First national award for Piece Hall following £19m refurbishment

Halifax Piece Hall’s Claire Slattery has won a major award for her work on the £19m restoration and reopening of the Grade I listed building.

Slattery, Calderdale Council’s arts and heritage manager, picked up the first ever Overall Winner category at the Historic England Angel Awards, which are supported by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation and celebrate the efforts of individuals and local groups across the country that have brought irreplaceable historic places back to life.

Slattery was the driving force behind the complex restoration of The Piece Hall. having been fascinated by the building many years before.

“I first visited it after graduating in art history from Manchester University 25 years before,” she said. “But I had no idea that one day I would take on the project to restore it.”

The Piece Hall is the last remaining cloth hall in the UK. Work to transform the Grade I listed building into a leisure, retail, cultural and heritage destination started in 2012, after Slattery and her team had secured funding to safeguard its future.

The transformation has been made possible by funding from Calderdale Council, a £7m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and support from the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Wolfson Foundation.

Credit: Matthew Nichol Photography

Part of the transformation has included the creation of the Piece Hall Trust, which has taken over as custodian of the building to improve the quality of the trade, retail and heritage offers available to visitors and residents.

The Piece Hall’s reopening in August attracted 27,000 visitors.

Slattery said: “From the beginning of our project we recognised the need to reinvigorate this Grade I listed building, which is unique in the history of pre-industrial Britain. Unlike many Georgian buildings of this scale, The Piece Hall was built by local, working people and our aim was to return the Hall to its pivotal position at the centre of public life in Halifax, to play an important role in the region once more.

“Watching people delight in the building, answering their questions and listening to their stories about The Piece Hall has been the best part of the project so far.”
Amjd Bashir MEP welcomed the “massive achievement” of the restoration team.

Bashir, whose constituency office is in Halifax, said: “This is a huge honour for the town and our region, and recognition of the brilliant job that has been done on this architectural jewel.”
Lord Lloyd Webber likened the Piece Hall to St Mark’s Square in Venice and said: “This stunning example of urban renewal should spur on the councils of every major city and town in Britain to do something similar.”

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