At the cross roads in the centre of Saltaire (see yesterday), if you turn up the hill along Victoria Road you quickly arrive at the imposing bulk of Victoria Hall, opened in 1871 as the Saltaire Club and Institute. It was provided by Sir Titus Salt as a place of recreation and education for his mill workers. It housed a reading room, a library, laboratory, chess and draughts rooms, a smoking room, a billiard hall, a lecture hall seating 800, classrooms, a gym and a rifle drill-room. Even today, it functions as a social hub for the village with space for events and exhibitions, concerts, meetings and weddings. Since the large trees on Victoria Road were felled, you can appreciate the building as Salt intended, as a centrepiece of his model village. It has a small garden in front and the square made by the Hall and the Schools opposite is guarded by our four famous stone lions. You can see 'Peace' silhouetted in my photo.
If you turn down the hill from the cross roads, along Victoria Road towards the railway station, you pass the shops shown yesterday. Opposite them, there is a view of the south elevation of Salts Mill, its chimney prominent beyond the allotments that border the railway line. As the trees grow bigger, it gets harder to see the mill.
The Hall is quite impressive.
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