Ravenroyd

Ravenroyd farm is now run as an equestrian centre, and it looked busy and professional as I passed through. The public footpath goes round the side of the house and past some other buildings at the rear.

There was a gentleman leading some horses out to pasture, so they followed me right along the track. The gentle clip-clop of a horse's hooves is such an evocative sound, quite soothing. I noticed some of the horses wore net hoods, to protect against flies I think.

The Washburn valley

A friend recommended a walk in the Washburn valley, just outside Otley, so I took advantage of a balmy morning, before Storm Ciara arrived, to go and explore. The walk I had originally planned set off down the track above... and it looked so very muddy further down that I decided to forego that pleasure! Maybe I'll try that in the summer. Never mind, I followed the minor road down into the valley, which gave some attractive views. The Washburn is a tributary of the River Wharfe, and in the late 19th century it was dammed to make a chain of three reservoirs, with a fourth added in the 1960s, built to supply water to the city of Leeds. It is an area of quiet beauty and tranquillity, beloved by walkers. The Six Dales Trail, a relatively new long-distance trail, passes through the valley, connecting Otley with Middleham some 38 miles north.

This area of the lower valley is part of the Dob Estate, a 'country house' estate that was originally a deer park and has been in the Vavasour family since the 1500s. It is mostly rolling farmland, with a few woodland plantations. There are working farms and some very attractive residential properties scattered about, mostly conversions of old farm buildings.

My walk took me past the gates of one large farm, where the road turned into a rutted farm track. The free ranging hens gently scolded me for disturbing them, with that soft, throaty, burbling cluck that I remember so well from when I was a child, observing the hens my grandparents used to keep in their large garden. 

Rhubarb rhubarb

I finally achieved a small tick off my 'bucket list' by visiting the Rhubarb Triangle. It's a small (9 sq mile) area between Leeds and Wakefield that is celebrated for growing the tender, sweet, bright pink forced rhubarb. It is grown in long, low, dark, heated sheds and harvested, between January and March, only by candlelight to prevent the stems going green and hard due to photosynthesis. All the work is still done by hand, a back-breaking and labour-intensive process (which explains why it is relatively expensive to buy).

Many gardens and allotments still grow rhubarb. It's technically a vegetable, but used as a fruit. My dad grew it and the stems were thick and green, needing gentle stewing and lots of sugar, but I grew up rather liking the flavour (and the peculiar way the oxalic acid 'coats' your teeth!). The Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb (now an EU protected designation of origin - PDO - like Parma Ham or Champagne) is sought after by top restaurants and stores in the UK and abroad. It's very different from the outdoor kind, having thin stems with a delightful colour, very tender and flavourful.















We visited E Oldroyd and Sons farm. Their website (HERE) has lots of fascinating information about the history, cultivation and uses of rhubarb, a plant native to Siberia (which is why it likes Yorkshire's climate!) We were given a talk and then taken into the rhubarb sheds to look. We had my granddaughters with us, and I have to say they got rather bored as the talk went on for over an hour and was not aimed at children. They were very well-behaved, however, and it is good to give them new experiences.  We bought some stems and I'm going to try gently cooking it in orange juice, as recommended. Yum.

Milner Field Farm

Many of the original buildings associated with Milner Field's model farm still survive in use. Just behind the farmhouse is the small, square dairy (now used as a store), where milk, butter and cream would have been prepared for the folk up in the grand mansion. The outbuildings are built in a U-shape of cowsheds, barns and stables, now infilled with a more modern structure that shelters the huge milk storage tanks. 

I sampled some of their farm-made ice cream - and very delicious it was, too. 

You could see into the former milking shed, though now the cows are milked in a more modern facility in one of the other buildings. I understand that the farm is solely a dairy farm nowadays. Any crops grown are used as animal feed and the few chickens running loose were there to provide eggs for the famer's family.

Dairy cows mean calves and there were a few youngsters in the barn.

In the field by the gatehouse we saw a very newborn calf, struggling to stand. There were two cows beside it. The one with the white shoulders was its mother but the other seemed to be rather aggressively trying to keep the calf from feeding. I have no idea about cows so I'm not sure if that was normal behaviour or not!

A visit to the farm

I've driven past many times, but never really speculated what lay beyond these gates, the entrance to Milner Field Farm. To coincide with Saltaire Festival and as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme (which sees private properties of historic interest opened to the general public), Saltaire History Club was offering guided tours of the farm.

It was built by Titus Salt Junior (one of Sir Titus' sons) in 1871 as a model farm for his grand mansion at Milner Field. I've written about the now demolished house in the past. (See HERE) It has a fascinating story though little remains apart from a few old stones, a fragment of the conservatory's mosaic floor and the top and bottom gate lodges. The farm, in contrast, continues as a business, run as a dairy farm by tenant farmers, currently the fourth generation of the Downs family, who have lived there since 1902.

The gates and gatehouse to the farm (top photo) give a hint of the grandness of the original Milner Field mansion, which was a solid-looking place built in a heavy Victorian Gothic style. The farmhouse itself (above) is less grand, though its windows with their slightly rounded arches give a nod to Saltaire's architecture. 

It has a wonderful view, perched on the hillside looking down towards Cottingley. The lone tree in the photo below is the upper of my two 'favourite trees', the ones I often take photos of when I'm walking along the canal towpath at Dowley Gap. (See HERE). 

To the east of the farm and its outbuildings, there's a view down to Saltaire itself.

Behind and slightly above the farm is the site where the Milner Field mansion was. The site is now overgrown by trees but just underneath those trees is a wall and a ha-ha (hidden ditch) that marked the garden boundary.

For those who like maps, I've included one below. Saltaire village and its mill are in the bottom right

corner and I've marked Milner Field Farm and the site of the original Milner Field mansion with a purple overlay.  

Golf, anyone?

Addingham walk
Bracken Ghyll Golf Club may enjoy some of the best views in England! I'm not sure what green I was standing beside but the view over to Beamsley Beacon is stunning.

A little further on I passed a beautiful old house called Highfield House, which dates from about 1780 and has unusually large windows for its period. Sadly the surrounding hedges were too high for a decent photo. A little further on though, I came to Highfield Farm, a laithe-house, where the farmhouse and barn are connected in one long-house. It dates back to about 1800, and to be honest it looked like it could use a bit of TLC. An ancient house like this, in such an exposed spot, must take a lot of looking after. A gaggle of geese and some hens in the yard didn't take any notice of me, thankfully.

Crossing the fields beyond the farm, the views are extraordinary. A stile crosses the ancient medieval boundary of Addingham Parish, which was marked by a serpentine wall and ditch. The path then follows a farm track, and the area is dotted with crumbling old barns and drystone walls. 

Pond life

There are as many ways of photographing a pond as there are people with cameras, I guess. This pool on the moors was safely fenced off - to avoid livestock falling in, I suppose, though it was probably as well to keep me away from it too, since I was having an accident-prone day! 

Here are two versions of it: an arty close-up and a more straightforward rendering. 

The greening of England

We walked a long circuit through the farm fields, along the edge of the moors and through little wooded valleys full of bluebells, blossom and pretty white flowers. I thought the white flowers were wood anemones but, on closer inspection, I now think they are a variety of stitchwort (stellaria). Pretty anyway. England is greening up with such a wonderful variety of fresh tones as spring slips in to summer.

A day on the farm

Although my camera club doesn't meet over the summer, several outings are arranged that are usually fun to join in with. One of our members lives on a farm on the edge of the moors above Ilkley, so we were invited to visit.

The day was bright and sunny, the views magnificent and all the farm life was fascinating to this 'townie'. I loved these sheep, waiting for a much needed haircut. I've seen sheep being sheared in a competition at Bingley Show but I've never got so close to the action before. Once the wool is off, in one big loose sheet, it is rolled into a bundle and bagged ready to be taken for processing.

PS: When I was a little girl, my dad taught me how to count sheep using the ancient numbering system used by Derbyshire shepherds. I've always remembered it started (1-5): Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pip. There are many dialect variations. I've just seen, in my Country Walking magazine, the whole 1-20 listed, as used by shepherds in Swaledale: Yan, tan, tether, mether, pip, azer, sezar, akker, conter, dick, yanadick, tanadick, tetheradick, metheradick, bumfit, yanabum, tanabum, tetherabum, metherabum, jigget.  Glorious!