West Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 83,570

The large Pennine town of Halifax, with a population of more than 82,000, sits to the west of bigger neighbours Bradford and Huddersfield with which it has historic rivalries, and to the east of the gems of the Calder Valley Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd.

There are several explanations for the town’s name, the most romantic being that John the Baptist’s head was somehow brought there for burial – Holy Face being corrupted into Halifax. The saint’s head appears on Halifax’s coat of arms. A more likely tale is that it is a corruption of ‘hall’ and ‘flax’, older mentions of the settlement giving the spelling Haliflax. Halifax was a cloth town for centuries, even before the industrial revolution, benefiting from wool from sheep grazed nearby, and its proximity to the Calder for power and transportation.

Perhaps the most famous building in the town is Piece Hall, opened in 1779 to replace previous buildings with the same function, a place to sell pieces of cloth made by hand-weavers. As well as woollen cloth the town was a major centre for carpet production. The town was reputed to be exceptionally harsh on thieves, and it developed the forerunner of the guillotine, the Halifax Gibbet, last used in 1650, a replica of which can be seen in the town centre today. These days the town is better known for what was the Halifax Building Society, and Piece Hall has become a retail centre and market.

Nursing Homes near Halifax West Yorkshire

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