Category: Old Halifax

That’s Progress For You

I have a vague memory of taking this photo somewhere around Luddenden some 45 years ago. Back then, it would have been unthinkable that I could make up for my lack of record keeping by tracking down similar buildings using on-line street-view maps. But that's progress for you - and, if I'm right, the mill … Continue reading That’s Progress For You

And A Bit In Between

You could probably take a similar photo today of a bus crossing Burdock Way in Halifax, but there was something starker about the scene when I took this 45 years ago. In those days colour was for holidays and weddings and folk who had too much money. For the rest it was black and white … Continue reading And A Bit In Between

Up And Down Blake Street

This is one of my photographs from the time we were living in Sheffield in the early 1980s. Blake Street is reputedly the third steepest street in England, and the handrail was an essential part of navigating up and down the street on wintry days. The handrail was still in place the last time I … Continue reading Up And Down Blake Street

A Passage To Halifax

It's goodbye to the fens and the farms, the sea and the sand, and a return to more familiar landscape of mills and moors, chimneys and chapels. Here's one I took earlier - about sixty years earlier, in fact. It was taken looking towards Halifax from Haley Hill, from a spot that I suspect no … Continue reading A Passage To Halifax

Sticking With The Coal Wagon

I must have taken two versions of this particular scene back in the 1960s because I have one in colour that features a rather classic 1950s car. I used that as my calendar image on 14 June 2024, so you are stuck with the monochrome version featuring a coal wagon for the 12 May 2025.

Fifty Shades Of Mucky Brown

Artificial Intelligence can do wonderful things these days. Give it an old black and white photograph, press a button and suddenly it has all the colours of a rainbow. There again, give it one of your of photos of Halifax back in the 1960s and it suddenly has ... fifty shades of mucky brown.

A Halifax Skyline

I seem to remember taking this photograph from somewhere up Beacon Hill Road in Halifax in the early 1970s. The rooftops created a kind of geometric pattern of the type you would get in school text books when you were required to calculate the angles. The TV aerials added a Mondrianesque quality. Stone and steel, … Continue reading A Halifax Skyline

Structural Condiments

A view of a Halifax hillside sandwiched between two cooling towers. The two towers were affectionately known to the locals as "Salt" and "Pepper," and together they created a kind of structural condiment set in what is now Sainsbury's car park. They were eventually demolished in 1974, although it took two attempts before they were … Continue reading Structural Condiments

Lilly Lane

For almost 150 years, the Lilly Lane footbridge has carried people over the busy railway lines and over the Hebble Brook next to Halifax Station. These days it provides safe passage over a car park, but that doesn't detract from its importance nor for what can pass for beauty on a grey rainy day. My … Continue reading Lilly Lane