Halifax, Yorkshire

[DanaC]

There was a little piece of doggerel in the 17th century which went like this...
"From Hell, Hull and Halifax, Lord protect us"

Halifax is quite a small semi rural town in West Yorkshire. a hop skip and jump away from the foothills of the Pennines and the achingly beautiful Moors which inspired the famous "Wuthering Heights"

It was one of the places where condemned men ( and women and even on occasion children) were taken for execution. We still have a street called Gibbet Street.....and a later model of the gibbet still exists. A dark edge then to the history of this little town. A town built on dye works and sheep farms.

I live in a little village on the outskirts of the town. Northowram. One of several small villages and hamlets, many of which are recorded in the Domesday Book ( 1086) Neither poor nor affluent but pitched somewhere in between, it has working farms and a lot of space.

Picturesque and rugged, a valley curves out and away into the distance. Sheep and cows graze on the heather and rock strewn sides of the valley. Vertical grazing is something animals in this place learn early.....

Stone build cottages shelter us from the whipping winds and rains....and shade us from the glaring sun. Its a strangely beautiful landscape. Not the delicate and and almost too perfect beauty of the South.....Here the land is scarred by rockfalls and the hillsides and valleys pitted with holes from the collapsing ancient tin mines underneath.

For a Manchester lass like me, all this space was intoxicating when I first moved here. The horizon has become a distant thing....No longer blocked from view by row upon row of dull red brick housing and poverty edged industry...I love it here.

[Griff]

Is there any chance you could post a few pictures? It sounds beautiful.

[DanaC]

I'll ask my bro next time I am over there to scan some in for me.

[DanaC]

I forgot to mention Halifax was also the home of one of the very few famous feminist figures of the Early 19th century. Anne Lister.

Her diaries ( which were written in code) provide an amazingly detailed insight into the daily life of a woman of minor nobility. Her management of the Shibden estate, her excellent business acumen and her tempestuous lesbian love affairs are all now laid bare for the study of later generations.

[LN]

*is nominally from Hull*

"From Hell, Hull and Halifax, Lord protect us"

I always wondered about that.

So... Halifax is included because of the gibbet? Any ideas about Hull? Apart from the acute boredom, greyness and general stagnancy, that is.

I'm not over-fond of Hull...

[Happy Monkey]

According to this guy, it's either the strict laws of Hull, or the particularly violent Hull river in Kingston.

[LN]

Thank you!

(The river is violent? I always thought it looks kind of... solid...)

[DanaC]

I was down in London again this week and, whilst I like it down there, and enjoy the whole walking-over-the-bridge-across-the-Thames thing, the elegant houses of Richmond, and the edgy vibrancy of Hounslow, I love more than anything returning to my home. I love Halifax. It's a nice reminder when I get back and see the hills.

Though I'm a manc (well, Salfordian really) by birth, i grew up in Bolton, a mill town on the other side of the Pennines to halifax; so I've always been a Pennines lass at heart. In Bolton you have to go to the edges of the town to see the hills (though the town is builst up the sides o fthem, so there isn't much flat land there either); in Halifax the Pennine landscape is so much more visible right at the centre of the town.

I'm only really happy and home when I'm in the Pennines.

Got a couple of pics from the train station

[xoxoxoBruce]

Even nice on a dreary day, thanks Dana.

[squirell nutkin]

I'm imagining it ten centuries ago.

[DanaC]

The big church with the flag flying (recently attained Minster status) is from the 15th century; but parts of it date back around 900 years, when a smaller Norman church stood there. It's thought that prior to the Norman church there was a Saxon church in the same place. So chances are you'd have been able to see a church more or less where that tower is now, if you were seeing it ten centuries ago.

[monster]

Needs sandblasting. bloody industial regions....

[squirell nutkin]

Yeah, it makes a completely different statement when it is blazing white in the sun versus black with soot.

A lot of people were very upset when some of the Italian renaissance paintings were finally cleaned to reveal the hideously garish colors that they were originally painted in. It seems they liked what they were familiar with and assumed that is how they were meant to be seen.

Not unlike how people think about their own interpretations of religion. So maybe it is appropriate that the church is black rather than white...

[monster]

It caused all kinds of upset when they sandblasted York Minster, and it wasn't anything like that black....

[DanaC]

I kind of like it that colour. Looks beautiful up close. This isn;t one of my photos. Was from the wiki page for the church.