Vicky Hall

I haven't shown a photo of this place very recently. It is of course the Victoria Hall (affectionately known locally as Vicky Hall) in the centre of Saltaire. Formerly known as the Saltaire Club and Institute, it was opened in 1871. Like so much of Saltaire, it was designed by architects Lockwood and Mawson. Sited opposite the Factory Schools (see HERE) these public buildings and their landscaped gardens make an imposing centrepiece for the village. Sir Titus Salt, the mill owner and village founder, was keen for children to be educated and also wanted to provide a place for recreation, culture and learning for adults. It held a reading room, library, laboratory, chess and draughts room, smoking room, billiard room, a lecture hall seating 800, classrooms, a gym and a rifle drill-room. It is still a focal point for activities, exhibitions, classes and celebrations.

Of course, it is currently closed due to the coronavirus outbreak. I've no idea when it will reopen. It all feels a bit desolate but at least the floodlights still come on at night, showing what a significant building it is.

Cricket is back!

Cricket is back, after a long period when we've had no sport because of the coronavirus lockdown. It has felt strange without it, especially in Roberts Park, where there is almost always a match going on at weekends.


It is part of the easing of restrictions that's been happening over the last few weeks - shops opening, then pubs and cafés, and now local sport.



Time will tell if this gradual return to normality will cause a dreaded 'second wave' of infection. I understand that the numbers of new cases of the virus have stopped dropping in the UK and even seem to be rising in some areas. The stats are complicated and I've effectively given up trying to understand. It has seemed for a while to be better to use my own common sense and naturally risk-averse personality as a guide rather than spend too much time trying to figure it all out. Avoid crowds, be careful indoors where there are other people, use a face mask in shops, wash hands often, generally look after myself in healthy ways seems the best strategy. Things do seem to be being ramped up again though. In fact, since Friday, they have imposed further restrictions in north-west England (including the Bradford district, though we don't like being lumped into 'the north-west! There are historic rivalries between us and Lancashire!) They mostly affect what people can do in their own homes, restricting families from different households and friends from meeting indoors and in gardens. All rather annoying and it seems quite illogical in many ways. But we're told it is necessary.

It's not only cricket that has started again but bowls too...
... and tennis. These young men were really smashing the ball about - very energetic and not a little dramatic when a shot didn't go right!

Community seven

Seven colourful squares taken in the community garden in the Caroline Street car park, looked after by Veg on the Edge. Herbs: thyme, sage, mint and chives; bright yellow marigolds, perhaps (keep bugs away?), strawberry plants and something cabbagey that might be sea kale. (It has white flowers and I think the orange flowers also visible belong to something else.) Mint is tenacious, isn't it? There is plenty in the beds but also some forcing its way through the wall!

History lines

I don't know that I've ever consciously noticed before that there are still tram rails embedded outside what used to be the tramsheds at the top of Saltaire Road. Built in 1904, the six bays used to house the trams that ran from Saltaire to Bradford, guided on rails and powered by a pantograph that linked to an overhead cable. Later they housed Bradford Corporation trolley buses, which ran solely along overhead cables with no tracks. Bradford had some trolley buses right up until 1972 (though the Saltaire link ceased before that, I think.)

Since then the building has been repurposed a number of times and for many years now has been a bar and restaurant, at first called The Old Tramshed, then The Hop. Now it is the Salt Beer Factory, opened in 2018 with a micro-brewery and tap room to the rear and the bar/kitchen (restaurant) and beer garden at the front. It has recently reopened again after being closed because of lock down. Testing times for such small outfits but they have been doing local deliveries and selling canned beer to retailers in the interim and, with a loyal following, I guess they'll manage to keep going.

Action on the river

There was a fabulous sky when I was walking by the river.  It was good to see the rowers back in action too, though I was amused to see that this guy (apparently a novice) managed to fall in seconds after I took the shot! He was in the process of turning to return to the bank and I guess there is quite a current right there just in front of the weir. He obviously didn't take it into account! The river at that point doesn't seem too deep so he managed to swim or wade to the bank pulling the boat. Meanwhile various people rushed from the boathouse with ropes in case he needed help. I tried not to laugh.

A head for heights

Do you have a head for heights? I certainly don't, so my heart was in my mouth as I watched the tree surgeons at work opposite my house the other day. There were two men leaping about really high up in the trees, apparently as comfortable doing so as the squirrels that I see. They did, admittedly, have some kind of safety harness but it looked pretty flimsy, just one rope looped over a branch. The big ash trees must be almost 100 years old now and one has been shedding large branches of late. When they are in full leaf, they don't like the wind we've been having, especially coupled with the dry spring we had. I'd reported it and was gratified that they actually came to inspect and prune them, though they have left the large sycamore which overhangs exactly where I park my car! They must think that is safe for now.
After so many weeks of being at home inside a lot, it was rather fun to have something to watch from the window!

In my bones

As a resident of 22 years, I've lived in Saltaire longer than I've lived in any other one place during my life. It's under my skin and in my bones, in much the way that Blackpool is etched through the length of a stick of rock candy. I'd even go so far as to say that I'd be able to identify Salts Mill in most circumstances. It is so iconic and recognisable. (Long term readers of my blog may feel the same! Possibly eternally bored of the same views? There are, after all, only so many photos you can take in a square mile.)


Try these three vignettes: a reflection, the tip of a chimney and a window (though originally, I think, a loading bay to transfer goods to and from canal barges. You can see the opening has been bricked up at the base.) 

Yes, I'd recognise them anywhere.

Vigilance at dusk

I happened to be walking through the centre of Saltaire at dusk when the sky was still quite light and the floodlights that illuminate the main historic buildings had come on. It all looked rather nice. The lion, Vigilance, still does guard duty, though his name has almost worn off his plinth. The building was originally Saltaire's Factory Schools, opened in 1868 to comply with the 1844 Factory Act that required child workers to be educated for three hours a day as well as working in the mill for 6.5 hours (!)  Children had formerly been taught in the mill's Dining Hall. There was one school for boys and one for girls, in the same building and they took 750 pupils. They had advanced facilities for the time,  including central heating, gas lighting and playgrounds at the rear.  It is now part of Shipley College.

Pass times

Salmon chanted evening, you may see a stranger... no, a salmon, leaping the weir at Saltaire. That's the theory, anyway. I mentioned back in March (HERE) that they were starting to construct a fish pass, with the aim of encouraging salmon and other fish to negotiate the weir to spawn in the upper reaches of the River Aire, something they have not been able to do for decades, as the weirs are too long and steep for the fish to leap. It's clearly a bigger project than I imagined and despite the recent rain causing the river to flow deeper and faster than it was doing back in March, they seem to be making progress. The concrete walls seem to be almost finished. There's an impression HERE of how it may look when complete.

In the background, the children's playground remains locked and unused. Such a shame. It would be nice if they could unlock them again for the school holidays. I can't imagine there is too much danger of the virus spreading outside, though I think it's the probability of lots of people touching the same surfaces that is the real issue.

Gearing up to go

After months of lying idle, the Saltaire Trip Boat has restarted its short cruises along the canal. The owner was hard at work washing down paintwork and generally making ready when I passed by one day. For the fairly minor sum of £4 (not much more than the price of a coffee, these days) you can relax and study the grandeur of Saltaire's mills and church from the comfort of the little narrowboat. (The bow end of the boat is open-sided so a ride can be enjoyed safely in the open air.) I keep meaning to sample the trip one day and have never yet done so. Perhaps this is the year to do it. Self-employed entrepreneurs depending largely on tourism must have been very badly hit by the Covid lockdown. It may be a while before tourists return too, so we locals should probably offer our support. Apart from the cars on the bridge, it struck me what a timeless scene this was. A sepia treatment seemed appropriate.

Crazy paving

Saltaire may be a great place to live but its streets are not paved with gold. Instead you'll find yourself tramping pavements made of good old Yorkshire stone. It can be slippery when wet but it has a nice patina, with all sorts of random marks and subtle colourations. I thought it would make an interesting pattern image.

Seeing the wood for the trees

'You can't see the wood for the trees' generally means you're too deeply involved in detail to appreciate the wider picture. This scene worked effectively in the opposite way for me. I was walking (my usual route!) along the canal bank through Hirst Woods. Maybe it was a trick of the light but something made me stop, arrested by the scene on the opposite bank. Curvaceous overhanging boughs framed a scene that seemed to invite my eye in, to wander through the slender saplings and gradually to notice the detail of the way the light played on leaves and lichen, moss, ivy and and wood bark. An unremarkable scene, in many ways, and yet a pleasing one to me. 

Celebrating the NHS

This weekend we are celebrating 72 years of our wonderful NHS, our National Health Service, and remembering those who have lost their lives as a result of Covid19. Landmarks across the country have been floodlit in blue, including the New Mill in Saltaire. It houses offices for the Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, which administers mental health care, dentistry, community health and specialist learning disability services in the local area.

It is a poignant anniversary this year, as we consider the huge and vital role our health services have had to play in the coronavirus pandemic, and the sacrifices its staff have had to make, not least those who have sadly lost their own lives through ministering to others. (And it's not over yet...) 

The NHS is just a little older than me! Conceived during the war years, it was launched with cross-party support in 1948 by the post-war Labour government under the leadership of Aneurin Bevan, then Minister for Health. (Though initially it was opposed by many doctors.) For the first time it brought all health care under one umbrella, free at the point of need. It has, of course, been endlessly 'reviewed' and reorganised over the years, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. There has always been the headache of how to pay for a service that has become increasingly stretched, with ever-increasing demand and rising costs as technology and our expectations have developed. For the past decade or more it has arguably been underfunded and undervalued, with steady attrition and privatisation. Who knows what the future holds? One can only hope that the current crisis has focussed the minds that have the power, to make them see just how vital it is to have a joined-up health service that cares for everyone equally, as envisaged all those years ago. 

I was born into its care and it has shepherded me through many major and minor traumas, as well safely delivering the precious gift of my daughter. I am grateful to the NHS and those who work in it. I sincerely hope it will be there to see me to my grave!! (But not yet!)

Learning about wild plants

I didn't know what either of these two wildflowers were. I was attracted to them for very different reasons. The first just struck me as being rather artistic and interesting, its spiky red right-angled stems and bright yellow flowers contrasting with the backdrop of dark water dotted with flecks of spume. It has taken me a long time to identify it but I believe it's called wall lettuce (see HERE). It was growing in a crack in the concrete of the aqueduct, not quite a wall but almost.  

The one below really stood out, the colour a piercing blue. I thought at first it was some kind of forget-me-not and, indeed, it is loosely related but I have now identified it, fairly confidently, as green alkanet. (See HERE). Apparently it's a pernicious weed that you don't really want in the garden, though here by the side of a lane against an old stone wall, it brought cheer to a dark spot. 

I love learning new things. 

One of those days!

The rain came, after a spell of hot, sunny weather, and not just rain but wind and thunderstorms too. It wasn't enticing to go out. On top of that I had a few days of feeling rather fatigued and achey - nothing serious and hard to tell if it was actual or simply a result of feeling fed up of the pandemic and the world in general... Anyhow, when I felt a little better and the rain stopped, I decided I should make myself have a walk, just my usual local circuit of river and canal, travelling light with only my phone. 

I read somewhere recently that you can take photos on an iPhone by pressing the volume control. I decided that might be easier in some situations than reaching for the white 'blob', so I tried it. It was only when I got home that I realised I'd taken screen shots and not proper photos. Doh! Never mind, they weren't going to be masterpieces anyway. 

Hirst Weir was in full flow after the rain and a group of kayakers were having a well-earned break after battling the river. I wonder if they carried the boats past the weir or if they tried white-water rafting? I hope not the latter, as it must be quite a dangerous spot with so many rocks and no clear channel through.

My walk threw up a few mildly interesting nature notes: 

a tall and striking plant by the river's edge that I didn't recognise, in appearance not unlike a foxglove but with bell-shaped flowers. It appears (after consulting my wild flower book) to be a giant bellflower. (I might have guessed!)

The local cormorant had taken up a roost in the river by Roberts Park.

The new nature reserve's wildflower meadow is rampant, though hard to tell if there are any interesting species yet. It seemed to be mostly thistles and ox-eye daisies. 

As I was returning along the canal towpath I spotted another tree newly collapsed and blocking much of the width of the waterway;  a victim, perhaps, to the recent drought followed by the strong wind and rain.  The kayakers, by now on their return journey and choosing the canal rather than battling upstream against the fast-flowing river, were having a little difficulty finding a way past the obstruction. 

Poppies

It's poppy season. My social media feed has been filled with pictures of cornfields full of red poppies. The flat agricultural land in the Vale of York seems to be a fertile area for them and they are breathtaking. I half-wondered whether to go in search of them but, until some cafés and public toilets open, I am reluctant to venture very far.

The allotments belonging to Shipley College, where horticultural students are usually busy at work, have been largely neglected since the start of the lockdown as the College has been closed. I noticed the other day that a wildflower meadow seems to have sprung up - and yes, it has a few red poppies, in amongst a mass of straggly yellow crucifers of some kind. That's the nearest I'm likely to get to a field of them.

In my own back yard, I've had a mass of yellow Welsh poppies, self seeded into the cracks in the paving. They were really cheerful, though a spell of wet and windy weather has trashed them. They did make hanging the washing out a bit of a dance, trying to avoid stepping on them!

Dramatic skies

After all the blue sky, sunny weather we've been having for weeks, photographically at least it was a relief to get back to some cloudy and more interesting skies. Here's quite a brooding, dramatic sky above the equally brooding and dramatic canal-side facade of Salts Mill.

Applying a few textures makes it even more dramatic.

[Bloggers... Is anyone else struggling with the 'new Blogger' interface? Or is it just me? Seems such a palaver now to upload photos. Every step in the process now seems to consist of three. I keep losing photos I've uploaded because, if you upload several at once, you can't choose which ones to add to a post like you could before. If you then remove photos from a post they don't stay 'available' for the next post and you have to fish them out of the blog album, which takes ages to load. So frustrating. I hate how they suddenly change things for no apparent reason. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', software developers!]

Casualty

At the end of May, one of the beautiful, mature trees alongside the drive leading to Saltaire's URC church succumbed to the drought. Its trunk suddenly sheered in half and a large portion of the tree fell across the drive, thankfully injuring no-one and damaging nothing, as far as I'm aware. (See HERE) Since then it has been tidied up and the trunk cut into logs. I believe experts have also assessed the others in the vicinity. 

From the moment the lockdown was ordered in the UK, the weather turned dry, sunny and warm. I dread to think how depressed we'd all have been if it had happened at the end of autumn and we'd had to survive in lockdown in the dark and cold of winter. As it was, at least we were mostly able to enjoy the sunshine. We had the sunniest and driest spring ever recorded, strangely coming after the wettest February on record. It is all, apparently, to do with the jet-stream. Climate change and the warming of the Arctic region is causing it to 'stall' for long periods, stuck either to the south of us - bringing wet Atlantic low pressure systems, or to the north, bringing high pressure in from the Continent. Such extremes are unprecedented and an alarming wake-up call. If only governments would listen... I fear we will see many worse casualties than this Saltaire tree in the future.  

How much is that kitty...?

Spotted a rather sleepy looking cat sitting on a windowsill in the sun. It put me in mind of that song: 'How much is that doggy in the window?'

Then I had a little play with the photo, adding layers and textures. I don't like the effect of the glazing bar down the middle, but I had some fun anyway.

Shinrin-yoku

The quiet sounds in the woods, the scent of trees and earth, the sunlight playing through the leaves, the fresh air; all these things are comforting and soothing. Being among trees can restore our mood, re-energise us and refresh us, easing our stresses. The Japanese have a name for it: shinrin-yoku, the practice of forest-bathing. I've been doing it a lot since we went into lockdown! I seem to have posted little else on my blog for weeks apart from walks through the woods and along the canal and river. Happily, I have quite a lot of choice about where to walk among trees. The photo above shows an ancient bridleway that snakes down the hillside from Gilstead to the bottom of Shipley Glen, skirting the old Milner Field estate. 

The tree in the picture below is near the top of Shipley Glen. Its lovely arching boughs make you feel really cocooned underneath it. The green leaves spread like a canopy almost down to the ground. 

I noticed this little stand of birches in Trench Meadows SSSI, the silvery trunks being picked up and echoed by the delicate white flowers scattered in the grass. I was too far away to see what the flowers actually were.