Bankfield Museum

04/06/2026

🌟 Happy Volunteers’ Week!

This past year our brilliant volunteers here at Calderdale Museums gave over 6,100 hours of their time across Bankfield Museum and Shibden Hall, and this week we are celebrating the fantastic work they do to support our service.

The Quilt Angels are the newest volunteer role at Calderdale Museums. Formed from volunteers from across the service to help with the Pieced Stories exhibition at Bankfield Museum, they have brought together not only an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject but also the technical knowledge on how these quilts are created.

📷 Quilt Angel and volunteer Andrea pictured in the Link Gallery at Bankfield Museum where she invigilates and helps to bring our patchwork and quilting exhibition Pieced Stories to life.

03/06/2026

🌟 Happy Volunteers’ Week!

This past year our brilliant volunteers here at Calderdale Museums gave over 6,100 hours of their time across Bankfield Museum and Shibden Hall, and this week we are celebrating the fantastic work they do to support our service.

Elaine is our longest serving volunteer. She began volunteering with us in October 2008. Barack Obama had just become President of the USA, milk was 40p a pint and David Tennant had become the Tenth Doctor in Dr Who. Since then, Elaine has worked tirelessly behind the scenes at Bankfield, helping to catalogue our collections, working on everything from postcards to military uniforms.

02/06/2026

🌟 Happy Volunteers’ Week!

This past year our brilliant volunteers gave over 6,100 hours of their time across Bankfield Museum and Shibden Hall, and throughout this week we will be highlighting some of the fantastic work they do to support our service.

Calderdale Museums has an army of volunteers working across different sections of the museum service helping to keep everything running. They do an array of roles from talking to visitors, cleaning and photographing costumes, to researching and documenting military service records. They are the oil that keeps the engine of the museum service running.

📷 Volunteer archivist Derek pictured digitising records for the the Duke of Wellington's Regimental Archives and Library, based here at Bankfield Museum alongside the Duke of Wellington's Regimental Museum.

🔗 You can find out more about the Regimental Archives and Library at: https://www.dwr.org.uk/regimental-family-history-research/regimental-archives-library/

31/05/2026

We are so excited to be back with another Saturday Art Club! 🎨

🌀 This month we will be exploring the weird and wonderful art of optical illusions!

📅 Saturday 6 June, 10.30am to 12pm, and on every first Saturday of the Month
✏️ £5 per child, suitable for ages 5 to 12 years
🎟 https://www.ticketsource.com/calderdale-museums/saturday-family-art-club/e-ogloyz

One ticket per child. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Accompanying adults do not need tickets.

🌟 Please note this event will be held in our Education Room, which is located on the first floor of Bankfield Museum. Please contact [email protected] to discuss any access needs.

27/05/2026

For 20 years, The Royal Yorkshire Regiment has proudly served as Yorkshire’s Regiment.

In June 2026, this milestone of two decades of service will be celebrated in Halifax with a Freedom Parade, bringing soldiers, veterans, cadets, families and local communities together.

📍 Freedom Parade
📆 Saturday 6 June, Halifax

The regiment was formed through amalgamating the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, Green Howards and The Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire. These regiments had a history dating back to the seventeenth century.

As the home of the Duke of Wellington’s Regimental Museum, we will also be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Royal Yorkshire Regiment here at Bankfield through 300 years of military history.

📍 Bankfield Museum Army Fun Day
📆 Saturday 20 June, 10am to 3pm, free entry

🪖 There will be lots to see including historical re-enactments, live firing, talks and military displays covering 1702, the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, Second World War and the British Army in the 1960s to 80s.

🗺️ There will also be a children’s trail and art and crafts, and stalls with object handling and opportunities for family research.

All are welcome at this free family-friendly event.

🔗 https://fb.me/e/3PXYBmaqA

26/05/2026

We were thrilled to have at Bankfield Museum last Saturday to talk about her amazing new book: The Encyclopedia of Ugly Fashion. Thank you to our lovely audience who braved the warm weather, asked fabulous questions and waited so patiently for signings.

24/05/2026

Remember we are open from 10am to 4pm tomorrow for Bank Holiday Monday! ☀️

We have a range of art, fashion and local and military history exhibitions with free children’s trails available from the welcome desk.

Some of our current exhibitions include:

👗 Fashion Extremes! - discover 250 years of fashion trends that go beyond the practical and make a bold statement.

🎖 Britain’s War in the Far East 1941-45 - delve into Britain’s war against Japan and the roles of the men who fought in it

🧵 Pieced Stories - enjoy visually inspiring patchwork and quilted pieces from Calderdale Museums' collection

We hope to see you soon!

22/05/2026

🎨 On this day in 1907, Smith Art Gallery was opened by Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.

The gallery was built by then Mayor of Brighouse Alderman William Smith and donated, along with his collection of artwork, to the people of Brighouse. This purpose-built Art Gallery and public library remains free to all.

The rear gallery hosts changing displays, covering a wide variety of themes from local artists to touring exhibitions, including photography, mixed media and sculpture.

Currently on display is ‘Industrial Evolution’ by David R. Williams, a photographic record of the vast and often majestic buildings of Calderdale’s industrial past which still loom over the region.

The front gallery hosts an exhibition of oil paintings and highlights from the Smith collection, including works by Atkinson Grimshaw, Marcus Stone and Thomas Sydney Cooper.

📷 Black and white photograph of Smith Art Gallery, date unknown
📷 The front gallery as it appears today
📷 Photograph of Bailey Hall Mill, Halifax by David R. Williams

20/05/2026

'From Hell, Hull and Halifax, good Lord deliver us.'

The Halifax gibbet, a gruesome part of Calderdale's history, dates back to the 13th century. Back then the Lords of the Manor of Wakefield governed Halifax and were granted the right to execute thieves caught on their land. The law stated that any thief caught with goods over 13 and a half pence could be killed by means of the gibbet.

Executions would occur on a market day with spectators gathered to watch and took place up until 1650, after which the gibbet was dismantled.

In 1974 a non-working replica was built at Gibbet Street. Now in need of repair, Calderdale Council has recently announced plans to carefully replace it with an identical structure.

If you'd like to learn more about this grisly part of Halifax history, you can find the blade from 1650 on permanent display here at Bankfield Museum.

🎨 The Halifax Gibbet, 1829. An artist's impression by Nathaniel Whittock, after Wenceslaus Hollar. Engraving by John Rodgers.

19/05/2026