Halifax - West Yorkshire a Heritage Centre

Halifax - West Yorkshire is a veritable centre of heritage, with its Bankfield Museum, the Calderdale Industrial Museum, and the Victorian Borough Market. All of these buildings have been transformed from near derelict eyesores to modern complexes for history and have contributed to the reshaping of this legendary textile based town.

The Bankfield Museum houses a fine textile and costume collection, one of the finest in the country in fact, and the Calderdale Industrial Museum offers visitors a glimpse of how a working mill operated in its time. Victorian Borough Market now dominates the town centre, once the home of cloth caps and a cluster of mills.

This once over-industrialized valley has become a progressive centre for development and has ambitions based not only on its historical heritage, but also on future potential. At one time Halifax was called the "town of 100 trades" but all this has changed.

This town is also famous for being the home of one of the controversial lawyers of his time. Judge James Pickles, who quite literally was so outspoken, he got Halifax placed on the legal map of the UK. It is also famous for being the home to Halifax PLC who contribute to and generate income for the local community. This banking giant was given birth to, on the 1st February 1853.  

The entire region of Calderdale in which Halifax is situated, has been undergoing a regeneration. New business and old stand side by side, and you will find centers of artistic excellence right next door to the craftsmen of Hebden Bridge who still make clogs according to ancient traditions, and Ellend boiled sweet makers.

This is one of the most remarkable mixes of old and new in the North of England and together with the magnificent views, rugged countryside and commerce, it is also an area brimming with myth and history.