The Piece Hall is a Grade I listed building in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was built as a cloth hall for handloom weavers to sell the woollen cloth "pieces" they had produced.

Venue: Piece Hall
Town: Halifax, GB

The Piece Hall is a Grade I listed building in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was built as a cloth hall for handloom weavers to sell the woollen cloth "pieces" they had produced. The earliest known reference to the new Piece Hall was a handbill dated 19 March 1774, although this no longer survives. The hall was built for "the purpose of depositing and exposing to sale the worsted and woollen goods manufactured in this town and neighbourhood". It was seen that bringing merchants and buyers together in one place would create a more competitive and efficient market and discourage fraudsters. Initially, two sites were proposed, one at Talbot Croft and the other at Cross Field (which was used in 1948 for the construction of the new bus station). After consideration, Talbot Croft was chosen and was purchased in September 1774. It opened on 1 January 1779, with 315 separate rooms arranged around a central open courtyard. The architect of Piece Hall has never been identified, and there is a lack of documentary evidence surrounding its design and construction; F. A. Leyland cited Thomas Bradley as the most likely architect in 1887, although others have suggested Samuel and John Hope and John Carr. The piece-hall, erected a few years ago by the manufacturers, is a large quadrangular building of freestone, occupying an area of ten thousand square yards, with a rustic basement story, and two upper stories, fronted with two interior colonnades, which are spacious walks leading to arched rooms, where goods in an unfinished state are deposited, and exhibited for sale to the merchants every Saturday, from ten to twelve o’clock: this structure, which was completed at an expense of £12,000, and opened on the 1st of January, 1779, unites elegance, convenience, and security; it contains three hundred and fifteen separate rooms, and is proof against fire. The Industrial Revolution saw a shift away from small producers and traders, with new larger mills in the Halifax area trading