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

 

Halifax Minster - The Exterior Part 2

 

A restored head stop on the south aisle

Continuing my brief look at the exterior of Halifax Minster, which is built with coarse grained Rough Rock, I stopped to photograph the very weathered grotesque on the south-east corner before continuing along the south aisle of the chancel. 

 

A grotesque on the south-east corner of the chancel

 

Looking at the windows and the acanthus leaf like decorations to the parapet of the 5-bay chancel, it appears that this and the Rokeby Chapel were built during the same phase of building c.1533. At its west end, there is a rose window that has a hood mould with head stops in the form of ram’s heads, which have been restored with a uniformly coloured medium grained gritstone. 

 

The rose window at the west end of the south aisle of the chancel

 

Along the parapet to the chancel, the blocks beneath the crocketted pinnacles, hood moulds to windows, mullions and isolated blocks have also been recently restored with a similar medium grained sandstone, which is quite consistent with the Crosland Hill stone supplied from the Rough Rock at Huddersfield, but this is only an educated guess. 

 

A head stop on the south aisle of the chancel

Immediately below the cinquefoiled blocks that form part of the ornate parapet, the moulding is carved with various details that include an angel, faces, grotesques, rosettes, floral details and shields but, in their usual way, Historic England (HE) make no mention of these interesting examples of architectural sculpture. 

 

An angel on the south aisle of the chancel

 

From my photos, I can see that the gritstone used for the fabric is much coarser than the sandstone used for restoration and small quartz pebbles are frequent, which limits the carving to crudely carved features. This texture is quite typical of the Rough Rock in West Yorkshire, although the variety produced at Crosland Hill is fine to medium grained and an exception to the rule. 

 

A detail on the south aisle of the chancel

 

Moving on to the Holdsworth Chapel, which the Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire by Peter Ryder dates to c.1554, I was very interested to see that the 'flying buttresses' are very similar to those seen at All Saints church in Silkstone and St. Mary’s church in Ecclesfield. 

 

The buttresses on the Rokeby Chapel

 

When visiting various mediaeval churches that have elaborately carved C12 corbel tables, I have often wondered if they were produced by itinerant masons similar to the Herefordshire School, because the figures looked so similar, and I thought perhaps that there was a connection between the churches at Halifax, Silkstone and Ecclesfield. 

 

A buttress on the Rokeby Chapel

 

All Saints church in Silkstone is one of five sister churches that share very similar designs, which includes those at Darton, Royston, Cawthorne and the now rebuilt High Hoyland but all of these, except Darton, were completed by 1500 - as was St. Mary’s in Ecclesfield. 

 

 

Continuing past the south porch and taking a photo along the south elevation to the east, the west end of the south aisle has a castellated parapet in the same style as the Holdsworth Chapel, with both the ground floor windows and those above having a very late Perpendicular Gothic style that have very simple tracery or it is absent. 

 

A view of the south elevation

Moving round to the west elevation of the four stage tower, which I couldn’t get far enough away from to photograph in its entirety, it is dominated by the very large Perpendicular Gothic style window but my Panasonic Lumix TZ100 camera was able to zoom into the high level gargoyles. 

 

The west elevation of the tower

 

Above the west door, there are two highly weathered coats of arms, which are quite crudely carved into the very coarse grained Rough Rock and the finer grained beds are differentially weathered, which highlights the large scale cross-bedding. 

 

Coats of arms above the west door of the door

 

Moving back to the west end of the south aisle, the blackened stone work has been sufficiently weathered to expose a fresh surface of the Rough Rock, which here is coarse grained and contains the occasional small quartz pebble. 

 

A detail of the Rough Rock

 

Attached to the wall above this is a sundial with a date 1808, which is not mentioned in the HE listing description. The inscription, cut into a slab of Elland Flags sandstone, records the names of the churchwardens - William Lawrence, Jonathan Illingworth, Robert Abbott and John Sutcliffe. 

 

The sundial

 

Halifax Minster - The Exterior Part 1

 

The east end of Halifax Minster

Setting off from Treeton at 8:10 am on my day out to Halifax and Huddersfield, I finally arrived at Halifax bus station at 11:50 am and immediately set off to find the Grade I listed Halifax Minster, formerly known as the Church of St. John the Baptist. This was originally built in the C12, but now mainly comprises a fabric that was built in several phases during the C15 – with some C16 and C17 additions and a restoration of 1879 by Sir George Gilbert Scott and his son John Oldrid Scott. 

 

The approach to Halifax Minster from King Street

 

Approaching from King Street and passing Halifax war memorial, my first view was of the tall tower, which was was completed c.1482 and dominates the rest of the church – described by Peter Ryder in The Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire as being “without doubt the largest and most impressive church in the county”. 

 

The British Geological Survey map of the area around Halifax

 

The bedrock underlying Halifax is the Rough Rock, which in this area is a coarse and pebbly gritstone and The Building Stones of England – West and South Yorkshire mentions that building stone for Halifax and its suburbs was provided by quarries at Norland Moor, Greetland and Ovenden, among others. 

 

Quarries shown on the Building Stones of England database map explorer

To the east of Halifax, stone for walling, roofing slates and paving for the cities of Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds and Bradford was obtained from many quarries on the Elland Flags around Northowram, Southowram, Hipperholme and Brighouse. 

 

The north aisle

 

The stonework of the tower is severely blackened, a legacy of the pollution produced by the steam powered textile mills, but the block size of its ashlar masonry immediately suggested that the Rough Rock as been used in its construction and probably for the masonry for the adjoining north aisle – with the the style of the Y-tracery of its windows being dated c.1290 by Pevsner, although these have been since restored. 

 

A view along the north aisle

The western end of the north aisle has been rebuilt with ashlar where the arrises are quite weathered and adjacent to this is the north porch, which is built with large gritstone ashlar blocks that still retain their sharp profiles and are therefore probably of a later date. 

 

The north porch

 

Unusually for a C15 church, the nave does not have a clerestory and the usual castellated parapet and crocketted pinnacles but the Rokeby Chapel, dated by Ryder to 1533, has a  decoration to the parapet that I had not seen before and would describe as an acanthus leaf pattern but, very surprisingly, Historic England (HE) make no mention of this. 

 

Grave slabs adjacent to the north aisle

 

Alongside the north elevation, grave slabs and riven paving are laid between the fabric and the boundary railing, which are undoubtedly made from the Elland Flags sandstone. Although I had seen a lot of yellowish massive sandstone when exploring Headingley in Leeds, I had always associated this formation with flaggy beds – as seen at Leeds Minster and the Church of St. John the Evangelist and its former graveyard, which now forms the Penny Pocket Park. 

 

The Rokeby Chapel

 

All three elevations of the Rokeby Chapel have large Perpendicular Gothic style windows, with the north elevation having a square window and a door below that were inserted at a later date. Continuing to the 3-bay chancel, which does have a clerestory, the windows and decoration to the parapet are in the same style and indicates that it is contemporary.

 

A view of the Rokeby Chapel and the chancel

 

Continuing to the east end, a tree obscures the east window of the north aisle and I only took a couple of general photographs from a distance, but the parapet details and the windows look very similar, with some of the tracery in the chancel window having been restored. 

 

The east elevation of Halifax Minster

A Day Out to Halifax and Huddersfield

 

Huddersfield railway station

Following on from the field trip to Ilkley Moor with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group (SUGG) in August 2024, a few days later I returned to West Yorkshire for a long day out to Halifax and Huddersfield. Earlier in the year, I had visited Horbury, Ossett and Morley as a continuation of my investigation of the centres of textile production that grew rapidly in West Yorkshire during the Industrial Revolution, which I had started with days out to Dewsbury and Honley. 

 

Treeton, Huddersfield and Halifax as seen on Google Map

 

I had briefly visited Huddersfield a few times before, the last being after my trip to look at the geology of Beaumont Park, and I was aware that it has many fine historic buildings in its town centre; however, when entering a postcode for a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, I discovered that the vast majority of the listed buildings in the central part of Newsome Ward had already been photographed and there wasn’t much incentive to visit the town again. 

 

Listed buildings and results of the Photo Challenge

 

One of my visits to Huddersfield was undertaken when I had a car and, after finishing a meeting to discuss my Glowing Edges Designs, I drove to Halifax to see Dean Clough and briefly walked around the magnificent Grade I listed Piece Hall. 

 

The listed buildings in the Town Ward and the People's Park

 

Although another post code search revealed that most of the listed buildings in the Town Ward of Halifax had been photographed, I decided to have a day out to mainly see Halifax Minster, which Peter Ryder describes as being “without doubt the largest and most impressive church in the county”. I would then undertake a Photo Challenge that would take me from the town centre to the People’s Park and back, via a route that would enable me to get a good appreciation of the town. 

 

An illustration from Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire by Peter Ryder

Although closer to Treeton than Leeds, at a distance of 41 km as the crow flies compared to 48 km, there is only an hourly train to Huddersfield that takes 1 hour and 16 minutes hour and Leeds is much better connected to surrounding towns by both train and bus services. 

 

The railway network in West Yorkshire

 

Except for my field trips with the SUGG, when I obtained a lift in someone else’s car, very nearly all of my travels undertaken in the past 9 years had been undertaken with a travel pass that allows me to travel directly by Northern Rail from South Yorkshire to West Yorkshire. 

 

An extract from the timetable for the No. 501 and X1 buses

I had been prepared to catch a train from Huddersfield to Halifax, but the hourly train was due to leave just before my train from Sheffield arrived. A search on the West Yorkshire Metro website showed that the No. 501 and X1 bus services run regularly and take no more than 45 minutes and, recalling that my drive to Halifax was by a hilly and scenic route, I was happy to take in the surroundings from the top deck of a bus. 

 

The topography between Huddersfield and Halifax

 

With a good book and a copy of Private Eye to pass the time on the train from Sheffield, I arrived in Huddersfield on schedule and, with a walk of less than 500 m to the bus station, I took advantage of the sunshine to take photos of the bronze statue of Harold Wilson by Ian Walters and a couple of buildings around St. George's Square. 

 

The sculpture of Harold Wilson

The Grade I listed Huddersfield railway station (1850), by the York based architect J.P. Pritchett, has one of the most impressive entrances that I have seen and on the north side of the square is the Grade II* listed George Hotel (1850) by William Walker. 

The George Hotel

I just took photos from a distance, but it is extremely likely that these are built with the medium grained Rough Rock, which was once extensively quarried at Crosland Moor and used for the vast majority of historic stone buildings in Huddersfield. 

 

Paving stones on Railway Street

At the corner with Railway Street, I stopped briefly to photograph the massive paving stones, which would have been obtained from one of the very many quarries that once worked the Elland Flags to the north of Huddersfield. 

 

Huddersfield bus station

I had never used Huddersfield bus station before and didn’t know its layout, so I quickly proceeded along Railway Street and Half Moon Street to its entrance on Upperhead Road and soon found the stand from which the X1 departs.

 

The departure board