Old and new in Halifax

I'm impressed with the way they have renovated Halifax's Georgian Square Chapel and the spire that is all that remains of the adjacent Square Church, cleverly incorporating them into a brand new library building and the restored Piece Hall behind. 

The Square Chapel (below) was opened in 1772, a place of worship for a thriving congregation led by Titus Knight, the minister, and James Kershaw, a leading chapel member. By 1850, the chapel was so popular that people were being turned away due to lack of space, so they bought the adjoining land and built a new church in the decorated Gothic style. At the time, the spire made it the tallest building in Halifax and it soon grew to be the largest congregation in the area.  

By the middle of the 20th century, the congregation had dwindled and the church closed in 1969. Sadly, in 1971, the roof and interior of the Gothic church were destroyed by fire. It wasn't until 1976, however, after a lot of argument, that demolition took place, leaving only the spire and a fragment of the church wall with a rose window intact.






















This has been beautifully incorporated into the new library, and airy glass sections have been built to link the buildings with the Georgian Square Chapel, which is now a theatre, cinema and arts centre. You can get more idea of the whole complex HERE.

The Blanket

The central courtyard / piazza of Halifax Piece Hall is a massive space of 66,000 sq ft, ideal for events, concerts, markets and exhibitions. They are currently displaying a large sculpture: The Blanket, by David Murphy, their first visual arts commission, in partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Its steel tubes create a magnified weave of overlapping warp and weft. The intersecting lines (and the strong shadows on the day I was there) give the impression of a large picnic blanket. It is intended to reference the Piece Hall's history of woven cloth - an effect more obvious when viewed from one of the higher levels of the building.  

I'm not sure whether I really liked it but it's an intricate and fascinating piece. It was hard to know how best to photograph it. I tried lots of angles and different points of view, trying to work with its shadows to incorporate them in a pleasing way. It would look different again on a dull day. 

There's a gallery of related sketches and drawings too. It looked interesting through the window, though it wasn't open when I was there. The sculpture is on display until April 7th.

Loafers

Halifax's Piece Hall has several cafés and bars to choose from. I decided to sample the brew in Loafers, a cosy venue that combines a coffee bar and vinyl record shop.  Good choice! The coffee was excellent, though I wasn't quite brave enough to sample the more exotic blends. You have good music to listen to whilst you sip your drink... double the pleasure. They also sell music-related art prints (by Matt, Vinyl Soul Images), which make a colourful display around the walls.

I had a lovely conversation with another photographer, a young man sitting at the next table. He was taking photos of the coffee and the view. With the sun streaming in, it was too good a shot to miss, though I should have taken mine before I drank my coffee! I also chatted to the owner, Mark Richardson, who seems a lovely, friendly guy and was very welcoming. He and his wife not only run the busy shop, which has been open about 18 months, they also have a young baby too. They must work hard! 

(I'm resolved to be braver about asking people for portraits. It's 'a big ask' for a deaf introvert like me! So far, no-one has objected...)

Return visit to the Piece Hall

I returned to Halifax to visit the Piece Hall again, taking advantage of a brilliantly sunny though very chilly day. The arched south entrance beckons you in. It's a wonderful and unusual Georgian building, opened in 1779 originally as a cloth hall where they sold 'Pieces' of handloom woven, woollen cloth. (Click the Piece Hall label below for more photos and information on its interesting history.) Since they have spent vast sums (£19 million) renovating it, it has a new lease of life. They hold regular events - markets, festivals, food stalls, entertainment - in the large square inside. There are more and more shops and cafés opening in the old cloth rooms that make up the four sides.

One can happily spend a couple of hours browsing around and it was good to explore it when there weren't too many crowds (though some of the shops close on Mondays and Tuesdays).

Renovations have included the adjacent Square Chapel and the Square Church spire, now incorporated into a new library. The exit from the Piece Hall towards the Library has lovely views of hills and mills. The old warehouse on the left is now Calderdale Industrial Museum, though I'll have to go again to visit that. It's only open on Saturdays.

Neon reflections

I've a couple of apps (Enlight, PhotoSplit) that do interesting things with multiple layers, mostly using actions pre-set by the app developers. You can do much the same thing with Photoshop and with a little more control, so I set myself the task of learning to do it 'the hard way' (not using pre-sets).

Here, I was using a couple of images of reflections in the river (actually people standing on the terrace of the Boathouse Inn, with their colourful clothing reflected in the water). Cropped, blended and with the saturation boosted a little, it produced quite a pleasing image, I thought.

Enjoying the small things

One of the best things about getting older is that I seem to have learned to 'live in the moment' more fully and to appreciate and be grateful for all the ordinary small things that make up a day. There are many: the freedom to take a mug of tea back to bed some mornings, savouring it at leisure; being able to make the most of the sunny days, to get out for a local walk or an adventure further afield (how I longed to do that when I was walking to work each day!); a milky morning coffee and a quick look at 'the newspapers', albeit read on my iPad these days. So many small pleasures to enjoy...

I had my eldest granddaughter 'sleeping over' last weekend. She is seven and is really good company. I like, as far as possible, to let her set the agenda, and she is usually happy to do quite ordinary things. A visit to the craft shop for the purchase of some new stickers is often top of her wish list. Then she will spend ages carefully drawing a scene incorporating the stickers; we had mermaids in the sea this time. She helped me chop and cook, and enjoyed playing with the toys I keep here, just a bit different from the things at home (and most passed on to me by a friend whose grandchildren have outgrown them, such good recycling!) Just before we were leaving to deliver her back home, she said to me: "Gran, your whole house smells like your hugs, all warm." I thought that one of the nicest compliments I have ever had, as well as a sign that she too is able to appreciate the small things that give life meaning. 

Even though she is no trouble at all, attending to her minute by minute leaves me astonishingly tired. I can take a good 24 hours to gather my energy again! I did, however, take advantage of the sunshine the next day to have a short walk and was pleased to see the first crocuses, as well as the snowdrops that are now in full bloom. The yellow crocuses often get pecked by birds (though they don't seem to go for the purple ones so much) so it's best to appreciate them whilst you can. 

Squirrels and snowdrops...

      Squirrels

and snowdrops 

and bright cherry berries...

sound like something from the song  'My Favourite Things'. In fact, they were all things that caught my eye on a recent walk round Golden Acre Park in Leeds. Contrary to the weather forecast, it was a rather dull and cold day, so I didn't get many photos at all. 

Haworth mural

This colourful mural stands in one of the car parks in Haworth. It's called 'Tour D'Art part II' and was commissioned from local artist Vic Buta, under the community banner of celebrating local life, when the Tour de France Grand Départ passed through the area in 2014.

See how many of the references you can get...  (If you click the photo you can make it larger.)



There are:
Haworth main street
The Brontë Parsonage sign
The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway
The Railway Children (the novel by Edith Nesbit, set in this area and famously filmed round here in 1970)
A Haworth busker
The Brontë Tractor Run (an annual charity event)
Oxenhope Straw Race
Ebor Mill
Top Withens
The Fairtrade symbol (Haworth was the world''s first Fairtrade village) 
Cricket Club sign
1940s Hovis ad (boy pushing bike up steep hill)
A Tour de France cyclist
Red phone box (stands in Haworth's main square)
A cat
A pheasant
Ripples (land art created for the TdeF) 
The 'Hollywood' type sign erected for the TdF in Oxenhope
and, bizarrely, Peru's Macchu Picchu - with which Haworth is twinned - see HERE

Three angles on Lower Laithe

Lower Laithe Reservoir, west of Haworth, was constructed in the 1920s by building a dam across the Sladen valley, just above where Sladen Beck joins the River Wharfe. It supplies water to Keighley and the surrounding area. It is a noticeable landmark when seen from the higher moorland around it.

The valve tower is quite distinctive - and its walkway provides a roost for flocks of black-headed gulls.

There was hardly a breath of wind when I was walking there, so there were some interesting reflections in the water.

The Worth valley

One tends to think of Haworth as surrounded by moorland (with visions of the Brontë sisters wandering about poetically among the heather). In fact, the heather moorland is mostly south and west of the village. To the northwest, north and east, the village overlooks the gentler scenery of the Worth valley - rough, rolling farmland and woods.

There's a track behind the Parsonage that takes you out along West Lane and Cemetery Road, to the cemetery that is now used for burials, since the churchyard is so overcrowded with graves. Beyond that you have the option of heading for the open moor and the Brontë Falls or making a gentler descent into the valley to Lower Laithe Reservoir. I opted for the second route, since storm clouds were building. I had a nice circular walk and just made it back to my car before the sleet started.

Haworth's church

This is the quintessential view of the Brontë Parsonage, the one that all the tourist brochures show: taken from the crowded graveyard that surrounds the church, with all its lichen covered gravestones. In the wall separating the two, there's a stone that notes that when the Brontës lived there, there was a gate and path that connected the house directly with the church.

The church, St Michael and All Angels, is still Haworth's parish church and tries to balance its duties as a spiritual centre with its role as a tourist attraction. It is currently undergoing some extensive restoration. The present church is not actually the building the Brontës would have known, as it was rebuilt in 1879, after their deaths, when the old church was found to be unsafe and unsanitary - water from the graveyard was seeping in through the floor.

With the exception of Anne, all the Brontë family are buried in a vault under the church, over which a memorial chapel has been constructed. Anne died of TB in Scarborough and was buried there.

The Brontë Parsonage

Back to Haworth - 
 I'm sure most people are aware of the connection between Haworth and the Brontë sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Their father, Revd Patrick Brontë, became the minister in Haworth in 1820 and the three sisters lived and wrote their famous novels in the Parsonage there. It is now a museum, still furnished much as it was in their time, though the wing on the right with the gable was added by Patrick's successor and there is now a visitor centre round the back. 

Walking from the village centre, up the cobbled lane, past the church and the schoolroom that the Brontës built and at which Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell all taught, you could well imagine yourself back in the 1840s. 

Dogwood

I was fascinated by the brightly coloured dogwood bushes planted alongside the airport runway. With a clear blue sky, it seemed to make a rather good abstract - spoiled only, perhaps, by the perimeter fence. For some reason, it put me in mind of 'the most expensive photo ever sold', a photo of the River Rhine by Andreas Gursky (see HERE) which sold for $4.3 million in 2011, and which is now the second most expensive photo ever sold, having been beaten by the $6.5 million paid for a photo by Peter Lik in 2014. If anyone wants to offer me $2 million - a bargain price - for 'Dogwood', please get in touch!

Tarnfield Park

I don't know when they started calling it 'Tarnfield Park'; it's always been known locally as Yeadon Tarn. I haven't been there for a while and I'd forgotten how much higher up it is. Here in the valley the snow soon melted but up there it was still very icy. My walk was more of a slide and a slither on the icy paths, which had been tramped down and polished by many feet. It's a very popular spot with families and dog walkers, as the wide tarmac paths are usually good for kids' bikes, pushchairs and wheelchairs. Despite the cold, there were still plenty of people enjoying the mile or so circuit of the lake, which was almost completely frozen over.

The lake is normally used for watersports and one end has been developed into a small nature reserve with reedbeds and ponds.

It adjoins the Leeds-Bradford Airport main runway, so walks are enlivened by sightings of taxiing aircraft.

All the waterbirds were down at the far end, where there was a small area free of ice, perhaps due to its proximity to the town centre of Yeadon and the nearby buildings. Unless they were after the bread that people were throwing, the swans seemed to prefer standing on the ice to being immersed in the cold water. It's always comical to watch the ducks sliding about; they seem a bit puzzled by the ice.

The obligatory 'snow' shot

So... it snowed a little on Friday morning, though we only had a couple of centimetres, not much compared with many other parts of the UK. I couldn't be bothered to clear my car in order to drive anywhere, so I contented myself with a local walk. A picture of 'Saltaire URC in the snow' is more or less obligatory, though it doesn't change much, year on year. Quite attractive though...

The Big Issue seller

The centre of Haworth village is, I suppose, the area just below the parish church, where a junction of cobbled lanes opens into what might loosely be called 'a square', although it isn't square and is barely big enough to justify the term. There is a pub at either end, a telephone box and a building that held the tourist information office until it was closed (more budget cuts!). It was here that the Big Issue North seller was sitting, even though there were very few people about. She looked so very cold. I didn't buy a magazine as I didn't want to have to carry it about, but I did give her a donation.

The Big Issue magazine was launched in London in 1991 as a way to help people struggling to earn legitimate income. Big Issue North developed from that and is now a separate entity. Sellers buy the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50, keeping the profit. They come from a variety of backgrounds but all face the problems of poverty and inequality (though they are not all rough sleepers). Many sellers locally are women and often appear to be of an Eastern European background. The Big Issue charities work to highlight the issues of poverty and rough sleeping, and attempt to alleviate some of the pressures for individuals.

Haworth details

Just a few of the details that caught my eye when I was wandering around Haworth.

Alleys and lanes

Haworth, more than most places, is a bewildering jumble of narrow lanes, alleys and ginnels, some wide enough for vehicles but many only accessible on foot. It has grown up over many centuries, from the early days when villagers subsisted on a few acres of poor farmland and maybe some hand loom weaving or wool combing. By the time the Brontës lived here in the 1820-50s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing; mills, powered by water and later steam, were taking over. Haworth was crowded, polluted and unhygienic. The average age of death was 24 and 41% of children failed to reach their sixth birthday! Nowadays, the crowded cottages are attractively converted, some of them are holiday homes, and the narrow streets are honeypots for tourists.