Returning from a longer walk brought me the 'back way home' along the Coach Road, originally the carriage drive to Milner Field and various other mansions built by the textile gentry. The river flows along the line of trees on the left. It passes the modernist hexagonal building, the Accounts Office, that houses part of HMRC (the government department that deals with taxation). That is scheduled to close down at the end of this year, with staff being redeployed to new offices in Leeds city centre. One wonders what will happen to the building then.
A little further along, the Victorian workplace of Salts Mill comes into view. I can't, somehow, imagine the Accounts Office being rescued by an entrepreneur and given a new lease of life, in the same way as Salts Mill was rescued when the textile business closed in the 1980s. More likely to be pulled down and the site re-used for retirement flats or some such, I guess, though it'll probably be left to moulder for years.
That last pic is such a different view of the mill, Jenny.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if the Accounts Office could be repurposed as the Salts Mills has been. That said, we live in a repurposed former textile mill. If one has chosen to live in an apt free from the cares of home ownership as we've done it's indeed quite a unique experience.
ReplyDeleteI did some exploring online and several photos of the Salts Mill very much resemble the former Nashua Manufacturing Company where we live. The mill is located adjacent to the Nashua River and what was a former water canal is now a parking lot with below parking as well.
ReplyDeleteYou say that this building will probably be left to moulder for years, derelict like the Carnegie library. Despite a desperate shortage of building land for a burgeoning population massive areas of "grey" land with derelict buildings are permitted to blight the UK landscape. The sad Carnegie library is one example of many thousands. The British government's own Ministry of Defence is a disgrace in this respect. To make it worthwhile for developers to use "grey" land a massive tax must be placed on virgin green land.
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