Welcome to the Calderdale College Website

The Calderdale Area
Calderdale nestles in the heart of the West Yorkshire Pennines, arguably one of the countries foremost areas of outstanding natural beauty; it has a population of 196,000 people renowned for their warm, friendly and hospitable nature.

In days gone-by Calderdale was famous throughout the world for its once booming textile manufacture, Calderdale's focus of late has seen a shift primarily towards the service-based industries.
A number of Calderdales towns are twinned with towns across the globe, the earliest of which was between Halifax and the city of Aachen Germany in 1949 - a link that is actively maintained to this day and one of which the people of Calderdale are justifiably proud of.

Bankfield museum
Situated within the Boothtown area of Halifax lies Bankfield Museum - a former grand mansion, set in pleasant leafy surrounds; it boasts a textile collection unparalleled anywhere in the country, its curators have, over the decades, strived to collect materials and textiles from countries and villages, from all periods and peoples - all around the world.

Once belonging to Edward Akroyd - one of Halifax’s foremost woollen and worsted manufacturers the museum regularly hosts creative exhibitions and workshops appealing to all age ranges and cultural backgrounds. The museum today stands as a magnificent Italiante style mansion that continually strives to both engage and educate its numerous visitors.

The popularity of the museums’ workshops have borne witness to people travelling from far and wide to participate. Bankfield has even welcomed people from as far-a-field as Aberdeen and the South Coast - testament indeed to the value people place on their visits to the museum.

Shibden Hall & Park
Having recently undergone a highly successful and major restoration project, Shibden Hall in Calderdale will once again be open to play host to tens of thousands of visitors, who know and love the place.
Shibden Hall’s popularity, aside from the stunning parkland grounds in which it nestles, is attributed to its very unique, very welcoming ‘lived-in & homely’ atmosphere.

Visitors to the museum often remark just how pleasant and comfortable they find the museum, in stark contrast to the more traditional, somewhat clinical stately home atmospheres that some museums can project.
Within Shibden Hall’s grounds can be found a 17th Century Barn and the countries earliest folk and craft museum, both of which are Grade 2 (star) listed buildings.
The barn houses an enviable collection of ‘horse-wheeled’ and ‘horse-drawn’ vehicles, so prevalent of bygone eras.
Frank Atkinson started the folk museum we see today as a fitting and lasting way of preserving skills of a by-gone era.