Tag: Halifax

Halifax, West Yorkshire

Following on from the Shibden Hall post, the actual town of Halifax deserves its own entry too. So here it is.

The Minster:

The Minster inside:

Flowers growing outside the Minster:

Hill outside the town:

Shopping street:

Sign on the shopping street:

Some house I thought looked nice:

Fun fact: Halifax is also a bank, so if you’re in UK and Google it, you’re more likely to see results for the bank first, before you get to results for the town. It’s understandable; the bank is one of the largest ones here, with branches all over the country, and the town is not that big, nestled between the giants of Manchester and Leeds.

There is also, of course, the one in Nova Scotia in Canada. I knew about the Nova Scotia one before I ever knew there was one in England. That is because I started reading Lucy Maud Montgomery books long before I moved to England. I learned a bit about Canadian geography from reading L.M. Montgomery. She studied at the Dalhousie University in the Canadian Halifax.

Shibden Hall, Halifax

Shibden Hall is an estate in Halifax, West Yorkshire, that used to be residence of the Lister family, and is now a museum.

I visited the place and, naturally, this is the pics:

The diarist Anne Lister lived at Shibden Hall.

I took many, many photos here and it was a struggle to pick ones for the blog. Here’s some of the rooms:

fireplace in the kitchen
the study
portrait of Anne Lister, attributed to Joshua Horner
spill the tea!
Anne’s bed

At the back of the house there’s The Folk Museum; workshops with displays of traditional crafts such as blacksmith, wheelwright, cooper, etc.

Park surrounding the house:

Anne Lister is the subject of TV series Gentleman Jack, which was also filmed here (they’re about to film some Season 2 scenes here, or they might be doing it at the time of this post’s publication, unsure about exact dates). Suranne Jones plays Anne Lister and Sophie Rundle is Ann Walker, her last lover. I can’t comment in any way on it, as I haven’t seen this show.

I bought the customary fridge magnet at the gift shop. Also a pen. That is a new thing for me. Not buying pens, but buying pens from museum gift shops.