Enjoy the view

There's a rather splendid view from near the top of the track I was following in yesterday's post, as it arrives in Baildon village centre. The picture above is a composite of two photos merged together. I tried a panorama with my phone but it didn't really work. The estate of white houses is in lower Baildon and in the distance is Wrose and Idle, with the telecommunications masts visible on top of Idle Hill. To the right in the far distance is the city of Bradford. You can actually see Lister's Mill from this viewpoint but it's too small to discern on the photo. Saltaire is away round to the right, well out of shot. There's a handily placed bench at this spot, a lovely place to rest after the steep climb and enjoy the view.

A bimble around Beckfoot

Getting bored with the most familiar local routes, I decided to strike out a little further afield one day and had a walk around Beckfoot, near Bingley. It's quite possibly the most picturesque spot in the area, nestled in the valley of Harden Beck. There is a ford across the stream, a relic of the days when this track was a packhorse route from Bingley down the Aire valley. The packhorse bridge dates back to 1723, constructed to replace an earlier wooden bridge. It is a listed structure and I found the following account:
The Parish Constable's Account for
January 7, 1723 records the payment of £10 to Benja. Craven and
Josa Scott, masons " for building a Stone Bridge ovr Howden Beck at
Beckfoot. In consideracon whereof ye said Benja. Craven and Joshua
Scott doe hereby promise joyfully and severally to uphold and keep
the sd Bridge in good and sufficient repair during the terme of seavenyears from the day hereof, as witness our hands the day and year above sd".

I do hope they did joyfully maintain it!  (Though I do wonder if it's simply a misreading of the ancient writing in the legal documents. Surely it should be 'jointly and severally'?)

The stream can get quite high and dangerous after rain and the ford isn't to be recommended. I've seen cars stranded there. There are some old cottages and farm buildings with links to the Knights Templar alongside the bridge.

It is, as I say, an attractive spot and my new-found capability with the panorama setting on my phone gives an interesting (though oddly disproportionate) view: 

Tiny planet Saltaire

One unexpected bonus of the current crisis is that the car park in the centre of Saltaire has been completely empty for days. It means you can get a panoramic view of Salts Mill's long frontage without cars in the way. I remembered my phone has a pano setting too. It gave me the photo I've used as my new blog header. Then I remembered that there's a way of converting a pano into a 'tiny planet' so I had a go at that. It proved quite difficult, mainly because I was working with such a large file that my computer was struggling. There's an art to them. For one thing you have to have an uncluttered foreground (which becomes the centre of the planet) for it to look right, and that is often difficult. You also need the edges to be blended to avoid a hard join and I haven't quite managed that here. Still, it's quite fun - and an undoubtedly different view of Saltaire.

Going up in the world

A (non-urgent) text arrived on my mobile very early one morning (do people do that to you?) and because the phone beside my bed lit up and vibrated, it woke me up. Boo! It made me a bit grumpy (that and the lockdown situation) so I decided a solitary walk was the only remedy. I walked up to Shipley Glen, where I enjoyed communing with these rather magnificent trees and the ancient rocks.
My walk continued along the heathland of the Glen and then up and up, onto Baildon Moor. It was very muddy!

The higher you go, the more glorious the views. This is looking down to Gilstead and Bingley.

The moorland looks like a fairly natural landscape but in fact it has been shaped by man for centuries. There is evidence of mining in the curious depressions called bell pits. You might take them for bomb craters but I understand they were vertical shafts dug in order to extract coal. When it became too dangerous to continue, because of the risk of collapse, the shaft was filled and another sunk further along the coal seam. The infill has settled over the years, leaving these characteristic circular depressions.You can see one in the foreground in the photo below.

Part way up the hill is the Dobrudden caravan site, enjoying the spectacular views. 

Propped up by the wall of the caravan site, there is this curious stone, with ancient 'cup and ring' markings. Sadly, the marks have now almost eroded away. You can perhaps just make out a few circular hollows. Some years ago, it looked like THIS. These are examples of Bronze Age (2000 - 800 BC) rock art and have been found all over the Baildon, Rombalds and Ilkley moors, though their purpose isn't really clear. They prove that this area was inhabited all those thousands of years ago, though no doubt it all looked a bit different then. 

Wharfedale views

Upper Wharfedale is the Yorkshire dale I am most familiar with and I love the sweeping views once you climb up the valley side. One afternoon I walked from Scargill House to Conistone Pie (not a pie! Just an outcrop of rocks.) Part of the path follows the Dalesway long distance trail. The stormy weather made for some fabulous and quickly changing cloudscapes. It was very windy, with a high chill factor, but I only got hailed on once.

Hardy Yorkshire sheep and dry stone walls are a feature of the valley. The sheep often seem as curious about us as we are about them.

Bench with a view

Scargill House (where I was staying on my break) sits in a small estate: a series of limestone terraces, mostly wooded, climbing up the hillside behind. There are traces of a couple of very old, ruined stone dwellings up there, believed to be post-Roman, possibly shepherds' huts or small cottages, evidence that the valley has been inhabited and farmed for centuries. Scargill House itself dates from the 18th century. It was originally a gentleman's residence used for hunting and fishing.

In the late 1950s, it was sold to the Church of England and became a Christian community, run as a conference centre and retreat house. In 2008 that venture folded and the house was put up for sale again. Under the leadership of a close friend of mine, a new charitable trust, the Scargill Movement, was formed and the property was bought and has since been revitalised, initially by a team of dedicated volunteers and eventually developed into a residential Christian community. Like Lee Abbey in Devon (where I have also stayed several times) many in the community are young people from many different countries, who volunteer for a year or two. It is a wonderful place to stay, to study, to rest and recharge, with rather a wonderful story behind it too.

The views from the corner of the estate, looking over Kettlewell village, are stunning. If it hadn't been so cold, I could have sat on that bench for hours!

On top of the world

I usually feel driven to get out for some brisk walks at this time of year, not so much because I've overindulged at Christmas (I don't tend to) but rather as an antidote to all the sitting around and the sense that I no longer know what day it is. Add in a lovely blue sky and the need to get out is overwhelming. If I really want exercise, climbing the hills either side of the Aire valley is just the ticket.

I took these photos from the high point in Northcliffe Park. (You can go higher still if you want to, but after this point you have to follow the road so it's not such a nice walk.) The photo above is looking north, across Saltaire to Baildon and Hope Hill. The chimney sticking up at the bottom right is the top of Salts Mill's big stack, which is near the start point of my walk. You can see how deep it sits in the valley. From there it's a steady but inexorable climb uphill that took me about 40 minutes. Never mind, it's downhill all the way going back!

A slight turn to the left at this viewpoint affords a vista up the Aire valley. That's the town of Bingley in the valley bottom (below). There is one block of 'the three flats of Bingley' still standing (see my post of yesterday), about one third in from the right, looking like a white box as the sun catches its side. The dark hill on the left is the Bingley St Ives estate, where I often walk too.

I tried a pano shot with my phone. It does slightly weird things to the perspective, elongating the foreground, but it does show the sweep of the view from Northcliffe's top meadow - and my own shadow! 

Beach panoramas

Harris, day three
I discovered the panorama feature on my camera! The beautiful beach in the first shot is Tràigh Iar (where we went on our first afternoon). After we'd mooched about photographing Luskentyre beach (middle photo), we drove right round the estuary to the other side (third photo), past Seilebost where the tide had come in, and stopped for coffee at a brand new community enterprise centre, Talla na Mara, from where the top photo was taken. The centre is an exciting concept, designed to provide facilities for local residents, visitors and businesses. There is a restaurant, exhibition space, creative arts workshops and office space.

On the same site there were six new residential buildings, which appeared to have charging points for electric vehicles. I was a little surprised at that but perhaps I shouldn't be. Electricity is probably easier to access than vehicle fuel on Harris and the distances you'd need to drive are not huge on a small island. A lot of the older properties on Harris are functional, pebble-dashed bungalows, as well as many empty, derelict crofts. From what I can gather, the population plummeted by 50% since the 1950s and by 2007 35% of properties were holiday homes. It seems that there has been some fresh thinking and investment in the last ten years, resulting in an increase of 20% in the population of West Harris, and some very modern and innovative residential building projects. (See HERE for some examples, from the Skye-based design team that built the community centre).

And then there was another sunset, enjoyed from the dunes overlooking Seilebost:

Big skies and details

Harris, day two
Up to this point we'd not done much walking, just hopping out of the van and pottering on beaches and places of interest, so it was a welcome relief to stretch my legs with a walk to the spot chosen to enjoy the sunset. This was the beach Tràigh na Cleabhaig, under the hill called Ceapabhal on the north-western tip of Harris. It had a dual aspect, over to another beach called Tràigh an Taoibh Thuath. (These Gaelic names might arguably be easier to pronounce after a few glasses of Harris gin!)

We passed a sheep with magnificent horns, who was safely in a little fenced field and didn't seem fazed by a troop of photographers passing by.

There were details to enjoy: a fence made from old pallets and rope, its blue tones counterpointed by the scarlet rose-hips behind it. 

And of course, the marram grasses in the dunes behind the beach. These had created wonderful swirly patterns in the sand, where the wind had caught them.

The Golden Road

Harris, day two
Our second day on Harris included a tour of the Golden Road, a scenic route that winds its way around the east coast from just south of Tarbert to the village of Rodel, linking many tiny settlements at one time only accessible by boat. The coast is indented with sea lochs and studded with lakes, and affords some lovely vistas over rocky islets and gentle hills, with views across to the Isle of Skye on the horizon. 

The picture above is Loch Plocrapool. (The place names have many spellings, hovering somewhere between the traditional Gaelic and more anglicised versions.)

Below is a view over Manish. The building with the rusty, decaying roof is apparently an old post office that at one time held the only telephone in the area.

All the roads on Harris are narrow and winding, with passing places marked at regular intervals. Most drivers were very considerate, especially since we were travelling in a minivan that took up quite a lot of space! I was glad I wasn't driving. There was the added hazard of free-wandering sheep. Most of them looked very white and fluffy, almost as though they'd just been shampooed, so they were not too difficult to see, even in the dark. Perhaps it's all the rain that keeps them clean!

Brontë Country

I love the drive over to my daughter's home in the summer, across the moors between the Aire valley and the Calder valley. I had to stop the other day just to drink in the wonderful view. This is truly 'Brontë country', as the tourist brochures would have it. The village of Haworth, where the famous writers, the Brontë sisters, lived in the parsonage in the early 1800s, is in the dip in the middle right of the picture below. Some of the village is visible from this viewpoint but the oldest part is hidden by the trees right in the centre of the photo. In the picture above, the water on the left is Leeshaw Reservoir, one of a series built in the late 1800s/early 1900s to provide fresh water for the town of Keighley and its environs. It wasn't there when the Brontë sisters roamed the moors, and the rough moorland made famous in their novels may well have extended further than it does today. In the picture above, you can see a dark patch on the left beyond the reservoir, which is just the edge of the heather moorland that is Haworth Moor, leading up to the ruined farmhouse at Top Withens, reputed to have inspired Emily Brontë's novel 'Wuthering Heights'. 

Halifax panorama

I walked with a friend recently, from the Piece Hall in Halifax to Shibden Hall (see HERE) and back. It's a strenuous climb out of the town and up over the hill. You do, however, get a splendid panoramic view of Halifax if you look back. 

It was a bit hazy but you might be able to pick out a few landmarks. Looking south west:

The Wainhouse Tower was built as a chimney for a dyeworks in the 1870s, with the intention to combat pollution. The works were sold before it was finished and it was never actually used, but became a folly and a landmark. You can climb 403 steps to the top, should you wish! It is 275 feet tall. 

In front of that is a large, black, modernistic office block, built in 1973 as the head office for Halifax Building Society, now part of the Lloyds group. 

I've labelled The Piece Hall, that amazing Georgian wool market (see HERE) and in front of that is the spire of the demolished Square Chapel, now part of Halifax Library (see HERE). 

Down at the front of the photo is Halifax Minster, its stone still blackened from years of pollution (see HERE). (The grime of the Industrial Revolution has been sandblasted off most public buildings in our northern towns.)

Looking due west (and zoomed in a bit) you can see the huge bulk of the Dean Clough mill complex. I'll be posting some more photos and information about that soon, as I visited there separately a couple of weeks ago. In front of the mills is a red painted Victorian bridge known as North Bridge, over the River Hebble. It is now dwarfed by the concrete flyovers built across the valley in the 1970s to try to alleviate Halifax's traffic problems.

I don't know about you but I love being up high and looking over a view like this, trying to pick out the familiar places seen from a different angle. It was, however, freezing cold so we didn't linger too long before setting off again on our walk, at a brisk pace to warm ourselves up. 

The Worth valley

One tends to think of Haworth as surrounded by moorland (with visions of the Brontë sisters wandering about poetically among the heather). In fact, the heather moorland is mostly south and west of the village. To the northwest, north and east, the village overlooks the gentler scenery of the Worth valley - rough, rolling farmland and woods.

There's a track behind the Parsonage that takes you out along West Lane and Cemetery Road, to the cemetery that is now used for burials, since the churchyard is so overcrowded with graves. Beyond that you have the option of heading for the open moor and the Brontë Falls or making a gentler descent into the valley to Lower Laithe Reservoir. I opted for the second route, since storm clouds were building. I had a nice circular walk and just made it back to my car before the sleet started.

Framed

There is a good view from Ilkley Tarn over the Wharfe valley towards Middleton and across to the high moorland north of Ilkley. From this raised vantage point, Ilkley itself is more or less hidden below in the valley. There is a shelter beside the Tarn and its wooden structure offered a kind of picture frame to the view.

Looking in the opposite direction, Ilkley Moor rises up from the Tarn, everywhere russet-tinged with heaps of collapsed bracken. I rather liked the shape of this lone tree on the edge of the moor.

All roads lead to the Mill

This is a phone shot, as that's all I had with me when I wanted to capture a glorious burst of clear blue skies and sunshine that snuck in among a run of dank, dreary days. I was walking down towards Salts Mill, an edifice that you really can't miss, with that huge chimney soaring skywards. There's a fairly steep hill up to the main (Bradford) road and the view from up there is pretty good, looking north across the valley towards Baildon and Hope Hill. I normally try to exclude from my photos the apartment blocks and other boring things that surround our lovely World Heritage Site but I guess sometimes I should show the unvarnished truth. At least they are not high-rise blocks.

Wide open spaces

At the end of March, I enjoyed a weekend away at an hotel near Grange over Sands. It is on the coast immediately south of the Lake District, on the northern edge of Morecambe Bay. Morecambe Bay is a vast expanse (120 square miles) of salt marshes and shallow mudflats, sometimes covered by the tide and sometimes exposed. It attracts many wading birds and is an important wildlife habitat. It holds rich cockle beds too, which have been fished by locals for generations. It's a very dangerous area to explore on foot. The incoming tide rushes in unpredictably and alarmingly fast; for centuries the area has had royally appointed local guides to assist people to cross. Nowadays they conduct guided walks, often to raise money for charity.

The photo above is looking east across to the area called Arnside and Silverdale. The prominent hill to the right is Arnside Knott. The picture below is looking in a more south-easterly direction and you can just see Ingleborough, one of Yorkshire's famous 'three peaks' in the distance. There is also a hot air balloon soaring over the scene. It was a beautiful day with no wind so it would have been ideal for a balloon ride. These wide open spaces are a real tonic for this valley-dwelling girl; my spirit seems to breathe and expand!

Bolton Abbey

Addingham Walk

Climbing over a steep stile in a stone wall, at the highest point of my walk, I was quite suddenly treated to this stunning panorama of the Wharfe valley, with the ancient half-ruin of Bolton Abbey (see HERE) at its heart. 

This is where my long lens comes in useful, picking out some of the detail of the scene: 

Bolton Bridge, both the old and new crossings, looks pretty from this vantage point.

You can pick out Bolton Abbey itself, which has one end in ruins since the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. The other end of the nave was spared and allowed to continue as a church because it was used for worship by local people as well as the monks. It is still used to this day (see HERE).

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.