Salts Mill in't snow

Salts Mill's classic 'between the mills' view takes on a slightly different tone when there's snow, as there is rather more light reflected up onto the stonework. (Salts Mill itself is on the left and the New Mill on the right.) The canal wasn't frozen along this little stretch, as it is sheltered by the buildings and must be a degree or two warmer. I was waiting for someone in a red jacket to walk along the towpath, but no-one came!

Somehow the snow on the car park emphasises the huge bulk of Salts Mill itself, seen from the east.

Snow day

Some schools have had 'snow days', choosing to close because they are worried about the safety of children and staff travelling to and from school. I'll swear we never had 'snow days' when I was a child. I distinctly recall our steeply sloping primary school playground being lethal with ice and the braver kids sliding down. (They wouldn't allow that these days either.) And standing in the freezing cold snow waiting for a bus outside school. A friend told me her two older boys were off school but the youngest child is still having to go, as he attends a smaller local school that he can walk to. Not a happy bunny...!

There were a few local children enjoying some sledging on the hillside just above Saltaire. Those light plastic sledges certainly zip along. The main roads have been gritted and were fairly clear by the time I ventured out, but all the side roads are snowed over and quite icy, as you can see from the photo below. Some hopeful person has put their bin out for collection - but all the refuse collectors are on gritter duty.

The Beast from the East

We're having a 'weather event' this week, much hyped in the preceding days and popularly dubbed 'the Beast from the East'. A 'disrupted polar vortex in the upper atmosphere' means that cold air is being funnelled down over Britain from Siberia, bringing snow, wind and freezing temperatures, around -5C and colder with the windchill. In this area it's not, I gather, as bad as further east, but there has been enough snow already to cause disruption to travel and more is forecast. It's not our usual type of snow (!), being dry and powdery. It doesn't stick together like the wetter stuff usually does. Good for sledging (even skiing) but frustrating for building snowmen.

I went for a short walk in a brief sunny spell but it really is cold. Luckily, I got back home before the next blizzard arrived. The canal is frozen over, apart from where it is close to buildings. The 18th century cottages at Jane Hills, once homes for canal boatmen, looked picturesque with their covering of snow.

Black and white squared

'There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns.' Chuck Palahniuk

A photo from my archives. I'm running out of stock for the blog, hoping soon to find some time and decent weather to get out and take some more pictures. We're in another cold snap, funnelling down from Siberia, I gather. Brr. I'm longing for Spring. Our health and sanity demands it!

I've been over to my daughter's. She and my youngest graddaughter have both been very unwell with a flu-type virus. 'Plague nurse' is not my most favourite or best role but I think I was helpful and - so far - have not succumbed to the lurgy myself.

Our hamlet

Baildon Green is a hamlet that almost looks lost in time, the houses (and a small mill or two) huddled under the escarpment that skirts round Baildon Moor.

I noticed that the Chapel on the Green (in my earlier photo here), which is still in use, has recently had an extension added to the front that looks as though it provides an entrance hall and toilets. I was a bit surprised as I think it is all in a conservation area but I suppose, even so, things need to keep up with the times.

Baildon Green sits in between Saltaire, Shipley and the larger village of Baildon. I think, although some of the hamlet developed around a Victorian textile mill, a few of the properties here are even older. The grassy area is still, I believe, common land (originally where people were allowed to graze animals and forage for firewood).

Knoll Lodge, Baildon

Although this lodge house is on the opposite side of the river from Saltaire and a good mile or so away, the observant viewer will notice a distinct similarity to some of the architecture of Saltaire. That gothic arched window with the roundel above is a real echo of the rounded windows and doors in the village, although rather more pointed. The similarity comes because this was the main gate house for a large mansion called The Knoll, which had strong links with Saltaire.

The Knoll was built in the late 1850s/early 1860s by Charles Stead, who was the first of the directors of Salts Mill not to be from the Salt family. The land was bought from the Ferrand family (of Bingley St Ives) by Titus Salt, who then sold it on to Mr Stead. The mansion, built in gothic style, had beautiful and extensive gardens. When Charles Stead was bankrupted, the house was purchased and occupied by Sir James Roberts, one of the consortium who took over the running of Salts Mill in 1893. Eventually Sir James moved to Milner Field and his son Bertram and family lived at the Knoll, until after WWI. After that the house had various owners and was eventually sold to Baildon Council. The mansion was demolished in the 1960s. Flats were built on the site but remnants of the gardens remain and the lodge house survives.

Red lines

Just a reflection, in a window, of an industrial unit in Shipley. I thought it bizarrely cheerful.There's so much distortion in the glass, it made me wonder what the view looks like from inside...

A brace of pheasants

A handsome cock pheasant and his rather more subdued mate, two of many wandering the Fountains Abbey grounds. In one part of the estate there is a small bird hide and a feeding station. There were numerous birds flitting in and out for refreshment there; I saw blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, a variety of tits, several jackdaws and a magnificent Great spotted woodpecker, which I was just about to photograph when a rather exuberant small child rushed in to the hide, causing all the birds to flee!

The romance of ruins

A touch of sepia toning seems to suit the rather romantic ruins of Fountains Abbey, seen here from the south-eastern corner where the Abbot's House and the Infirmary were situated.

Evocative ruins

Fountains Abbey was a vast and important Cistercian monastery from 1132 until 1539, when it was abruptly closed by Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Lay brothers, attached to the monastery, relieved the monks of the day to day work and allowed them to pursue a life of prayer. The estates belonging to the Abbey stretched far across the Yorkshire Dales and the Abbey became wealthy from farming, wool production, breeding horses and cattle, lead mining and stone quarrying.

The photo above shows the Abbey ruins approached from the bridge that led to the guesthouses, where visitors would be accommodated. Below is the Cellarium, an immense vaulted structure that was a storeroom, with the lay brothers' dormitory above.

When the monastery closed, the estate was sold to a merchant, Richard Gresham, and he and subsequent owners sold some of the fabric of the site and used the stone to build nearby Fountains Hall. Nevertheless, the remaining ruins are the largest monastic ruins in the UK. The surrounding estate is now parkland and formal gardens, dating back to Georgian times. The whole estate became a World Heritage Site in 1986.

Fountains Abbey

Last Friday, it was bright and sunny when I opened my bedroom curtains in the morning so I decided I'd drop my plans for the day and take off on an excursion. (The freedom to do that is still a joyous novelty!)

I headed for Fountains Abbey, a well-known National Trust beauty spot, about an hour and a half's drive north of here. It is so popular that it is fairly unbearable in the summer. There was the promise of snowdrops and fewer people about on a winter's day. I'd forgotten, however, that it was the half-term holidays for a lot of schools so it was busier than I anticipated.

I did enjoy my day but - does this ever happen to you? - I found myself quite underwhelmed when it came to taking photos. I just wasn't 'seeing' them and that left me frustrated. It was all incredibly muddy too, unpleasantly so, even on the paths and having to watch where you're walking is a distraction. Then the sun disappeared! So it wasn't the best day out but it still beat being in an office or stuck in the house.

There were snowdrops too, a welcome reminder that the seasons turn. Warmer, more colourful days will be here soon.

Whiling away a winter evening

On these dark, winter evenings, if I'm at home, I occasionally watch TV but mostly, to stretch my brain, I read or do puzzles (crosswords or sudoku - and I'm having fun with some logic puzzles at the moment). I used to be an avid reader when I was younger and then, as a busy mother, I let it slide a bit. Now I have more time, I'm back to reading in a big way, though I find I can only read a few chapters before I need a short break. Whether it's age, eyesight or the sapping effect of technology on my brain, I'm not sure.

The very best relaxation though, as far as I'm concerned, is sorting through my photos and experimenting with processing. So it's a nuisance when I can't get out for walks and I run short on stock. Then I resort to trawling my photo archives, maybe finding an image I missed first time around, or one that I can see could benefit from a new treatment. I sit at my desktop for serious work but sometimes it's fun just to play on my iPad. I have some photo apps on that, more frivolous. I've also been scanning some very old family photos. I might show a few of those one day.

You'll recognise the photo above: my favourite trees, along by Dowley Gap Locks. In an idle half hour one evening, I added some textures and a few 'birds', just for fun.

Gossip

I'd love to know what these two are gossiping about... They are part of a now rather faded and grimy mural under one of the bridges over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Shipley.

Linked to Monday Murals - see HERE

Winter etchings

We've had intermittent snow showers during the last week. Some days have been worse than others and some locations have had more than others, even within quite a small geographical area. It's either been falling as tiny, hard, sleety lumps or big, soft, wet flakes. In both cases, it has often barely settled before melting. When there has been a white covering for a while, it has soon disappeared.

I like the way snow renders everything in monochrome. Pictures look like etchings. These two very different photographs were taken back in January.

Blue note

A canal boat moored up for the winter made a picture that pretty much sums up how I feel at this stage of the year. Blue, dull, scratchy with slight glimmers of bright yellow here and there.

I know I shouldn't complain. All the rain and snow we've had means we're certainly not short of water like some places. The nights are beginning to get shorter again and there are bulbs peeping up through the soil - even in my garden! (I actually got around to planting some tulips and crocus in tubs, quite an achievement since I do not possess a single green finger, though I love gardens.) I've been planning a summer holiday, which is fun and escapist, but I'm longing for some dry days so I can go out and explore and to take some more photos.

Evening falls...

Evening falls and Salts Mill is briefly illuminated by the setting sun, its windows silvery and the brickwork glowing amber. The line of parked cars on Caroline Street is thinning out, as weary commuters alight from their trains and make their way home through the chill, to warm firesides and dinner. Just a fleeting moment caught on camera... Within seconds, the warm glow had ebbed away as the sun was swallowed up in a cloud.

Orange wellies

Making a style statement: toddler-wear in bright yellow with orange wellies. How cute. Perhaps the mallard ducks, with their bright orange feet, thought she was one of their own... 

Fog, rain, sleet

Fog, rain, sleet, wind - oh, what dreary weather we're having. I know it's winter but I much prefer the type of winter where we get dry, crisp, sunny days. It's been much colder overall here this winter, than last, but I don't mind that. (I always find it's easier to get warm when you're cold than cool when you're too hot! So our northerly climate suits me well, actually.) But I do mind the damp and dull days, when you really can't get out for a good walk. This was what it looked like driving back from my daughter's the other day. The views over towards Haworth were obscured by the drizzly mist and I had to dodge huge puddles and sheets of water sluicing across the moorland road. I got home safely... and that's the nicest bit: getting home, pulling up a chair by the fire and having a mug of hot tea to warm me through again. Aahhh....

Winter quarters

This is where Saltaire's ice-cream boat spends a few weeks in the winter. Under the terms of its licence, it has to move from its habitual berth by the Victoria Road bridge for so many weeks a year. Anyway, I suppose it is safer from vandalism moored here, when it isn't being regularly used. I guess the demand for ice-creams has fallen sharply since the temperature dropped (though they do also serve hot drinks). I wonder where the ice-cream man overwinters? Chile, perhaps?

The buildings it is moored beside were once warehouses and are known as Shipley Wharf. Nowadays they hold a restaurant, gym and offices.

Dog walk

'The path less travelled' (see Thursday), just like the path I more often take, can be walked 'out' along the canal and 'back' along the river. It isn't very pretty in either direction but it is quite interesting. The path back along the riverbank squeezes round the back of the Victoria Mills complex of redeveloped mill buildings and new-build flats.

It is the route of the Aire Sculpture Trail, so every now and again you come across a cartoonish animal, like this rather sad-looking dog. The sculptures enliven the walk, as does keeping an eye out for the kingfisher that lives along this stretch of water. I've only ever glimpsed it once. Unfortunately, the route is all a bit litter-strewn, which appears to be a consequence of the floods of a couple of years ago overlaid by rubbish dropped more recently, possibly by dog-walkers or by the school and college students who use it as a shortcut. I do wish folks would take their litter home with them!