Blue sky day

Another balmy blue sky day... Although I'd had appointments in the morning, I felt I needed to make the most of the warm sunshine, so in the afternoon I walked up the hill to Northcliffe Park. The view across to Baildon was a little hazy but you can just see the top of Salts Mill chimney jutting above the trees in the middle. That shows how Saltaire sits deep in the valley, down by the river. Once the trees have leaves it gets hidden altogether. 

This being a park rather than a completely natural area, there are daffodils in the woods. Quite pretty but they don't really fit in woodland, in my mind! 

I don't hear many birds (because of my deafness) but I have the Merlin app on my phone and I enjoy watching as it picks up and identifies the sounds around. It's not guaranteed to be 100% accurate but I think it's pretty good on the whole. It helps me to feel closer to nature and I can sometimes scan around and spot the little birds once I've been alerted to their presence. I could hear the wood-pigeons ('My toe hurts, Betty!') and the cawing of the crows. I also heard the woodpecker tapping. But the little birds are too shrill for me to pick up. 

At various points of my walk, as well as those listed above, the app picked up: Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Nuthatch, Song Thrush, Coal Tit, Goldfinch, Chiffchaff and Siskin - and I saw a few Magpies too. There are Jays in the woods - and sometimes Ring-Necked Parakeets too, though I wasn't alerted to either of those that day. It just goes to show how important these suburban green spaces are. Well done to the late Sir Norman Rae who, in 1920, gifted Northcliffe Park to the people of Shipley in perpetuity.  

Willow trees are among the first of our UK species to 'green up', though in reality that early colour is a strident acid yellow! Echoing the yellow, there were hosts of daffodils around the children's play area, as well as in the woods.

It was a 'good to be alive' kind of day. 

Rose window

The rooms above the hallway at East Riddlesden Hall have rose windows, one on either side of the house. They are simple, plain glass pieces set in a stone trellis, and each window is different. I decided I'd have a play with them, overlaying one above the other and making them more colourful. I ended up with a few different versions.

 

Lights, Camera, Brontë

The Spring exhibition at East Riddlesden Hall is: Lights, Camera, Brontë: East Riddlesden Hall on Screen. Capitalising, I suppose, on the current frenzy around the new film version of 'Wuthering Heights', it 'uncovers the Hall's starring role in over a century of film and television adaptations of Emily Brontë’s iconic novel'. 

It seems the first version of 'Wuthering Heights', filmed here in 1920, was a silent black and white movie, starring Milton Rosmer as the brooding Heathcliffe and Ann Trevor as the wild free-spirit, Cathy.  A bit of a bodice-ripper, by the looks of the still (below)...  Sadly, the film itself has been lost. Some of the rooms in the Hall have been reimagined for the exhibition using the surviving screenplay, still photos and the director's notes to recreate aspects of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. 

The Hall has a genuine connection to the Brontës, as it was saved from demolition (after a twenty year fight) and donated to the National Trust in 1934 by the Brigg brothers, local historians and philanthropists, who were also instrumental in setting up the Brontë Society and the first Brontë museum in Haworth in the 1890s. 

East Riddlesden was also used for filming in 1992 for the 'Wuthering Heights' version starring Ralph Fiennes, and in 2009 for an ITV version. It has featured too in Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life', 'Sharpe's Justice', 'Lost In Austen' and Channel 5's 'Anne Boleyn'. 

In the kitchen there's this huge grain ark, used for storing grain to make bread. It would have held enough to bake about 190 loaves. 

The Great Barn

In addition to the manor house itself, the East Riddlesden site holds two huge barns. The Great Barn is one of the finest in the north of England, built in the 1600s and testament to the importance of the estate as an agricultural concern. Its oak roof rises from aisle posts and covers an area 120 feet long by 40 feet wide. There are two sets of cart entrances, big enough to allow a pair of oxen pulling a fully loaded wagon to enter the barn. They still have their original doors and, between them, stone flagged floors where grain would have been threshed. You can see the stalls where cattle would have been kept in the winter, as well as a selection of old carts and ploughs.  

The adjacent Airedale Barn has been restored and is now used for weddings and events.

Standing among all the ancient timber and stone, I always find a surprising sense of peace. I like to think it takes me back to my roots, as many of my ancestors were agricultural workers and would have been familiar with these kinds of structures. 

 

Early Spring at East Riddlesden

Early spring at our local National Trust property, East Riddlesden Hall...  The daffodils were amazing. 

The gardens are very well cared for. Whether by volunteers or employed gardeners or a mixture of the two, I don't know, but the flowerbeds were weeded and the shrubs and trees pruned neatly.  Spring flowers were starting to bloom. There were some huge snowdrops, lots of hellebores, the pretty blue scilla and, of course, more daffodils and narcissi. 

The ruined Starkie wing was built as an extension to the hall in 1692 but became neglected and unsafe and so it was demolished in 1905. An adventurous mallard was exploring around the other side of the wall from the lake... 'and he went with a quack and a waddle and a quack'. 

Sunshine and celandines

This last week it has really felt like spring, with warm sunshine and a fresh feeling in the air. I spent the morning of 17 March at the 'Listening for Life' centre at the hospital, having intensive hearing tests and discussing cochlear implants (no decision made yet!) so a de-stressing walk in the afternoon made perfect sense. The TV weatherman said it was the 'Spring equilux' in the UK, when day and night are both 12 hours (not to be confused with the Vernal equinox, which was on 20 March). I have to confess I'd never heard the term equilux before; I learn something every day. 

In the woods, the celandines have suddenly burst into flower, a cheerful yellow carpet of stars, here and there brightened by milky white wood anemones. 

Blue and yellow are very much the colours of spring and the Aire Rowing Club on the far side of the river is decked out accordingly. 

The absence of foliage means you can see things that are hidden in summer. This bridge (below) is the aqueduct that carries the Leeds-Liverpool Canal over the River Aire, and a trick of the light meant it was much more obvious than usual. It actually has seven arches but the river now only flows through two or three of them and the others are silted up. 

My favourite trees were surrounded by dairy cows - and soaring overhead there were two red kites (birds), though you can barely see them in the photo. At one time red kites were nearing extinction in the UK but a protection and reintroduction programme has been very successful, numbers increasing by 2,464% between 1995 and 2023. They're now a common sight around here but nonetheless thrilling to see, soaring on the warm thermal currents. 

In Roberts Park, the young cherry trees are flowering, a pretty addition to the bottom meadow, planted only in the last two or three years. 

Magnolias have suddenly burst into blossom, so I hope we don't get any frosts. Those on the park promenade (below) are not fully out yet, as they don't get so much sun.

I'm not sure what the white blossom is... some kind of cherry I suppose. 

I enjoyed my walk and certainly felt more relaxed and peaceful as a result. 

The little details

It's interesting to notice what catches my eye when I'm out walking. Things 'call' to me. It can be a trick of the light or a slight movement, or an artful natural arrangement, like the bleached autumn leaf nestling among the ivy leaves, above. 

Fungi and moss abound in the healthy air in the Dales, far enough away from major towns and cities to be relatively free of air pollution. 

Spring being 'in the air', the birds seem to be pairing off. Mr and Mrs Mallard were hunkered down among the wood anemones. 

The black-headed gulls seemed to like their individual fence-post perches. They are moving into their summer plumage, though the one in the middle looked to be lagging behind, still sporting his white winter cap. 

Oystercatchers usually overwinter at the coast and some move inland to breed. They are distinctive, with their orange-red bills and legs and stark black and white plumage. (Though it took me a good half-hour to remember what they're called. My aging brain!) I gather that curlews are returning to breed too, though I didn't see any. They tend to prefer the higher moorland, away from the river. 

A flash of white and a bobbing movement on the rocks in the river alerted me to this dipper. S/he was almost too far away to get a good shot through my camera lens.  

Then I started to enjoy the water itself: the swirling currents, the bright leaves caught on the rocks, the dreamlike reflections...

 

Barden Tower

At Barden Bridge I took a slight detour up the hill to revisit Barden Tower. It has quite a history. It was once a medieval hunting lodge, rebuilt in the late 15th century by Henry Clifford, 'the Shepherd Lord', who preferred to live here rather than in Skipton Castle. He also built the neighbouring chapel and Priests House (see my 4th photo). 

After his death in 1523, it was neglected and rarely used. In the mid 1600s the buildings were restored by Lady Anne Clifford, then once again became derelict, stripped of its lead and roof timbers by the 1800s. The tower itself is now a ruin, simply maintained for safety reasons. You can't go inside it, though you can see into the interior, where fireplaces hang halfway up the walls, the floors having fallen away. 

The Priests House and chapel are kept in better repair, now used for weddings and functions. (See HERE) 

On the tower, above the main door, is a plaque commemorating its restoration by Lady Anne Clifford, helpfully translated, though not entirely accurately, on another adjacent sign. She appears to have been fond of the place, perhaps because it gave shelter to her mother when she was pregnant with Lady Anne, who was eventually born in Skipton Castle in 1589.

Isaiah 58:12 says: 

'Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.'