The Piece Hall in Halifax – the world’s only remaining Georgian Cloth Hall

I’ve just bought some tickets to see a couple of concerts next year at The Piece Hall in Halifax, a place I have visited each year to see bands during their Live at the Piece Hall season, as well as dropping in to show this unique location to guests on some of my tours.

The building is Grade 1 listed and an incredible piece of architecture, but in the 1970’s there were plans to demolish it. So, I thought I would do a short blog about The Piece Hall’s past as it now plays such a large part in attracting visitors to Halifax.

To understand the story, you must go back in time to before the industrial revolution. To before Halifax, Leeds and Bradford became large industrial towns and cities with steam powered textile mills employing vast workforces and pumping out smoke from large chimneys.

At the time, cloth production was done under a more “domestic system” with cloth being woven at home by family units. The children would often card the wool using combs to ensure the fibres all stretched the same way, before the woman of the house spun the wool into yarn, often with a hand spindle. Wealthier families were able to rent or buy a spinning wheel to make the task easier.

Looms would be bought, rented or made and the man of the house was often responsible for the weaving of the yarn into “pieces of cloth”. Around many Yorkshire towns you can still see weavers cottages with a large, long upstairs window to allow natural light into the weaving room which held the loom.

Once the piece of cloth was made, it was washed to remove the oils from the wool and then stretched outside the cottage on a tenter frame (it’s actually where the phrase “on tenter hooks” comes from).

All pieces of cloth were made to a set size. The woollen fabric around Halifax was woven so it was 30 yards long. The pieces of cloth had usually ben sold at a weekly market in a town, up to the early 1600’s this was usually in an outdoor space on a central road or bridge.

Gradually Cloth Halls or Piece Halls were built to formalise the trading and allow merchants to have office space around the market. Merchants from across the region and from abroad would attend the weekly markets to buy cloth. The cloth would then be taken to warehouses in the locality where its vale would be increased 5-10 fold by “raising the nap”. This essentially was the process of combing the woollen fabric so the fibres stood up and then cutting them with large cropping shears. Each time this process took place it increased the quality and hence value of the piece of cloth.

An ambitious project…

The Piece Hall in Halifax dates to 1779 and was one of the most prestigious buildings of its time (replacing a previous building dating to the mid 1600’s). Whilst many towns or city centre’s piece halls were demolished by the Victorians once the industrial revolution kicked in, the Piece Hall in Halifax survived in splendid isolation.

As well as being one of Britain’s most outstanding Georgian buildings it is the only surviving Georgian Piece Hall left in the country.

The building’s grandeur was down to a couple of things. The wealthy merchants paid for the building and those who were involved in the trade of textiles wanted to make a statement as to their civic pride, but it was also to make a statement to people in “the South” that the Northerners understood the concept of Enlightenment using a classical architectural style.

The unique building consisted of a huge classical outer building, enclosing a massive courtyard where trading of pieces of cloth could take place on small tables. The wealthier manufacturers of cloth may have had their own covered unit to trade from, but the majority of the 315 offices surrounding the courtyard were for the wealthy merchants to conduct business.

As The Piece Hall is built on a slope, you may notice that one side of the courtyard has two stories of offices, whilst the upper side has just two.

The outer walls of The Piece hall are pretty much free from decoration. So when the gates on each side are closed, from the outside it looks more like a fortress than a classical masterpiece as seen from the inside.

Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of the entrance to The Piece Hall is from the South Gate if you walk up from the side of the Square Chapel from the Halifax Minster side. Here there are huge cast iron ornate gates showing the old Halifax coat of arms installed in 1871.  

The gates were repaired and restored in 2013 and interestingly show the head of St. John the Baptist, who local folklore claimed that his head had been buried beneath Halifax Minster. Some claiming the word Halifax was translated as “Holy Hair”. I don’t think we should take this claim too seriously!

There is no documentary evidence of who the architect was with some people suggesting John Carr of York or Samuel & John Cope, but the majority of historians believe a more local architect called Thomas Bradley.

The weather vane on the cupola above the West Gate shows a hung sheep giving a clue to those outside as to what the heritage of the building is!

Cloth markets

It is amazing that The Piece Hall was built to accommodate a weekly market, that took place each Saturday and lasted just 2 hours between 10am and 12 noon. The rest of the week the space would be derelict.

A bell would ring to signal the start of trading and then again 5 minutes before the end of trading. A final bell would ring and any deals not complete or cloth not sold would have to wait until the following Saturday. Those found still trading after this bell would be fined.

After the decline of the “domestic cloth trade” from the 1820’s, Halifax Piece Hall was purchased from the Merchants control by Halifax Corporation. It has been used for entertainment, general markets including between the 1870’s and 1970’s as a wholesale fruit, vegetable and fish market and as a meeting space.

Eventually it shut down leading to discussions about demolishing the building. Fortunately Halifax Council saw sense with the building being re-opened again as a retail and community space after a Government development grant in 1976.

As town centre retail declined again with out of town shopping centres and large supermarkets, The Piece Hall remained derelict again for a number of years. More recently in 2017 after a £19 million grant, The Piece Hall was re-opened again as we see it today.

With independent coffee shops, bars and restaurants as well as many small retail units specialising in niche products, artisan products and local crafts taking over the old merchants office spaces.

The regular summer season of concerts brings thousands of people to the town, helping the local economy and showcasing the heritage building with its stunning backdrop with the stage often in the corner in front of the 235ft spire, all that is left from the Square Church which was destroyed by fire in 1976 . The old 66,000 square foot courtyard trading area can now hold up to 7,500 during the Live at The Piece Hall events.

I am so glad the building was saved and hope to be visiting this stunning “one of a kind” buildings for many years to come.