A Home Tour Through the Manufacturing Districts of England; In the Summer of 1835

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1836. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... 122 HALIFAX. The features of the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Halifax are magnificent. The town is seated in a deep valley, surrounded by hills, which, especially on the road towards Manchester, are of a character equal to many of those so much admired about Matlock in Derbyshire;--enter which way one will, it is by a long continued descent; that from Huddersfield rather steeper than the approach from Leeds; indeed it might be called formidable even in Devonshire: while the scenery altogether is the more unusual and remarkable on the entrance to a manufacturing town. As the mail trundled along with a skidded hind wheel for more than a mile and a half, I was gratified by a splendid bird's-eye view of the houses beneath, and wreaths of blue smoke hovering in transparent clouds over the slated roofs. The pure breezes from the hills dispel the noxious vapours from the numerous steam-engines, and maintain through the streets a free circulation of the atmosphere, the effects of which are visible on the happy, healthy countenances of the children. A great deal of good taste is apparent in the buildings and grounds among the environs, where substantial comfort has been universally consulted; the mountains' side is chequered by clusters of small detached edifices, disposed here and there in pleasing vignettes, along the banks of the deep ravine, which longitudinally, though rising far above the town, forms its site. A viaduct-two hundred yards in length, stretches across this ravine it is supported on six arches, the middle ones of which are about sixty feet high, although the rivulet below is so narrow that a man might easily leap over it. On observing the altitude of the ground on every point of the horizon, it seems a matter of wonder by what route ...