Where to Stay in Halifax, England

What is Halifax known for?

The town made its name in cloth, and the story is told at the Calderdale Industrial Museum and among the mill-owners' houses on the slopes. Halifax Minster rises over the old core, its tower the town's oldest mark. Above the streets sits Shibden Hall, a timbered manor set in its own park.

Families also come for Eureka! The National Children's Museum, a hands-on museum near the centre.

What are the main landmarks in Halifax?

Halifax Minster anchors the town. Its medieval tower stands over the low centre, the oldest thing in view. The grand Victorian All Souls Church rises on the hillside above.

Up the hill too, the timbered Shibden Hall sits in its park, and Bankfield Museum holds textiles and more on the same slope. The Calderdale Industrial Museum keeps the machinery of the old cloth trade near the market. Eureka! The National Children's Museum draws families by the station.

Scout Hall stands apart, a curious old house out on the edge.

What is the history of Halifax?

Halifax grew on cloth. A market and a parish church stood here in the Middle Ages, the church now the Halifax Minster whose tower still marks the town, and the trade in wool cloth gathered around it early. That trade decided everything.

As the mills spread through the steep valleys of Calderdale, Halifax became one of the great textile towns of the West Yorkshire Pennines, its wealth built on the cloth halls and the merchants who ran them. The old families left their mark on the hills. Shibden Hall, a timbered manor above the town, passed through a line of them and survives as a house museum.

Grander stone villas climbed the slopes as the trade grew richer. When the mills faded, their machinery was gathered into the Calderdale Industrial Museum, and Bankfield Museum took in the textiles the town had once made. The minster, the halls and the museums together still read as the record of a town that lived by wool.

The Pennine hills hold it all in their fold.

Where is Halifax?

Halifax sits in Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England, folded into the eastern Pennine hills. The town fills a steep valley, its streets running up and down the slopes on either side. The high moors of the Pennines press in close on the west, and the deep Calderdale valley carries the land away below.

This is upland, inland country. West Yorkshire's other mill towns lie scattered through the same hills nearby.

What is the climate of Halifax?

Halifax has a cool, damp upland climate set by its height in the Pennines. Rain falls readily on these hills, which catch the westerly weather before it clears the moors, so the town sees more of it than the lowlands east. Winters run cold on the exposed slopes, with snow lying longer up on the tops than down in the Calderdale valley.

Summers stay mild. The high ground keeps the air fresh.

How do you get to Halifax?

Halifax is reached through the Calderdale valley. The railway threads along the valley floor, linking the town to the larger centres of West Yorkshire on either side, and its station sits beside Eureka! The National Children's Museum near the centre. Roads climb in over the Pennine hills from several directions.

The valley itself is the natural way through this upland corner. From the station the minster and the old core are a short walk up the slope.