The Calder is one of Yorkshire's great rivers, rising in the Pennines above Todmorden and flowing 45 miles east to join the Aire near Castleford. In its upper reaches it carves a deep valley, providing shelter for a string of picturesque towns, and a key route across the moors for road, rail and canal. The local authority is known as Calderdale, governed from Halifax, and is easily explored with a West Yorkshire Train Day Rover (£7.50, off-peak only), as I shall now demonstrate. [Visit Calderdale]
Todmorden(population 15000) Todmorden is sited where three steep valleys meet, amid Pennine moors and upland sandstone grit. The setting looks gorgeous when the sun's out, but more oppressive in low-cloud gloom. A railway viaduct swoops across the heart of the town, and trains curve off in three directions - to Halifax, Burnley or Rochdale. Easily the most impressive building is the town hall, built in 1875 in full-on classical style. The boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire once passed through the centre of the town, following the line of the river, and the Town Hall was deliberately built on top so that half the building was in each county. In 1888 the boundary was shifted west, gifting the town in its entirety to Yorkshire. Everyone who got upset is now dead. A modern memorial beneath the viaduct marks the original line, each side marked by a rose of the appropriate colour.
Daytime activity in Todmorden focuses on the marketplace by the bus station. Outside the market hall a tranche of stalls displays all kinds of bric a brac, rifled through by pensioners in zip-up coats and flat caps. Inside are proudly traditional traders dealing mostly in comestibles, and a superbly retro counter cafe dispensing fifty different varieties of coffee. I stopped by at Ham Corner for a beef pie, wrapped in quality moist pastry, one of numerous takeaway goods at prices to make any London resident curl up and cry. The town is renowned for its sustainability, specifically the Incredible Edible Todmorden project, a series of mini gardens and eco-planters established by community volunteers in 2012. A free map reveals all the key locations across town, including soft fruit at the job centre, beehives by the canal, vegetable beds at the police station and planters on the station platform (where you can pick herbs for your tea). I liked Todmorden. [5 photos]
Hebden Bridge(population 4500)
Four miles downstream lies HebdenBridge, the best known of the towns hereabouts, no doubt due to its density of lesbians. That's not why the place was once called Trouser Town, this was a nickname earned through clothes manufacturing. But after the mills closed the artists moved in, and many with alternative lifestyles found a safe home here. They chose well. The town is gorgeous, squished into the Calder valley where a tributary joins, with residential streets perched precipitously on the surrounding slopes. Space for housing is at a premium so curious 4-storey terraces have been built, their tenancy split between the lower two floors (front door facing out) and the upper two floors (front door facing in).
The town centre is a web of streets, its shops rarely chains, with an emphasis on conscience and culture rather than blind acquisition. Four days a week a small outdoor market trades, each day differently themed, adding an air of self-sufficiency. I spotted good friends sipping coffees by the old stone bridge, a retired lady pleading for peace in Palestine outside the hiking equipment shop, and numerous couples walking their dogs in the riverside park. Then stepping back a few streets I saw wives watering vegetable tubs in what passes for their front garden, a string of houseboats belching smoke on the canal, and teenagers freewheeling downhill with skateboards tucked into their rucksacks. I liked Hebden Bridge even more than Todmorden. [8 photos]
Heptonstall(population 1500)
I thought I'd walk from Hebden Bridge to the village of Heptonstall - it looked barely half a mile on the map. But what my non-OS map failed to mention is how relentlessly uphill it would be, which is very much par for the course around here. A cobbled track led off innocuously from the edge of the town, rising through woodland to a tiny Methodist cemetery with panoramic views, then zigzagging onwards up irregular flights. I was damned glad of the handrail.
The village, long-established, has steepcobbledstreets narrow enough to give drivers problems, lined by irregular cottages built from dark local stone. It reminded me a little of Edale, only without the walking poles and gaiters. In the heart of the village are two St Thomas's churches, one an atmospheric ruin, the other its Victorian replacement. The poet Sylvia Plath is buried here, not amid the sea of flat gravestones but in a newer churchyard extension across Back Lane. A small museum is based in the adjacent grammar school building, should you be here at the weekend in spring or in summer. A ginger cat sleeps on a bench outside the tearoom. Bailiffs took possession of one of the village's two pubs last month. I was captivated by Heptonstall, but I don't think I could live in it. [5 photos]
Mytholmroyd(population 4000)
I also thought I'd walk from Hebden Bridge to Mytholmroyd, but that proved a lot easier. It's only a mile, nigh flat, and the Rochdale Canal links one to the other. Admittedly the towpath was in a bit of a state, still not recovered from the devastating BoxingDay floods a couple of years ago, but then neither has Mytholmroyd. The village is mostly linear rather than spreading up the slopes, hence considerably more at risk from inundation. Crumbled river walls can still be seen, as well as diggers filling in broken gaps, and deep concrete-lined channels hoping to prevent a repeat. The Environment Agency have even gone so far as demolishing the post office, and relocating services across the road, to widen the Calder alongside County Bridge.
Mytholmroyd's most famous son was TedHughes, one-time Poet Laureate, and erstwhile lover of the aforementioned Sylvia Plath. He spent his childhood in the end terrace at 1 Aspinall Street, now a holiday let, and marked with a blue plaque beside the door. Just up the road is the UK's largest clog manufacturer, that's Walkley Clogs, whose workshops are open for a nose around if you're a fan of handmade cost-effective footwear. Another rather different sort of attraction is Cragg Vale, otherwise known as the B6138, which a road sign at the foot describes as the "longest continuous gradient in England" rising 970 feet over 5½ miles. Bring a car, or better try a bike. And yes, it's a fabulous name is Mytholmroyd. [3 photos]
Sowerby Bridge(population 11000)
I didn't get this far, because there is a limit to how many Calderdale towns and villages you can visit with an off-peak rail rover. This riverside town is where playwright Sally Wainwright grew up, so has been inspiration for several of her dramas, most notably the BAFTA-winning Happy Valley. That said, I rewatched the start of the first episode yesterday and screamed "that's Todmorden, by the chippy!" at the TV, so successful had my Calderdale safari been.
If your northern geography's not up to much, Halifax is in West Yorkshire on the southeastern edge of the Pennines, about five miles southwest of Bradford. If you'd prefer a map, here's one. The town has a population of 90000 and is dramatically set around a deep river valley surrounded by high moorland. Here are ten things to see if you're ever here.
Town Hall
Municipal centrepiece, opened 1863, designed by Sir Charles Barry, and described as "a masterpiece of the nascent high Victorian style". In a depressingly familiar move, councillors renamed the clocktower the Elizabeth Tower to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The dazzling main hall has always been named after Queen Victoria. Ask nicely and you might get inside the building for a look.
Piece Hall
This is amazing, a proper whoa. An immense enclosed courtyard, approximately square in shape, covers nearly two acres on the eastern side of town. The central space is freshly paved and almost entirely empty, apart from a stepped water feature in one corner and some cafe action tucked away in another. Three terracedcolonnades run around the perimeter, behind which are 315 rooms used for trading. The whole thing has a strongly neoclassical feel, almost as if Halifax had its own Roman forum, but no, this was once a market for trading in cloth. In the late 18th century the town was the key location for the manufacture of worsted, and the Piece Hall was a hive of trading activity every Saturday (strictly 10am-noon only).
The Industrial Revolution soon killed off the need for a worsted hub, so in 1871 the Piece Hall became a food market and its condition slowly fell into decline. The most recent restoration has taken three years at a cost of £19m, lottery be praised, and was reopened last summer. It certainly looks stunning, even if a grey morning in January probably isn't the best time to appreciate it. Hardly any people were in the piazza, even fewer walking round the upper terraces, and virtually nobody looking in on the boutiques where lonely shopkeepers rearranged gifts and artistic goodies.
Downstairs includes an "interactive heritage space", basically a small museum with three rooms, including a recreation of an original Georgian trader's room. The nice ladies on the front desk welcome any visitors who step inside, and are probably sometimes busy. An extension behind the eastern flank includes a new library, which has allowed the council to close the former (larger) library in the centre of town and resite the tourist information office. The entire project feels the best that could be done given the location, if somehow lacking in occupants and atmosphere, but still astonishing if you walk in without expectations.
Mackintosh/Rowntree/Nestlé
In 1890, in a baker's shop in Halifax, John Mackintosh created his 'Celebrated Toffee' by blending brittle English toffee with soft American caramel. It soon caught on. As his business grew it expanded to larger premises in the town, diversified into chocolate and introduced iconic confections such as Rolo, Quality Street, Munchies, Caramac, Toffee Crisp and Tooty Frooties. In 1969 Mackintosh signed a merger deal with Rowntree, then in 1988 Nestlé swooped in and bought the lot, erasing the traditional company name. But a large factory still operates in the town, just opposite the station, where a poster on the side of the building proclaims "Quality Street, Proudly made in Halifax since 1936". Your next Easter egg is quite possibly being manufactured there right now. Alas the town doesn't smell of chocolate, so don't rush. [Toffee Town, a history]
Eureka
The National Children's Museum, no less, can be found here in Halifax. It's based in the former station building, which dates back to 1855, and also in a brightly coloured modern building alongside with slides and sandpits and learning galleries and scores of interactive play-focused activities. If you're a family with children under 12, you are very much target audience. I passed by.
Halifax Market
When in a northern town, always pop into the market hall. Halifax's isn't as large as Leeds', nor as amazing, but it does have a similarly charming iron and glass canopy rising to a central lantern, and a fine array of traders thriving underneath.
Calderdale Industrial Museum
A three-storey repository of machinery, apparatus and sciency things, which as a reader of this blog you're probably target audience for. Alas, it's only open on Saturdays.
The Halifax Building
The Halifax Building Society started in the town in 1853, eventually growing into the country's largest. In 1995 it merged with the Leeds Permanent and 1997 it proudly demutualised, becoming a less lovable bank in the process. The Halifax's HQ is a striking diamond-shaped slab on stilts, as brutal as might be expected for a flagship project opened in the early 1970s, and includes a document storage bunker hidden beneath the open piazza. The main pillar facing the town centre incorporates the company's logo, plus that of whoever happens to own it at the time, which until 2009 was the Bank of Scotland and is now Lloyd's Bank. No Scooby Doo characters are depicted on the exterior.
Dean Clough
Where's the world's largest carpet factory? It used to be in Halifax, tucked into the steep-sided valley of the Hebble Brook upstream of the North Bridge. Opened in the 1820s, for Crossley Carpets, the mill buildings were a total of half a mile long and covered one and a quarter million square feet. Production finally ceased in 1983, at which point the site was redeveloped for various cultural and commercial enterprises - an early example of urban regeneration. Galleries and an underground theatre can now be found up Dean Clough, as well as one of those ubiquitous 'designer outlet' thingies, some posh restaurants and a gym. An unexpectedly large portion of the current site is car park.
Akroydon Edward Akroyd inherited his father's mill in 1847, becoming one of Yorkshire's largest worsted manufacturers. He built himself a grand mansion at the top of Haley Hill, and sought to improve living conditions for his employees by building a 'model' village alongside, which he named Akroydon. The architect for these terracedtreasures was none other than George Gilbert Scott, who here built what he later described as "on the whole, my finest church". All Souls is now under the custodianship of the Churches Conservation Trust so is only intermittently open, but still broods down over Halifax with Gothic benevolence.
Bankfield Museum
As for Akroyd's mansion, that's now a museum, should any visitors think to walk up past the tower blocks to the top of the park. Major renovation work is currently underway, so its two most splendid rooms are closed and I seriously missed out. But I did enjoy what delights I saw, including a comprehensive exhibition on the owner and his architectural philanthropy.
