Calderdale Industrial Museum

The local authority called Calderdale which was centred on Halifax opened an industrial museum in the mid-1980s. It was one of the last of a succession of conventional indoor industrial museums developed in large towns and cities in the United Kingdom from the 1960s. The museum was initially successful but attendances dwindled and it soon closed. After a long period when it was inaccessible to the public it was leased from 2014 by a body of enthusiasts, the Calderdale Industrial Museum Association, and from 2017 was again open to the public but on Saturdays only.

The museum is located in the former Albion Works in the centre of Halifax adjacent to the famous Piece Hall. It has displays that relate to the variety of industries that once flourished in this part of Yorkshire. There is a reconstruction of a nineteenth century coal mine, and lathes and drills are worked in a machine shop by an oil engine. A series of exhibits tells the storey of power generation from waterwheels through beam and horizontal steam engines to internal combustion engines. There are sections on the fireclay industries and on stone quarries, and on a variety of products once made in Halifax including Mackintosh toffees and Crossley carpets.