Salterhebble E-zine

Salterhebble E-zine - This is an online magazine that covers any subject associated with the local area and it's people.

Stafford Arms / Chilli Lounge

Stafford Arm's closed in 2010 and remained closed until 2014 when it became a restaurant, (Chilli Lounge).

The earliest recorded landlord was James Fox in 1845.

St. Luke's Hospital

St.Luke's Military Hospital was aka Halifax Poor Law Hospital. Designed by W.C. Williams, work began on the building in 1897, and it opened in 1902. The Halifax Union St. Luke's Hospital opened on 9th April 1901 to accommodate bed-ridden patients from the over-crowded Union Workshop at Gibbet Street.

It was taken over by Halifax Borough Council in 1930, when it became St. Luke's Hospital and it joined the Health Service in 1948 as Halifax General Hospital.

At the time it was built, it was the largest public building in Halifax and cost £100,000 to build. It was built on land previously occupied by a market gardener. There are still allotments nearby.

Falcon

The first recorded landlord was Joe Dyson in 1881. The Falcon was a Whittaker's pub in 1905, but for a time there was a 'Falcon Brewery', which was more than likely connected. It's name is said to come, not from the sport of falconry, but from heraldry. In it's later years, the pub had an electric organ and horse brasses decorating the walls.

The pub closed around 1997 and then became a funeral parlour in 2010.

A large part of this area belonged to Falcon Laundry in the 19th century, which closed in the 1950's.

Punch Bowl

The earliest recorded landlord was Thomas Earnshaw in 1829.

John Aspinall, who was the registered landlord from 1841 to 1851, apparently arrived, with his family, in Sydney, Australia aboard the Mary Ann in 1857, but on arrival the parents of both John and Sarah Aspinall were shown as dead.

On 21st January, 1863, Robert Mitchell was being disorderly at the pub, and Sarah Wilkinson, the landlord's wife, asked him to leave. He refused and struck Sarah on the chest and head. She became sick and ill. She was found dead in bed the next morning. Robert Mitchell was charged with manslaughter.

The tram would stop here and people would climb the hill to the Halifax Zoo, which you can see advertised on the pub wall(picture above). This would have been when the zoo was in it's prime and tens of thousands of visitors from miles around were attracted.

Unfortunately, and after a long time since the pub was open for trade, it is due for demolition to make way for a new road system that will hopefully ease traffic congestion that has affected this area for many years.

Salterhebble Riots

The West Riding experienced one of the most dramatic physical battles for territory of 1842, which resulted briefly in a pan-regional movement. Early in the morning of 15 August, Halifax strikers met on Skircoat Moor and processed four miles along the valley, turning out mills en route. They converged with three other groups of strikers at the Pennine rendezvous of Luddenden Foot. The four groups, numbering an estimated 5000 strikers, assembled back along the valley at the King’s Cross on the Burnley Road, making ‘one immense procession filling the whole breath of the road and stretching to a vast length’ to enter Halifax.

Reaching the North Bridge at the top of Halifax about noon, ‘the military and police were drawn up, so as to occupy the whole road and prevent the passage of people, the cavalry being posted in front, the infantry next, and behind them the people and special constables’.

The Illustrated London News depicted an invading army besieging a fortified town. But this was an army of its own inhabitants attempting to reoccupy their own town from the military.

The next day, 16 August, strikers and their supporters sought revenge. The prisoners taken at Halifax were sent to Elland railway station to travel on to Wakefield prison. A rescue attempt failed, but the populace then planned to ambush the carriage of soldiers on their return to Halifax. The soldiers, defenceless in the dip of the road, were ambushed from the embankment above with a volley of stones. The rest of the day was marked by ugly confrontations between strikers and troops in Halifax, resulting in at least three fatalities, including one soldier.^[2]

Calder and Hebble

Salterhebble basin is as near to Halifax as the Calder and Hebble Navigation gets. This was originally designed by John Smeaton and then completed by James Brindlay. It runs from the Wakefield section of the Aire and Calder along West to Sowerby Bridge. It is 24 miles long and the concept around building the canal was discussed and passed in 1758.

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The first registered landlord was recorded as Thomas Fletcher in the early 1800's. The Calder and Hebble pub stood surrounded by some major local A-roads and was demolished in 1997 to make way for road improvements.

Salterhebble School, Stafford Square

This was also known as Stafford Square School and stands behind St. Andrew's Methodist Church.

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Waterworks

Constructed between 1899 and 1911 on the site of the former Salterhebble Abattoir. Formally opened on 6th February 1901. It was extended in 1907 to handle commercial effluent. Due to the water treatment works, the road from the bottom of Salterhebble to West Vale is locally known as 'Smelly Mile'.

Trams, Trains, Bridges and Lifts

Nahums

Nahum's was a cotton mill in Union Mills but now 'The Watermill' now stands on this site. The old mill walls are still built into the landscape at the rear of the carpark.