What the Building Used to Be

In a lot of small towns, the biggest buildings are older than the town needs. They were built a hundred years ago, for more people.

The people went. The buildings stayed. They are too good to pull down and too big to heat, so towns put new things inside old ones.

There is a town in West Yorkshire where the library is in the old town hall. The children's books are in the room where the council used to argue about drains. There is a theatre in an old chapel. There is even a swimming pool built against a castle wall, and you can swim next to stones that are six hundred years old.

Why not build something new? A new roof costs less than a new building, and old walls like these are usually protected.

There is one small problem. The signs never keep up. The new name is on a little sign by the door. The old name is cut into the stone above it, in letters as tall as a child.

So people give directions with the old names. Turn left at the old post office, opposite the old bank. In these towns you don't need a map. You need to know what everything used to be.