and you would get spiral staircases and terraced balconies. His tower still stands proud, his terrace has seen better days. This was taken in … Continue reading Plain John Wainhouse
Cause And Effect
I am not quite sure where this was taken from, but it could well have been in the King Cross area of Halifax. Whilst the dirt was being blasted off the public buildings of the town in the early 1970s, many terraces still bore witness to their sooty past. This multitude of chimneys, bitumen-black, gave … Continue reading Cause And Effect
When Not Why
There are two possible questions to go with this particular scan from my collection of old negatives. The first is, should old buildings be cleaned? There is an argument which says that power-washing the dirt, soot and grime off these fine old Victorian stone buildings is the architectural equivalent of a face-lift: momentarily interesting but, … Continue reading When Not Why
Carpeting The Calder Valley
The final shot from this strip of negatives places Clark Bridge Mills - at the time the headquarters of Homfray Carpets - at the centre of the action. Henry James Homfray may have been one of the lesser-known carpet barons of Halifax, but with mills in Sowerby Bridge, Luddendenfoot, Birstall and Halifax, he made a … Continue reading Carpeting The Calder Valley
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