Halifax, West Yorkshire

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(Redirected from Halifax, England)
This article is about the English town. See Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia for the city in Canada, and Halifax (disambiguation) for everywhere else.
Halifax
Image:Huddersfield - Kirklees dot.png
OS Grid Reference:SE009900
Administration
Borough:Calderdale Metropolitan District
Region:Yorkshire and the Humber
Nation:England
Other
Ceremonial County:West Yorkshire
Traditional County:Yorkshire
Post Office and Telephone
Post town:Halifax
Postcode:HX1-7
Dialling Code:01422
Halifax is a town in the county of West Yorkshire, northern England, with a population of about 90,000. It is well known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward.
Image:Halifax Coat of Arms.jpg
The name Halifax is said to be a corruption of the old English words for Holy and Face, part of the local legend that the head of John the Baptist was buried here after his execution. The legend is almost certainly mediaeval rather than ancient, though the town's coat of arms still carries an image of the Saint. Halifax Parish Church, parts of which go back to the 12th century, has always been dedicated to St John the Baptist. (The church's first organist, in 1765, was William Herschel, who later discovered the planet Uranus.)

Halifax Piece Hall was the cloth hall where the trading of the woollen cloth pieces was done. It was opened on January 1, 1779, was only open for business for two hours on a Saturday morning, and contained 315 merchants' trading rooms. After the mechanisation of the cloth industry, the Piece Hall was used as a public market and still is today. The Calderdale Industrial Museum (now closed) was housed within the Piece Hall.

The 'Eureka!' family science museum, which was inpsired and opened by Prince Charles in the summer of 1992 is also located in the town.

Image:The Assembly Rooms and Trinity Church in Halifax from A Complete History of the County of York by Thomas Allen (1828-30).JPG
The Town Hall built 1863 was built by Charles Barry who also built the Houses of Parliament. Wainhouse tower is an elaborate factory chimney or folly built for a dye house that was never used dates from 1871. It was designed by Isaac Booth and is now capped with an observation platform reached by an interior spiral staircase.

The Duke of Wellington's Regiment Regimental Headquarters is based at Wellesley Park, formerly Wellesley Barracks, the Barracks is undergoing work to convert it into a Educational school. The Regimental Museum is based in Bankfoot House on Haley Hill.

Image:Halifax020805.jpg Since 1974 Halifax has been the centre of the metropolitan district of Calderdale, part of the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire. Halifax has given its name to a bank Halifax plc which started as a building society in the town. Halifax is a twin town with Aachen in Germany.

Halifax was also notorious for the 'Halifax gibbet', an early form of the guillotine used to execute criminals by decapitation, and last used in 1650. A replica of the gibbet has been erected in Gibbet Street. Law-enforcement in Halifax was notoriously harsh, as remembered in the Beggar's Litany, a prayer whose text was "From Hull, Hell and Halifax, Good Lord deliver us!"

Halifax is also home to a vibrant South Asian community mainly of Pakistani Muslims from the Azad Kashmir region. Most of the community lives in the West Central Halifax region of the town, which was previousely home to immigrant Irish communities which have since moved to outer suburbs.

North Halifax is a collective of suburbs of Halifax physically divided from West Central Halifax by Dean Clough. North Halifax is noted for its local support of the far-right British National Party and became the only area in West Yorkshire to popularly vote in a BNP counselor. It is also home to the prestigious North Halifax Grammar School, one of the last of two remaining selective schools in Calderdale District. North Halifax is an opposite to West Central Halifax in terms of ethnic diversity, housing mainly white protestant residents. Another contrast is that West Central Halifax has older stone terrace houses which have stood the test of time and are still standing. North Halifax has mostly ex council houses built in the 50s and 60's of varying standards, in recent years many houses in North Halifax have been demolished due to their uninhabitable conditions, notably the Jumples block of flats which lay empty for over 15 years before finally being condemned and razed to the ground. Abbey Park, an award winning development in the 1960s was demolished in the late 90s because the houses were unfit to live in. North Halifax is also known for its high levels of social deprivation and associated high crime rates. West Central Halifax is also notorious for social deprivation and high crime rates, and is often singled out as a no-go area because of its problems.

There are nicer areas of Halifax, Savile Park, Skircoat Green, for example, with various different styles of housing, mostly in priovate ownership, but increasingly overpriced, making it difficult for young people in the town to buy property there, forcing them either into rented accommodation, or to leave the town in search of pastures new.


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