Saltaire Arts Trail 2019

There's always something happening in Saltaire... The film company left and the shops and cafés have all been returned to their usual look, with little remaining of their exciting BAFTA-seeking performance (see here), save traces of dusty gravel on the road.

Then it was the annual Saltaire Arts Trail over the bank holiday weekend. Residents in the village houses open their homes as mini art galleries, there's a huge Maker's Fair in the Victoria Hall and the art cognoscenti, both local and from wider afield, descend on Saltaire to enjoy some of the best art and craft imaginable, in one of the most interesting settings you could find.

The café in my top picture has had a number of re-imaginings in the recent past (not least as a pub during the recent filming). It is now Nordish, a café dedicated to good Scandi fika and smorrebrod. It operated as a 'pop-up' initially, with limited opening times. Recently it's been closed for an extensive refurbishment and now plans to build up to a more regular opening schedule and a wider menu. It was open for the Arts Trail, with artwork on show by Liz Tolan and Salma Patel.

'J Chadwick and Sons, Fruit and Potato Sales' has been turned back into Massarella's Café Bar and Gallery, where (even on an ordinary weekend) you can enjoy a coffee and a light snack whilst browsing their range of pictures and photographic prints.

Up in the residential zone of the village, various houses and some gardens were colourfully marked out with bunting, with a wide range of attractive and sometimes quirky artwork on display. This house had a selection of 'Sac pots' for sale, knitted plant pots that I featured on my blog last year - see here.

When the sun came out, so did the children, busily engaged in sculpting a willow lion with the guidance of Todmorden-based willow sculptor Joevanka Gregory.