Halifax

Well she tried, I'll give her that! I refer to the lady in the Tourist Information Office in Halifax who gave me some tips as to where to go in Halifax during a short break. However the lady in the hotel was more au fait and directed me to three real ale pubs - and rather good ones at that. Halifax has the head of John the Baptist on its shield and this makes for interesting municipal buildings - bit scary!

Halifax does have a few points of interest though.  One of these is the gold postbox to Hannah Cockroft, the wheelchair athlete who won gold at the London Paralympics.  It stands outside the Town Hall.  As Halifax is a woolen town the Piece Hall is a fine space originally used for selling cloth and now a shopping centre for all kinds of crafts and things, as well as a gathering space for town events.

The Minster in Halifax is a recent creation of an old church by the present Archbishop of York. Many of the windows were installed after the reforms of Thomas Cromwell and are of a unique design. There is a large wooden figure carrying the poor box. The stocks are outside the Minster.

An altogether more grisly artifact is the gibbet which bears a strong resemblance to a guillotine. Thankfully a modern installation.

Halifax was once home to the largest building society in the world. Younger readers will not know what one of those is as there are so few left but they were once members organisations who took deposits from the public and leant them out so that people could buy houses. And that's all they did- isn't that funny! This building was once the Headquarters of the Halifax Building Society and shows something of the might of building societies before they were marginalised.