An Exploration of Halifax - Part 2

A detail of the Burton Buildings

 

Continuing my exploration of the historic architecture of Halifax, having visited Halifax Minster and the Piece Hall, the next building that I wanted to see was Halifax Town Hall (1863) which, like many others in the textile producing centres in West Yorkshire, was built as an expression of civic pride – exemplified by Leeds Town Hall, but as I had also seen in Morley, Dewsbury and Ossett. 

 

A view along Corn Market

Walking along Russell Street to Corn Market and then continuing north to the junction with Crown Street and Old Market, I stopped to take in the view of the tower of the town hall that I could see at the far end of Princess Street.

 

A view along Princess Street

On the corner of Princess Street and Old Market are the steel framed Burton Buildings (1932), which like the vast majority of these truly iconic Art Deco style shops – typically with a snooker hall and sometimes a dance floor above – is not a listed building. 

The Burton Buildings

 

The upper floors are clad in Portland stone, with a white faience zig zag patterned band course separating them and travertine used for the ground floor pilasters and panelling. There are many fine Art Deco details, including stylised elephants and the pediments to both elevations have the distinctive Montague Burton logo in raised lettering.

 

Stylised elephants on the Burton Buildings

Turning my attention to the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge that I had prepared, I went to find the handful of buildings that not yet been photographed in this part of Halifax town centre, which was largely redeveloped during the second half of the C19 when the town hall was built.

 

No. 2 Crown Street

On the corner of Princess Street and Crown Street, No. 2 Crown Street is a mid/later C19 building in the Classical style which, together with the adjoining No. 1 Princess Street, the White Swan Hotel, Princess Buildings, all the listed buildings in Crossley Street, No. 2 Wade Street and Nos. 12 to 33 Northgate, are considered by Historic England (HE) to form an important group of buildings.

 

No. 1 Princess Street

Continuing along Princess Street, I stopped briefly to take a few photos of the Grade II* listed White Swan Hotel (1858), which HE thinks might be by Smith and Parnell and Pevsner describes as being in the Mixed Renaissance style.

The door surround of the White Swan Hotel

 

I didn't get near enough to examine the uniformly buff coloured sandstone used for any of the buildings on Princess Street, but from my photographs I can see that the sandstone is quite massive and fine to medium grained.

 

The pediment above the main door to the White Swan Hotel

Looking at the fine architectural sculpture above the main door and on the pediment above, which includes swans, figures, rosettes, a coat of arms and floriated detailing, it is quite obvious that this is not local Rough Rock, which in Halifax is coarse grained and pebbly and, as with the Borough Market and the Old Arcade, I thought that it might be Huddersfield stone from Crosland Moor.

 

A view of the elevation above the main door to the White Swan Hotel

According to my copy of the Building sandstones of the British Isles by Elaine Leary, however, Ringby stone from the Elland Flags in the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation has been used for the White Swan Hotel and Halifax Town Hall.

 

Ringby Stone in the Building sandstones of the British Isles

When investigating the historic architecture of Headingley, Headingley Hill and the area around Granary Wharf in Leeds earlier in the year, I had seen sandstone from the local Elland Flags used in listed buildings and boundary walls and it has a very distinctive yellowish colour - also a feature of the walling stone at the Piece Hall, which is easily distinguished from the Rough Rock dressings.

 

Some West Yorkshire sandstones

As illustrated by Bolton Woods stone, which was originally named the Gaisby Rock but is now considered to be part of the Elland Flags, this sandstone can be buff coloured and quite massive and thickly bedded. Being unfamiliar with the variation in the Elland Flags around Halifax, which would need another visit to further investigate, I continued on to Crossley Street to have a closer look at the town hall and the other listed buildings on this street.

 

Listed buildings included in my Photo Challenge

 

An Exploration of Halifax - Part 1

 

The Duke of Wellington's Regiment Memorial

My main reason for visiting Halifax was to continue my investigation of mediaeval churches at Halifax Minster, but I was also very interested in seeing its historic buildings, which like Huddersfield reflects its prosperity at the height of the textile manufacturing industry here. Although most of the buildings in the town centre had been photographed by others, I had prepared a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge that would give me a good introduction to the town. 

 

Listed buildings in the centre of Halifax

 

Leaving Halifax bus station and heading down Wade Street, the early C19 former Syon Congregational Church, with its Greek Doric columns supporting an entablature and plain frieze, now forms part of the recent award winning refurbishment of the station. 

 

The former Syon Congregational Church

 

From the end of Wade Street, I continued down Winding Street and turned down King Street to Duffy's Park, where Halifax Cenotaph is now sited, having been moved from its original location in Belle Vue Park c.1980 on the west side of Halifax. 

 

Halifax Cenotaph

 

Designed by the architect H. Scott Davis and buiIt with a medium grained gritstone, this was not part of my Photo Challenge but, since being commissioned by the National Inventory of War Memorials to photograph several war memorials in Lancashire back in 1994, I always photograph those that I encounter on my travels. 

 

A detail of Halifax Cenotaph

 

After spending just 50 minutes having a look around the exterior and interior of Halifax Minster, I proceeded to the east end of the churchyard. From here I had a view of the railway viaduct, the Grade II listed Bailey Hall Mill (1879) – which was built as a flour mill and is now occupied by Nestlé UK - and the landscape to the east. 

 

A view towards the railway viaduct and Bailey Hall Mill

 

Making my way back to the town centre, the Grade I listed Piece Hall (1779) by Thomas Bradley was my next stopping point, but again it wasn't part of my Photo Challenge. I had visited this wonderful cloth market several years earlier during a very brief visit to Halifax to see Dean Clough, when I spent time having a look at the individual trading rooms, but on this occasion I just took a few general photos. 

 

The north entrance to the Piece Hall

 

Historic England (HE) state that it is built with fine grained sandstone, which was presumably obtained from quarries working the Elland Flags to the east of Halifax, although the massive dressings, columns and lintels are made with Rough Rock. 

Views of the Piiece Hall

I didn't spent any time examining the stonework, but I can see from my photo of the north entrance that the walling is yellowish, thinly bedded Elland Flags sandstone and it strongly contrasts with the stone used for the door surrounds. 

 

The quarry face above the site of the former Beacon Fireclay Works

Taking a moment to look at the high ground that rises steeply to the east of the Hebble Brook, I could see a face of the old quarry that worked the mudstone beneath the Elland Flags to supply the raw material for the Beacon Fireclay Works. 

 

The Duke of Wellington's Regiment Memorial

 

Making my way through the Woolshops shopping centre to Woolshops and continuing up to Market Street, I came across the Duke of Wellington's Regiment Memorial, which was made by Andrew Sinclair - a sculptor whose work I had not seen before. 

 

Halifax Conservation Area

Since arriving in Halifax, I had not left the town centre Conservation Area and the area around Market Street had been densely developed by the time the 1854 Ordnance Survey map was published. Looking around me, although many of the Victorian buildings were demolished in the C20, I could still see many examples of fine architectural sculpture. 

 

The 1854 Ordnance Survey map of Halifax town centre

My day out to Halifax was undertaken on the August Bank Holiday, when the buses between Treeton and Sheffield operated a Sunday service, so I was very conscious that at 1 o'clock in the afternoon I hadn't even started my Photo Challenge consisting of 40 listed buildings. 

 

The entrance to the Borough Market

Nonetheless, I was very curious to have a quick look at the Borough Market on Russell Street, considered by HE to have been built in 1895 to a design by Leeming and Leeming, and the Old Arcade, which HE surprisingly says is only probably by the same architects – even though their façades quite obviously mirror each other. 

 

The entrance to the Old Market

From the photograph that I took of the inscription at the entrance of the Old Arcade, I can see that the sandstone used here is medium grained and uniformly buff in colour. It is quite unlike the coarse grained and often pebbly Rough Rock that I had seen at Halifax Minster or the yellowish Elland Flags at the Piece Hall and it wouldn't surprise me if it was obtained from one of the quarries at Crosland Hill in Huddersfield.

 

The inscription at the Russell Street entrance to the Old Market

 

Halifax Minster - The Interior Part 2

 

Frosterley marble used for the altar steps in the chancel

Continuing my exploration of the interior of Halifax Minster, the walls of the north aisle are again adorned with a variety of wall memorials that include ‘white on black’ varieties made with white Carrara marble and what I think is probably Carboniferous Limestone, with alabaster used for some of the simple memorials. 

 

Wall memorials along the north aisle

 

I just took a few general photographs of these and crossed back to the south side of the Minster to have a quick look at the Holdsworth Chapel, where the highlight was the grave slab of Thomas Haldsworth (d.1709) and members of his family. 

 

Views of the Holdsworth Chapel

 

Next to this is the simple wall memorial to the preacher Oliver Heywood (d.1702), which was erected in June 1906. Unlike the other memorials that I had see in the Minster, this is made with a polished granite that looks like it could be the Scottish Kemnay granite from Aberdeenshire. 

 

The memorial to Oliver Heywood

 

Moving further along the south aisle, the memorial to William Rawson (d.1828) is described by Pevsner as a “Relief of the Good Samaritan”, without actually mentioning Rawson – who was a partner in Rawson’s bank. According to Malcolm Bull’s Calderdale Companion, this was made by Richard Westmacott Junior, who Pevsner describes as the maker of the memorial of his nephew, John Markland Rawson. 

 

The memorial to William Rawson

 

Continuing to the Wellington Chapel, which was rededicated in 1951 to the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, but I didn’t take much notice of the stone used - gritstone from the Rough Rock – for the walling and the arcade. 

 

The arcade of the Wellington Chapel

 

A war memorial slab is set into the flagstones and its distinctly green colour suggests that this is made of volcanic green slate from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group in the Lake District, although I didn’t take a close look at it and just took record photographs
 

The war memorial slab in the Wellington Chapel

The altar at the east end of the chapel is made of limestone, but I again didn’t closely inspect the stone but, enlarging the photograph that I took, the paving that immediately surrounds it looks like it contains some crinoid ossicles, which is a characteristic of Derbyshire ‘fossil marble’. 

 

The altar in the Wellington Chapel

Moving into the chancel, the floor has a chequerboard pattern, with squares of white Carrara marble and Carboniferous Limestone, which is probably from Belgium. This combination is quite commonly seen in later Victorian churches and mediaeval churches that were restored during this period and the floor was probably laid during Sir George Gilbert Scott’s restoration of 1878. 

 

The flooring and altar steps in the chancel

 

The steps to the altar are made with another Carboniferous Limestone, this time Frosterley marble from County Durham. It is characterised by an abundance of solitary corals, Dibunophyllum bipartitum, which I have seen in a few churches and at the Hob’s House landslip at Monsal Dale in the Peak District National Park. 

 

A detail of the Frosterley marble used for the altar steps

Set into the paving of the chancel, which is very probably flaggy sandstone from the nearby Elland Flags formation, is a memorial to George Horsfall Frodsham (d.1937), who was the Bishop of North Queensland from 1902 to 1913 and the vicar of Halifax from 1920 until his death. 

 

The memorial to George Horsfall Frodsham

 

Being conscious that I still had to complete my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, which would entail a good walk around Halifax, I just took a few record photographs of the nave, the arcades and a few details of the columns. 

 

Views of the arcades and columns

 

I had a very brief look around the Rokeby Chapel, which was built in memory of William Rokeby - the vicar from 1502 to 1521 and the Archbishop of Dublin - and has inscribed slabs commemorating Mary Midgley (d.1704), which also has a coat of arms in shallow relief, and John Waterhouse (d.1732), his wife Ellen and their children.

 

Memorials to Mary Midgley and John Waterhouse and his family

 

Making my way back along the north aisle, I stopped briefly to take a photograph of another ‘white on black’ wall memorial to John Waterhouse (d.1847) and his wife Grace (d.1849), which has intricately carved crocketed pinnacles, cinquefoil arches, floriated capitals, a coat of arms and carved heads, but are not mentioned in the reference sources that I have access to. 

 

The memorial to John Waterhouse

 

I finished my brief look at the interior of Halifax Minster, which took just 30 minutes, at the west end of the north aisle where I noticed a reset block with chevrons, which would have come from the original C12 church. The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland notes that the fieldworker found four of these, although many more are mentioned in the literature. 

 

A block of reset C12 masonry with chevrons

 

Halifax Minster - The Interior Part 1

 

An impost in the south aisle

Entering the porch of Halifax Minster, having spent 15 minutes photographing its exterior, I stopped briefly to have a look at the grave slabs that, according to the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture for Britain and Ireland, Peter Ryder considers to be C12.

 

A grave slab in the porch

Once through the door, I found myself in a part of the Minster that is used as a shop and picked up a leaflet that highlights some of the main points of interest to a general visitors. Having a quick look around me, before going to explore the church, I was quite struck by the scale of the church and immediately realised that I would only have time to photograph its principal elements and details that immediately caught my eye.

 

Points of interest highlighted by the guide

 

Looking back at the south door, several wall monuments from the C17 to C19 are made mainly with white or veined Carrara marble from Italy, with some of these attached to a simple slab that are made of stone that I think may be Carboniferous Limestone from Belgium or the Republic of Ireland, which are essentially unfossiliferous and when polished were marketed as ‘black marble’. 

 

Wall monuments surrounding the south door

 

I have seen very many of these ‘white on black monuments’ during my exploration of mediaeval churches, but I have never been able to get close enough to examine any of the materials used for them. Historic England (HE) or the church guide don’t mention the wall monuments and Pevsner describes them as “Nothing outstanding and much minor”, with only five being highlighted. 

 

Various wall monuments

 

One of these is the memorial to John Markland Rawson (d.1826), with the inscription recording that he perished with other seamen when the pinnace of HMS Owen Glendower was swamped in Simon’s Bay at the Cape of Good Hope and it incorporates a sail and an anchor in its design. 

 

The monument to John Markland Rawson

 

It was made by Richard Westmacott the Younger, who produced the pediment frieze at the Royal Exchange – the restoration of which I supervised as a site manager with Triton Building Restoration Ltd. back in 2000, several years after I left the company that I co-founded. 

 

The Bishop Ferrar memorial

At the west end of the south aisle is the monument to Robert Ferrar, the Bishop of St. David’s Cathedral in Wales who was born in Halifax and was burned at the stake on 13th March 1555 at Carmarthen, during the reign of Queen Mary I. 

 

A detail of the Bishop Ferrar memorial

The monument was made in 1847 by Joseph Bentley Leyland, a sculptor from Halifax who seems to be best known as being a friend of Branwell Brontë, the brother of the Brontë sisters of Howarth, and dying as an alcoholic in a debtor’s prison, having failed to live up to his potential. From the couple of photos that I took, I can see that the monument is made of a limestone that I suspect could be Caen stone, but I would need to take a much closer look. 

 

A view east along the nave

 

The 5-bay nave, which Pevsner dates to c.1437, has tall arches to both arcades with octagonal columns, except for the westernmost column to the south arcade which for some unknown reason is considerably larger and has an irregular shape. 

 

The font

 

The spectacular spire shaped C15 font cover is nearly 8 m high, but Pevsner, Historic England (HE) and the church guide make any mention of the font itself and, based on the simple octagonal design that I have seen in many churches, I presume that it has a similar date. 

 

The steps up to the base of the tower

 

Entering the base of the tower up the 6 steps, the like of which I had never encountered before during my visits to very many mediaeval churches in South Yorkshire and the surrounding counties, I was very surprised to see so much floor space – especially since in very many churches, this area is used as a storage space and there is hardly enough room to swing a cat. 

 

The chest tomb of Charles Musgrave

 

Set into the centre of the tower is the chest tomb (1880) of Charles Musgrave, archdeacon of York in the C19, with his effigy carved in white Carrara marble, which Pevsner states was made by William Day Keyworth of London.

 

A detail of the effigy of Charles Musgrave