The Piece Hall and The Yorkshire Gallery

  

Today saw the grand re-opening of the Piece Hall in Halifax. 

This beautiful and unique building was opened in 1779 and used to be a cloth trading hall. It has a lot of history.

My Piece Hall history is the eighties. Saturday afternoons in teenage years going over on the train from Leeds with my goth/indie friends and doing the shops. The sweet shop. The record shop. The goth shop. The hippy shop. It was a cool place to hang out back then.

But in recent years it kind of fell into disrepair and there were no longer any shops to tempt me. I remember wishing someone would inject a lot of cash into it and restore it to it's former glory because it is a such beautiful building and it needed some love.

And that is what has just happened. Lots of cash, lots of love and lots of work for the last three years.

Today we joined the crowds (over 17,000 apparently) and went to see.

One of our local Hebden Bridge gallery owners Alison from Heart Gallery has spread her wings further and taken on one of the units there. Unit 26 to be precise.

Having my own shop in Hebden Bridge to sell my lights meant that Alison has never been able to stock my lamps at Heart Gallery but she has snapped them up for her new venture The Yorkshire Gallery and she has even designed a display cupboard especially, made by the fantastic Wood & Wire boys who fitted the gallery. It all looks great.

As the name may suggest the gallery just stocks work by makers from Yorkshire. There's alot of good 'uns. Louise Lockhart, The Printed Peanut is there.

Katch Skinner.

Maggiemagoo,

Fiona Wilson

and loads more, I didn't take enough pictures inside because it was  so busy with visitors! 

It was a day of crazy weather. Sunny one minute and a thunderous downpour the next.

It looked pretty all lit up when the sky darkened.

It's great to have this place back. I hope it goes from strength to strength.