Views of Hope Hall and Royd's House
Old photographs taken from "Halifax As It Was.".
Author: Arthur Porritt
Date: 1973
Location: Halifax
Format: Book Illustration
Document ID: 101250
Library ID: 34767437
Hope Hall was originally built in 1765 for David Stansfield a Leeds cloth merchant is a good example of an 18th century merchant's house. The property has been owned by the Albany Club since 1906.
Royd's House, also known as Somerset House, is sited between Rawson St and George St in Halifax town centre. It is a vast 17 bay house and warehouse designed by John Carr (1760s) for John Royd, a textile merchant. In the 1800s, the building was used as a bank by the Rawson family and later the Huddersfield & Halifax Union Banking Company. Between 1850 and 1857, rooms above the bank were used as a post office. The house was curtailed and renamed Somerset House in the late 19th century. The first floor saloon still retains the decorative plasterwork by Cortese, supposedly of John Royd, his wife and family.
The house is a Grade II* listed building and, following restoration and the removal of a parade of shops on Rawson Street, which had obscured the view, it was reopened in 2008. Somerset House is now used particularly for civil ceremonies and celebratory events.
For other related pages of Arthur Porritt's 1973 "Halifax As It Was", see documents:
