Saltaire signage

I don't think I've shown this new(ish) Saltaire sign on my blog before. It was erected when the Victoria Road 'environment' was improved a couple of years ago, with the felling of some huge trees, new street lighting and some alterations to the road surface outside the Victoria Hall. It has been placed at the entrance to the Caroline Street carpark, which is fairly central in the 'touristy' part of the village. It's an improvement on the sign that was here before (see here) and is matched by a similar board opposite that tells the story of the now demolished Sunday School building that at one time occupied the space where the car park is now.

I'm sure the sign is necessary now, since the staffed Tourist Information Centre in Salts Mill was shut down due to budget cuts. There is currently only an unstaffed information point in the Victoria Hall, where you can pick up a few leaflets about local attractions. I think it rather a shame that a World Heritage Site is so low on information. Some sites that I've explored have excellent visitor interpretation facilities. There is a small exhibition in Salts Mill about the history of the Mill but that is provided by the Mill's current owners and is not very obvious to visitors.

In addition, they have closed the only public toilets (again due to Council budget cuts. Blame the Tory government.) That seems very short-sighted since I gather it has reduced the number of coach tours visiting the World Heritage Site, which therefore reduces the revenue coming into the village.

Tourists

Being a World Heritage Site, Saltaire features on many coach tour itineraries. Most seem to be day trips and so people don't get all that long to look around. I expect most of them get as far as Salts Mill and perhaps into the church. Some of them include a 'Salts Walk' with a costumed guide, as well. The coaches are allowed to drop people and pick them up from a dedicated bus bay behind the Victoria Hall, but then the coach has to go and park on Salts Mill Road, at the back of the Mill. There, the coach driver can have a little snooze whilst the coach party has a wander round. Mostly they seem to be retirees, and they come from all over. This one only hailed from Sheffield but I have seen coaches from Wales, Scotland and the south of England. Often the package also includes a visit to Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, so that's quite a lot to pack into one day, with the journeys here and back as well. Sometimes it's a tad annoying to live in a tourist hot spot, but Saltaire rarely feels overcrowded (apart from festival times) and I guess folks spend a little bit of money in the Mill or the coffee shops. The bigger nuisance is commuter parking, which gets worse and worse.

Vigilance

Vigilance, Saltaire's most watchful lion, surveys the scene from his pedestal in front of the old Victorian primary school. I wonder if he's noticed the rather pretty autumnal tree behind him? The building is now Shipley College's Salt Building.

All Things Vintage

Helen is the driving force behind All Things Vintage. She upcycles furniture, using chalk paint and découpage, as well as selling vintage homewares from the new shop in Saltaire Makers' Space. According to her website, she can also supply vintage items like china for hire, including a dinky little caravan (Hettie), to add style to a wedding or party. I particularly liked some of the smaller items on display... I rather fell for the sweet little découpage bird houses. Everything in the shop was beautifully arranged and displayed, a real feast for the eyes.

Lil Rabbitfoot

Lil Rabbitfoot (Samantha Yates) is a maker of stained glass, who now has a studio in Saltaire Makers' Space. I love stained glass anyway, delighting in the way light brings it to life, whether it's in a church window or a sculpture. I first noticed Sam's work in a garden during this year's Saltaire Festival and enjoyed its vibrancy, simplicity and clarity. It's no surprise that she has had a career spanning environmental science, civil engineering and horticulture. Perhaps it seems a jump to creative crafts but her work shows the influences of her background. I particularly like these leaves; she had some stunning geometric panels on display and her little 3D cacti are rather cute.   

Saltaire Makers' Space

It might not look like very much from the outside but this is Saltaire's latest creative endeavour: Saltaire Makers' Space. Housed underneath Saltaire Primary School, off Carlton Avenue, its warren of rooms now hosts a collective of different artists and craftspeople. They are using the studios to make and sell their own work and also to run workshops and taster events for those interested in a bit of crafting themselves. Currently, the studios are home to:
- Hello Crafter (offering a wide variety of workshops including card making, doll making, needle felting, knitting and crochet and the intriguing-sounding, presumably Scandi-inspired, hygge craft),
- Lil Rabbitfoot, who makes (and teaches) stained glass,
- All Things Vintage, who practise découpage, furniture upcycling and restoration, as well as selling vintage homewares.
Tucked away at the back was a calm space that is being kitted out for meditation and life coaching.

I popped in to their recent Open Studios Day and got chatting to some of those involved.  It's light and spacious and all seemed very positive and vibrant, with a really buzzy feel.

Saltaire has long been a hub for artists and creative types. Of course, there is the Saltaire Arts Trail, which takes place across the village every Spring.  There are already art studios above The Butterfly Rooms, The Hive community arts charity in Shipley, the workshops run by The Craft House gallery and Salts Pots, the pottery painting studio, to mention a few. This latest addition will further the local creative vibe and I hope they will prosper and bring enjoyment to a lot of people.

Perfect autumn days

Some days are just so perfect that I have to go out for a walk, even when I didn't intend to. This was the scene along the canal bank, just beyond the church, on a very cold but beautifully sunny day - and then I walked through Hirst Woods, where the beech trees were glowing. Just a three mile amble, on a very familiar route, but I enjoyed every second of it.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Here are a few more photos from my early October visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. As well as the indoor galleries, there is a huge estate to explore, its rolling grasslands kept cropped by sheep, who are not in the least interested in the numerous Henry Moore sculptures on permanent display. There are many works by other noted artists like Barbara Hepworth, Ai Weiwei, Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Gormley, David Nash, Jaume Plensa and James Turrell - in fact, too many to list. It's quite a feast and a very pleasurable journey, meandering around and seeing what you come across.  The estate stretches as far as the eye can see, right up to the Longside Gallery which you can perhaps just make out on the hill in the far background of the photo above. There's far too much to see in a day, added to which it is easy to get diverted by nature's beauty: the trees, lakes and wildlife around. I'm glad I live reasonably near and can keep going back.

There was an exhibition, 'Inside Outside' by the Irish artist Sean Scully, featuring 'Crate of Air' made out of Corten steel and an immense work called 'Wall Dale Cubed', three huge blocks of stones that reference Yorkshire's dry stone walls and other ancient structures in Mexico, Egypt and the Irish Aran Islands.

Guiseppe Penone at YSP

Another artist with an exhibition currently at YSP is the Italian, Guiseppe Penone: 'A Tree in the Wood'. He seeks to explore humanity's intimate relationship with the natural world and many of his works feature trees. The centrepiece of the exhibition in the Underground Gallery was 'Matrice', a huge fir tree sliced in two and carved along one of its growth rings. Impressive (and hard to photograph! See part of it in the photo at the very bottom of this blog post). I preferred the work shown on the right, which was also a tree split and carved along one of its growth rings, as though a tree was discovered within itself.                                                                                                                                In the grounds, there was a series of huge bronze casts of trees  including the cast of a lightning-struck tree, its brutally exposed interior lined with gold leaf.                                                                                                                                                    The work at the top of the page is 'Propagazione', a delicate ink drawing on paper, emanating from a single fingerprint and then directly painted across the whole wall. The whorls spiral out, recalling the growth rings of a tree and speaking of our individual identity within the universe. 

Chiharu Shiota at YSP

I seem to be having quite a few 'cultural' visits lately. These photos are from a day out at YSP (Yorkshire Sculpture Park) near Wakefield. The huge park has many sculptures (both permanent acquisitions and touring works) displayed outside and also in several indoor gallery spaces.

This work by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota filled the historic 18th century estate chapel, and I loved it. Called 'Beyond Time', it was created specifically for this venue. The installation consists of miles of intricately woven and knotted white string, emanating from a ghostly black wire piano (or organ), and scattered with sheet music and copies of pages from the YSP archives. The structure rises and twists like a series of glorious cathedral arches, or perhaps ethereal trees, resonating with the spirit of the chapel, invoking the worship that once took place here and the people whose bodies lie in the graveyard outside. It is like looking at a silent sound. Extraordinary. (Read more HERE.)

The exhibition also included some drawings and a bronze sculpture, called 'Belonging' that I also liked very much. It depicts a woman's hand curved into a man's, sheltering a child's hand between. The artist says: “Because much of my art is temporary and only remains as a memory in people’s mind, I wanted to create something that was more everlasting. The new sculpture Belonging is also informed by my understanding of the boundaries created between us by race, nationality, religion or language, but my deep belief that we are all connected.”

Drainpipes

My camera club held a light-hearted competition over the summer called 'Drainpipes'. It's amazing how many you can spot when you start looking, and how different they all are. Here's my selection. The two below look like alien creatures to me!

The last one I have shared already, as I spotted it when on holiday and visiting Forde Abbey, and it's by far the most ornate I've ever seen.

Chellow Dene

Some attractive autumn colour on the path around Chellow Dene. It's a local beauty spot between Shipley and Bradford, popular with dog walkers. It has a good path through woodland and around two Victorian reservoirs that once supplied water to Bradford. I don't think they are used now, which probably explains why these lakes are fairly full with water whereas the reservoirs higher up on the moors have very low levels.

Salt Beer Factory

It's interesting how buildings morph over time... This used to be a tramshed. The first trams appeared in Saltaire around 1882, initially horse-drawn and then by 1893 steam-powered trams were used. By 1904, trams were powered by overhead electric cables; Bradford Council took over the routes and built this new tramshed. Trams were superseded by trolley buses (running on overhead lines but not tracks) and this depot housed the vehicles until 1972, when trolley buses were withdrawn (Bradford being the last area in the country to use them).

For as long as I can remember, the front part of the old tramshed has been used as a bar/restaurant, now called The Hop. The back area used to be a children's adventure centre and soft play area, but (I think) has been empty for a while. Now it has been transformed into a new craft brewery, the Salt Beer Factory. (Not to be confused with Saltaire Brewery, which in fact operates out of premises in Shipley.)

They moved the huge steel vats in a couple of months ago and brewing began in early September. Now the site is overrun with workmen, getting it ready for the grand opening on November 2nd. I managed to sneak a couple of photos through an open side door. It looks as though the tap room will open out onto a terrace at the back, and according to their Facebook page (HERE), there are all sorts of live events planned.

Egypt and the Bay of Biscay

I'm always curious about place names and there are some interesting ones locally. One way to get to Halifax from here is via Moscow, Jerusalem, Egypt and World's End. These are all tiny hamlets in the Thornton area of Bradford. These places would have been familiar to the Rev'd Patrick Brontë, when he was doing his parish rounds from Thornton - and I've discovered a fascinating account of Jerusalem Farm being a place where maggots for fishing bait were once grown... and the gases produced were inhaled by TB patients as a 'cure'! (See HERE).

The hamlets sit on the watershed between Airedale and Calderdale, amidst rather bleak and scrappy terrain shaped by the huge stone quarries that flourished here in the early 19th century. The stone fuelled the huge building boom of the Industrial Revolution: all the new mills and the workers' housing that was built in the 1800s.































The row of cottages that is 'Egypt' was probably built for quarry workers. It was originally sited between the two quarries of Bell Dean and Egypt, the former now filled in and the latter now a large, disused hole. Waste thrown up from the quarries prompted the construction of two huge walls to hold back the spoil heaps and these were known as 'the Walls of Jericho'. I can remember them from my early days as a student in Bradford, when the narrow road passed between them and they were a well-known landmark. (There's a photo HERE, if you're interested.) They were deemed unsafe and demolished in the 1980s, and Egypt Road (below) was widened and made safer.

Closer to home, on the top of a hill overlooking Shipley, lies the row of houses known as the Bay of Biscay - and no, I don't know why, except that there was a farm of this name that formed part of the estate of the Earl of Rosse, a local landowner. The houses are awkwardly placed at the front, adjacent to but lower than the busy Haworth Road and with hardly any space to park a car. You must need to be on good terms with the neighbours, as the arrangement must entail some swapping about.

Perhaps the wonderful view from the rear makes up for it! It's a sweeping vista from this high vantage point, ranging round from Sandy Lane in the west, past Cottingley and right over to Bingley in the distance, with the moors behind and then round to Hope Hill, above Saltaire, to the east.

Circles

My usual mode of photography is simply to go for a walk or to visit somewhere with my camera and see what I can find to photograph. It's not really a very 'professional' approach. The pros plan ahead and know in advance what they are going to aim for, even if it doesn't quite work out on the day. That wouldn't suit me, and I'm generally happy to explore and make new discoveries with my 'hit and miss' style. Sometimes though, I find it stimulating to try a slightly different tactic, and lately I've been using some compositional prompts as a basis on some of my walks. So, for instance, I went out looking for circles one day. It didn't stop me taking pictures of other things too, but I did find a few circles, details I might have overlooked without the stimulus of the prompt.

There was a circular planter on the roof of a canal boat and a porthole window with a colourful painted motif:

A lifebelt:

and a mooring post looking, from above, like child's drawing of the sun.

Flotilla

The ever-expanding flocks of geese on the local river and canal are getting to be a menace. The grass and the riverside path in Roberts Park are covered in droppings and it is all rather smelly. The Canada geese seem to prefer the river and fields upstream of Hirst Weir. There was a flotilla of more than sixty birds as I walked that way the other day. Here are just five of them, against a rather pretty backdrop of autumn tinted saplings.

A little further on, foliage made a frame for the grey heron, standing motionless and patient waiting for his dinner.

Sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon down by the canal in Saltaire: walkers, dogs, swans and ducks, and the dedicated volunteers from the Canal and River Trust sharing information and trying to get people signed up to support the charity.

The Trust has existed since 2012, when the former government body, British Waterways, transferred all its assets, liabilities and responsibilities for the waterways network in England and Wales to a charitable trust. It was a controversial move and I'm not sure whether overall it was a good thing or not. It does seem to me to have enhanced the educative aspects of the canal network, which must be a good thing, though largely staffed by volunteers.