Bankfield Museum

Bankfield Museum

Bankfield Museum, Halifax, West Yorkshire
Established	1887
Location	Boothtown Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England HX3 6HG
Type	Textiles gallery, Historic house museum, Regimental museum.
Public transit access	Halifax railway station First Calderdale & Huddersfield (buses) Arriva Yorkshire (buses) Halifax Joint Committee (buses)
Website	Bankfield Museum Duke of Wellington's Regimental Museum

Bankfield Museum is a grade II listed historic house museum, incorporating a regimental museum and textiles gallery in Boothtown, Halifax, England. It is notable for its past ownership and development by Colonel Edward Akroyd, MP, and its grand interior.

When Edward Akroyd (1810–1887) bought this building in 1838, on his engagement to Elizabeth Fearby of York, it was a much smaller eight-roomed house, built ca 1800. He and his brother Henry were working for their father Jonathan Akroyd, a rich worsted mill owner, and living at Woodside Mansion in Boothtown. Jonathan died in 1848, and it was possibly Edward's inheritance which paid for the development of Bankfield which began around this time. Edward encased the 18th century building in fairfaced stone and added two loggias, a dining room, Anglican chapel and kitchens.

By 1867 Akroyd was Member of Parliament for Halifax and obliged to entertain on a grand scale. When the future Edward VII visited Halifax to open the town hall in 1863, the royal party ate lunch and dinner with the mayor who had more space at Manor Heath, although the prince did visit the Akroyd family business at Haley Hill Mills. For this reason, the 1867 wing, designed by John Bownas Atkinson of York at a cost of £20,000, was spacious and decorated to impress. It had a porte-cochere, saloon, drawing rooms, library and billiard room. At its busiest, the mansion had 25 servants. Akroyd extended his influence beyond Haley Mills and Bankfield by building Akroydon close by: a model village of gothic terraced houses, allotments, park, cooperative, stables and All Souls Church, all designed by George Gilbert Scott.