My photograph dates back to the 1960s and shows the Mobil petrol station on Winding Road, Halifax. The garage was built on the site of the Old Crispin Inn, which dated back to the 1840s. That inn was itself built on the site of an even older Crispin Inn, a famed meeting place of local … Continue reading History Preserved
Tag: Halifax
Sowerby Bridge Station
I must confess that I don't remember the old Sowerby Bridge Station, although I'm sure I must have seen it before it burned down in the late 1970s. If this picture-postcard view is anything to go by, it was a rather grand affair - certainly in a different class from the functional, minimalist building that … Continue reading Sowerby Bridge Station
Cut And Paste
I created this image of Halifax back in 2018, so it is definitely pre-artificial intelligence. Perhaps it's artificial pseudo-intelligence, as it was created by repeatedly pressing Photoshop buttons without any plan in mind. Nevertheless, the result - a collection of buildings, old and new, grand and gruesome - seems almost as if they have been … Continue reading Cut And Paste
View From St Thomas’s
Those of us who spend our lives looking at pictures of old Halifax have a range of potential dating pointers: Is Square Church still a church, or just a spire? Is the Queensbury railway line still in place? are there trees on Beacon Hill? I think this photograph of mine was taken in the 1960s, … Continue reading View From St Thomas’s
Frightening
Artificial intelligence took one of my photographs of North Bridge and Burdock Way in Halifax and did this with it. It's frightening. The problem is, it's frighteningly good.
Green Change
Whenever I revisit one of my old photographs, I can never resist the temptation to seek out a modern view of the same scene to see what has changed. With this view of the junction between Northowram Green and Land's Head Lane, I assumed it would be much the same, but I was surprised by … Continue reading Green Change
Green Clough
I took this photograph of Dean Clough in Halifax back in 2017. The profusion of green vegetation provides a date stamp: fifty years earlier, the buildings would have been the same, but the occasional sooty dandelion would have been the only plant life to survive. To be honest, nine years later and the scene will … Continue reading Green Clough
The Slow Train
At one time, railway lines criss-crossed West Yorkshire like the warp and weft of the very fabrics the area was famous for. Holmfield Junction Station stood at the junction of the line from Halifax to Bradford via Queensbury and the splendidly named Halifax High Level Railway. None of these lines survive, and when I took … Continue reading The Slow Train
Stone Passion
Forget Fifty Shades of Grey: let the sun shine in Yorkshire and you get something much better - fifty shades of stone. Those shades don’t come from some manufactured dye (see the brick wall top left and demolish immediately), but from aeons of sedimentary activity, with the occasional added spice of igneous movement. Stone passion.
alanburnett.com 