Crown Street - Old Market

Crown Street - Old Market - John Street

If you walk to the top of Woolshops it winds round to the right and turns into Northgate then if you wind left again this is Old Market which then turns into Crown Street and at the top is Swine Market and eventually this turns into Gibbet Street (right to left on the map above).

Old Market is home to Halifax's oldest pub, the 'Union Cross', originally called 'The Crosse Inn' as it stood next to the old market cross when the town market was held here. The pub was recorded as early as 1535.

Crown Street was originally called High Street in the 18th Century. More recently it has been known as 'Shoe Shop Street'.

Once you cross Commercial Street it now becomes 'New Crown Street.

Old Market

Old Market was an area of Halifax town centre, adjoining Corn Market and Market Street.

It was the site of the town market.

The name Old Market is still retained.

In the 16th/17th century,

The Market Cross
Butter Cross
The May Pole – at the junction with Corn Market
The Pillory
The Shambles
The Stocks

were here.

The Union Cross Tavern still stands on the market place.

A cellar in Old Market, Halifax one of the first places to be used as a gaol.

It was succeeded by the Debtor's Gaol in Gaol Lane, Halifax

Read about Butter Cross

Looking up from Northgate

Looking back down towards Northgate

Crown Street

This was an 18th century street originally called High Street.

There were many jettied buildings with overhanging upper storeys. At one time, the street was only 14 ft in width.

On 7th July 1886, Halifax Council initiated the purchase – and subsequent demolition – of many building in Crown Street to enable the widening of the street.

Many of the early buildings – described as

quaint Flemish-looking buildings which once rendered this street so picturesque [and that] from Hall End to the bottom of Old Market, on each side of the thoroughfare, was an uninterrupted row of these buildings, with storey above storey overhanging, and the gables to the street

- were demolished when the street was widened in October 1867.

Only one building – Number 11 which is currently occupied by Millet's – remains from 1733. The rest are Victorian.

Most of the buildings here are listed.

The number of footwear shops which once occupied the street gave it its popular name of Shoe Shop Street.

New Crown Street is the western extension to Crown Street between Commercial Street and Swine Market

At the corner of Cornmarket and Crown Street. You can see J Flemings and Graydon's in the drawing above this photo too.

Gradon's later became Mitchell's and Arthur Gledhill's was at the opposite corner

Crown Street in 1835 by N.Whittark

Once called High Street, this busy thoroughfare carried the pack horse traffic from Wakefield to Lancashire. The street contained the Upper George and White Swan Inns which provided for the stagecoaches.

Local publishers & printers established around 1820 by Nathan Whitley and John Booth. Their premises were at The Castle, Crown Street, Halifax.

In December 1832, they published the first edition of the Halifax Guardian.

After Nathan's death in 1832, his wife Elizabeth carried on the business.

In 1834, they were listed as Music & Musical Instrument Sellers at 3 Crown Street.

The company were subscribers to John Horner's book Buildings in the Town & Parish of Halifax [1835].

They were agents for The Leeds Mercury [1838, 1839].

When The Castle was demolished in 1888, the company moved into the replacement building.

In 1890, the partners included Mrs Booth and E. W. Booth.

Malcolm Bull

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Grove Edwards, 2nd West Yorkshire Yeomanry Cavalry (The Prince of Wales's Own) at the head of his regiment marching into Crown Street, Halifax, 1884.

Oil on canvas by John Wright Oakes (1820-1887), 1887.

Charles Grove Edwards (1843-1904) succeeded his father as Honorary Colonel of the 2nd West Yorkshire Yeomanry Cavalry (The Prince of Wales's Own) in 1890. Sir Henry Edwards Bt (1812-1886) had been Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the regiment from 1863 and its Honorary Colonel from 1884, while his brother, nephew and all four sons served in the regiment.

Sir Henry, probably the largest landowner in the district, was one of the mill owners who were responsible for re-raising the regiment in Halifax in 1843. He was also a local magistrate, the first Tory Member of Parliament for Halifax (1847-1852), MP for Beverley (1857-1869), and Deputy-Lieutenant of the West Riding.

The Prince of Wales's Own 2nd West Yorkshire Yeomanry Cavalry was first raised in 1798. It was disbanded in 1802 but subsequently re-raised and disbanded a number of times in the early nineteenth century. In 1843 it was re-raised for the last time, following violent demonstrations by the Chartists and the 'Plug Riots' of 1842, which gave powerful local cotton-mill owners cause to seek protection. During a period of serious economic depression, the Plug Riots began as a strike in the mills to protest at the imposition of wage cuts but soon spread to involve nearly half a million workers throughout Britain.

The 2nd West Yorkshire Yeomanry Cavalry, 'the Blue Jackets', was regarded as one of the three most efficient regiments of yeomanry cavalry in the country. Nevertheless, it was disbanded in March 1894.

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