My photo dates back to the 1960s and shows the junction of Cripplegate and Mulcture Hall Road in Halifax. There's a textbook-full of history in the buildings and a library's worth in the names of these two historic streets that run next to Halifax Minster. From healing wells to tolls for grinding corn, there's history … Continue reading Picture History
Category: Scanned Negatives
Windows 80
I call this photograph Windows 80, not as a tribute to some upcoming Microsoft operating system, but because it was taken in 1980 looking out of the window of my parents-in-law's house in Bedford Street, Elland. Images can truly transport us, and the sight of those curtains, the bowl of fruit, and those plastic flowers … Continue reading Windows 80
A Beacon Hill Timeline
I sometimes think that one of my most useful contributions to history would be to produce a Beacon Hill timeline. So many old photographs of Halifax feature Beacon Hill as an ever-present dramatic backdrop, and the changing degree of vegetation on the hill could provide a useful timestamp in dating such photos. After consulting the … Continue reading A Beacon Hill Timeline
Scale And Emptiness In Downtown Stoke
When I look back at these old photographs of mine - I took this picture of a street in Stoke-on-Trent some fifty-five years ago - it is the scale that seems to stand out. Were the streets really this wide or were the cars small? Were the telegraph poles so tall or were the people … Continue reading Scale And Emptiness In Downtown Stoke
Film Sets
Shaw Lane in Halifax back in the 70s and 80s was a bit like a vacant film set: spectacular backgrounds waiting for a drama to unfold. You could have made any number of films or gritty TV series with those granite sets in the foreground, those sooty walls in the background, and the occasional mill … Continue reading Film Sets
Paris Pub
I've always been attracted to this part of Halifax: the steep hills, cobbled streets, brooding mills ..... and, of course, the delights of the Shears Inn, whose stone-tiled roof features in this photo of mine from 40 or 50 years ago. There's a story which says the area's name - Paris Gates - came about … Continue reading Paris Pub
The Shape Of Things Gone By
This is not so much the shape of things to come as the shape of things gone by. That unmistakable shape of 1980s cars, TV aerials, telephone lines stretched across streets - they all spell out the eighties. And note the delicious absence of that most twenty-first century visual blight - the plastic wheelie bin. … Continue reading The Shape Of Things Gone By
Nostalgic Thoughts
When Greenwoods was on't corner, and Marks at top of town; when one day you could wait up, and next day you'd wait down. When sun was always shining, and it'd never, never rain ...... why did folk wear thick coats and rain hats, perhaps you'd care to explain.
Sheffield Nights / Sheffield Days
There are no cars in this scene which always makes dating it a little more difficult. The clothes don't give many clues either: fashion takes a back seat to insulation when it comes to northern winters. Haymarket in Sheffield looks very different these days, and British Homes Stores is long gone. It must have been … Continue reading Sheffield Nights / Sheffield Days
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