Little and large

Saltaire was designed 150 years ago by the architects Lockwood and Mawson, commissioned by Titus Salt, the mill owner, around his new mill. The village was planned as an entity, although it took 15 years or so to build. One of the things that pleases me is the way that the architects avoided complete uniformity. Although it is designed on a grid pattern, the oldest residential streets run north to south, and the later ones higher up the hill run east to west, dissected by longer thoroughfares. Within the rows of houses, there are different sized properties, so that you get this small two-storey cottage adjoining one of the larger three-storey houses. It makes for a varied roofline and a much more interesting environment.

You can see from this photo how some of the houses in the village (the larger one in this case) have either retained the original windows and doors or, more likely, reproduced the originals. This is now mandatory under the planning regulations for conservation areas like Saltaire. But in times past, when the planning regulations were not so strict, people could put in any windows and doors, so there are huge variations, some quite nice and some quite horrid!