A load of cobble(r)s

I noticed that they have closed Victoria Road in Saltaire to through traffic and dug up the tarmac and I wondered why. Walking down the road the other day, the mystery was solved. They are reinstating the cobbles in front of the Victoria Hall. (Actually the oblong stone blocks are called setts; cobbles are, strictly speaking, round pebbles.) I'm not sure why, except that I assume it is part of the overall refurbishment plan that saw many of the trees felled, new streetlights erected and so on.

The road would originally have been paved with setts, as all Saltaire's streets were. The only bits that remain are the famous length of Albert Terrace and a short stretch outside the Saltaire Dining Hall, by Salts Mill. I imagine reinstating this area outside the Victoria Hall is partly for aesthetic reasons, since this is fundamentally the heart of the village, and partly as a traffic-calming measure. It is uncomfortable to speed over cobbled roads. They are hard to walk on too, and dragging a suitcase becomes a chore! Luckily it is not on my route from home to the rail station, though part of Albert Terrace is.