What is Halifax like?

[greencrosscode]

Nice place to live? Which areas are nice? Thank you.

It's lovely. Don't look at people's hands though, they don't like it when you notice the extra fingers...

Seriously though it is lovely. Quite windy on the tops though.

I live in Halifax where we live is Norton Tower which is a nice part of Halifax two miles from town centre , mainly 1930s and 40s houses , Halifax has good transport links to Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and down South some parts are not so nice as in old Victorian back to back houses , by the main hospital ahs some good houses and some terraced, but an exceptional school there, town centre is small but easy to navigate, and the people are ok a very mixed bunch as in Halifax classic Yorkshire, Asians, African ethnic , and eastern Europeans , house prices are reasonable 250k will buy you a decent sized house, 150k a two bed semi , close by areas that are decent to live are Sowerby Bridge (top of bottom floods) luddenden foot, Mythomroyd , Hebden Bridge ( up the valley again )

I don’t know Halifax but visited about 18 months ago. I drove down a road with deserted mills. It was a different world! Utterly bleak. It would be great if they could become housing! Other than that I visited Shibden Hall and Central Halifax. Lovely countryside all around though.

@PresentingPercy you saw one road and judged a whole town on that going into London on the train goes through some pretty grim scenery , the area round Shibden hall has some lovely houses as does Southoram and a two minute walk from my house and i am overlooking the whole of the Calderdale valley, 15 minute drive and we can be at Haworth, Hardcastle Crags, 15 minutes drive to the M62, the deserted mill is a grade two listed building and people have been trying to buy it for years it now has planning permission for housing

No - no judgement at all. I would have loved to have gone back in time and seen the mills working. I thought it was evocative and it was the first time I had really considered the power of the industrial revolution. Dark satanic mills etc. I just felt conversion to homes would preserve the buildings - and they should be preserved! An important part of industrial heritage.

I grew up there and still live close. My family are all there.
It’s very mixed, there are some very nice areas and some really awful ones
If you give an idea of what you want and your budget it would be easier to suggest specific areas

I grew up in a small village between Halifax and Huddersfield. Beautiful countryside and scenery, good transport links to leeds, Manchester etc, and some interesting architecture. Need to be careful though as some parts are a complete dump.

I love the Fax. And it's become rather "naice" as of late, especially since the revamping of the Piece Hall and Square Chapel.
Like anywhere, there's smart areas and areas which are rougher around the edges. I'd love to live there - would probably choose somewhere like Wainstalls, Copley or Ripponden.

Boothtown - is that nice?

Skircoat Green is pretty nice. I prefer the market towns along the Calder -- Tod, Heb, etc.

No, Boothtown is not very nice. But housing is cheap there and it's not far from the town centre, so could be a good investment for if/ when Halifax property prices go nuts in the way Hebden Bridge prices did.

It's not nice, but there are some beautiful houses in Boothtown - the model village.

Boothtown is basically Victorian terraced houses with two awful high rise blocks at the bottom ,Ackroydon houses are stunning they were the first ones built for people to buy who had joined the penny bank which became the Halifax building society, Copley and Friendly have some nice houses too,

It's a dump. I went there a few times for work and couldn't get home quick enough.

@greencrosscode

Boothtown - is that nice?

No. In a word.

Northowram is very pleasant near Shibden park /valley and not too far from town.

DH used to visit it regularly a dozen years or so ago as he had a client there. It was often a talking point whenever crap towns came up in conversation.

In short, the town centre was lovely, as long as you always looked above street level. Nice Victorian architecture, all turned into pound shops.

Also, the place could get rather violent of an evening when all of the hillbillies came out to drink / fight.

Hebden Bridge is, apparently, nicer. Bradford is worse.

Some lovely places. Hipperholme, northowram, Copley, Sowerby Bridge, mytholmroyd, Greetland, stainland, West vale. Beautiful places to visit less than an hour away - howarth, Skipton,, the south end of the Lake District, hebden Bridge. The piece hall is in Halifax, and shibden Hall - home of Anne lister.

I was born and brought up there. I wouldn’t move back if you paid me. It does have its nicer areas, which tend to be villages some miles from the town centre, but on the whole it’s pretty grim. A couple of years back I went to visit for the day. It was even worse than I remembered and I couldn’t wait to get away.

I lived there for 8 years. There are some really lovely areas, even quite close to the town centre - Skircoat Green and Bell Hall near to the moor are nice. The outlying villages, like Holywell Green and Stainland are also great. The scenery is breathtaking, and the town has some really gorgeous architecture - the presence of the mills and later than building society/bank meant there have been people with plenty of cash to splash locally for centuries, and it shows in the buildings. There are some great Victorian houses around, and some properly stunning views.

I would never, ever move back though. It is, for all its cultural diversity, a very insular place. As a non-local I never felt I really fitted in and I made very close few friends there (unlike everywhere else I've ever lived). Plus - while it definitely has its lovely bits, the rough bits are really, really rough.

I moved to Halifax about three years ago now and i really really love it here. I live in Holywell Green and it's a nice area, the people are friendly and have been very welcoming. Ilike it here way more than I expected I would.

There's been a lot of money poured into Halifax and you can tell.

Yes there are areas that don't have good reputations but that's like anywhere really.

Hilly, very hilly!

I also used to go there a lot for work, and it seemed like a place that was due some investment. This was about 10 years ago though, so maybe that’s happened?

(Also, people will try to deny it, but the weather in West Yorkshire is shit )

It has changed a lot over the past five years or so. The town centre used to be pound shops, betting shops and charity shops. The Piece Hall restoration changed all that and brought fancy delis and craft beer with it.
The transformation was dramatic enough that the Guardian felt moved to call Halifax the "Shoreditch of the North", which caused much amusement locally.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/18/halifax-burgeons-with-new-shoreditch-of-the-north-tagline

I agree fellrunner it has definitely improved over the last 5 years, with a lot of money spent on the TownCentre and the Piece Hall area. I live in Huddersfield and Halifax was always the poorer relation but now we are all pretty jealous of what has been done in Halifax and hope we might get similar here.
It’s still not Shoreditch though (thank God)