Fanny's Ale House

Fanny's Ale House has long been a favourite watering hole with locals, serving a variety of cask and real ales. It was once a pet shop, and then the plan was apparently to open a fish and chip shop but it eventually became a pub. The previous owner had it for 20 years, during which time it expanded into several adjacent properties. Last year it was taken over by new owners, who moved the bar from its central position to a more sensible long bar down the left wall, but otherwise they have pledged to keep the features people have grown to love. I've only been in once or twice (I'm not a drinker) but it is often full and clearly popular. Inside it's fairly traditional with a warren of small rooms and open fires, very cosy in winter. When the weather warms up, people often sit outside and sometimes it seems like there's a bit of a party going on on the pavement! If you're hungry, you can always pop round for a Chinese takeaway from next door. 

Another classic car

I seem to be bumping into classic cars all over the place just lately. This rather wonderful machine was parked on Victoria Road in Saltaire, as I walked up from the park one day. I googled the number plate and it turns out to have quite a good story. It's a 1947 Riley RMA and its first registered owner was the legendary band leader Harry Mortimer, who started his career playing in brass bands and went on to play in orchestras, including the Hallé. He also worked for the BBC as Supervisor of Brass and Military Music and founded the programme 'Listen to the Band'. So, an illustrious start for the red car, which now belongs, I believe, to Andrew Greenhough. 

Indiana playtime

I was fascinated by the way the light and shade played out on Robert Indiana's brightly painted aluminium sculptures at YSP. I found myself drawn to making abstract photos and then I've processed them in different ways, even sometimes changing the colour balance. The square arrangement above started off as images taken from his Red, Blue, Green LOVE sculpture. The other three are abstracts from the One through Zero (The Ten Numbers) sequence. Wonderfully vibrant, aren't they? 

 

Robert Indiana

Robert Indiana (1928-2018) was an American artist associated with the pop art movement. There is a selection of his paintings and sculptures on show at present at YSP, tracing the development of his career across six decades of social and political change. Much of his work considered human rights issues and social justice, using letters, numbers and bright colour. His iconic work is 'LOVE'.  A version is perched on the hillside at YSP (see my last photo), and variations are also on display, like 'AMOR' above. The works are playful and arresting. Though not entirely my 'cup of tea' as art, nevertheless I enjoyed working out ways of photographing them, both as whole works and in abstraction. 

'Black Mound'

Here's another of the artworks that I enjoyed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP).  It is 'Black Mound' by David Nash, created in situ in 2013. It is made from coal and oak, charred black by carefully controlled burning.  The artist said of it:  'With wood sculpture one tends to see ‘wood’, a warm familiar material, before reading the form: wood first, form second. Charring radically changes this experience. The surface is transformed from a vegetable to a mineral – carbon – and one sees the form before the material.'

The more I looked, studied and photographed it, the more I appreciated it - the subtle black on black tones and textures, the relationship between the stumps and the spaces between and the way nature was encroaching and redefining the piece, slowly reclaiming it as her own. The bright yellow dandelion, a common weed, was showcased, becoming part of the sculpture, like a spark among the ashes. 

And just because I like playing, here's an abstract composition based on the image above:

Two Large Forms

This is one of my favourite Henry Moore sculptures, simply entitled Two Large Forms. (His titles were never the most imaginative!) A huge bronze, one of four casts of the 1969 sculpture, it sits in the Country Park at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), with sheep grazing around it. I love the patina it has developed over the years and I love the way it changes depending on the light and on where you stand in relation to it. Moore said he was influenced by the local landscape. (He was born in nearby Castleford). It is tempting to ascribe recognisable subjects to its simple but sensuous shapes and lines. Male and female? Bones and vertebrae? Who knows... but I defy anyone to look at them and not be drawn into exploring them visually and responding to them in some way. The two forms twine around each other, never quite touching. 

My own response this time was to home in on some of the sweeping lines and to enjoy the colouration of the piece, which has recently been returned to its beautiful outdoor setting after undergoing conservation work. 

I didn't take a photo of the work in its entirety this time so here's a picture I took in 2014, under different lighting conditions:

Where sheep may safely graze

One of the odd little 'positives' from the Covid pandemic is the sense of joyful return to some of the places that I love but could not visit during the lockdowns. The 'forbidden fruit' effect means an increased appreciation of the freedom and the abundance of loveliness amongst which I'm fortunate to live. It was with that in mind that a friend and I had a delightful day out at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) near Wakefield. 

A 500 acre country estate, formerly belonging to Bretton Hall, it has a large 1720 mansion that later became a teacher training college. There are rolling fields, lakes and woodland - miles of countryside to explore - as well as galleries and gardens, all full of sculpture and art. Pretty much all that you see in the photo below is part of it, although the Longside Gallery, which you can just see on the hillside in the distance, is currently closed. 

The various sculptures, some permanent and some visiting, somehow fit perfectly into the landscape. The sheep in the top photo are oblivious to the Corten steel 'Crate of Air' by Sean Scully, and others graze safely near Henry Moore's 'Large Totem Head'. The swan on her nest in the reeds (above) didn't know she was reflected in 'Gazing Ball' by Lucy & George Orta (also below), originally commissioned for an exhibition in the water gardens at Studley Royal. 

As you wander the estate, you might not even realise that the steps up through the bluebells are an artwork by David Nash: 'Seventy-One Steps', charred and oiled oak embedded in coal. Or that the bridge over the haha (hidden ditch) is a clever and functional sculpture by Brian Fell. 

Then there are the galleries to explore, architectural masterpieces in themselves. I love the play of light and shadow in the Underground Gallery. 

The more formal garden areas are lovely too, and I was thrilled to see the wisteria blossom tumbling down the wall outside the Underground Gallery.

There's more to see than can be done in a day, so I am glad to live within an hour's drive and to keep returning to the YSP. 

What's inside?

It's a familiar building that I've shown many times on my blog, situated on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal just outside Saltaire. This is Shipley Wharf, originally canalside warehouses and then converted into business units. It houses part of a business called Radio Design, which makes RF technology (don't really understand this!) - something to do with wireless communication. It also houses a restaurant, the Waterside Bistro. At one time there was a gym in the end unit, which closed in 2018. It has recently been imaginatively converted into small studios: Wharf Street Studios. The brainchild of a local furniture maker, James Whittam, he was seeking affordable premises for his own business and, upon finding the three storey space, realised it could become a hub for creative businesses and artists. 

Two floors have been imaginatively divided into wooden 'pods', which carve the space up flexibly without affecting the building's original structure, whilst the top floor is a meeting room and conference space. It has recently opened for business and within the premises I found jewellers, artists, a florist, textile designers, an upholsterer, a milliner, a newborn and family photographer, a ceramic designer and several others who were not open when I looked round. There's also a coffee shop, conveniently sited for both the businesses and passers-by to pop in. 

A jeweller's workshop (above) 

Abigayl Lily, floral design (Claire Moses) 

Salt Weave Studio, textile design and weaving (Rebecca Ough) :

Marns Makes, upholsterer (Alice Marns):

Karolinka Designs, jeweller - although I think the cards might have been by an artist friend sharing the display space: 

The conversion has retained some of the original winding gear that would have been used to lower goods onto canal barges. I just love it when people have such great ideas for respecting the heritage of our lovely old buildings - and in this case it is another advance in making Saltaire and Shipley a real centre for the creative arts. See HERE for a press feature about it. 

 

Woodland whispers

So, I went back to Hardcastle Crags on the camera club outing I was planning in March when I last posted photos from there. It was a delightful spring day, sunny and warm and everything looked very different from when I was there before. Gibson Mill hardly changes, of course. It's been like that since 1800, when it was built as a textile mill and then became an 'entertainment emporium' in the 1900s. Now it, and the surrounding area, is in the care of the National Trust. 

What has changed is the lushness of the woodland, with bright new leaves on the trees and a multitude of woodland plants and flowers in bloom. Bluebells and wild garlic predominate but there were others - tiny, pink, five-petalled stars that I have failed to identify; red campion; bistort; stitchwort; buttercups; dandelions and huge patches of something with grass / lily-like strap leaves that had already flowered and had delicate seedheads (near the top of the photo below). There were butterflies, among them sweet little orange-tips... though never as many as I recall from my younger days.   

My companions reported birdsong. Being deaf, I no longer hear the birds unfortunately but I did spot a grey heron on the hunt for a juicy frog or two. 

The ferns are unfurling. I love the fiddle-head appearance as they roll themselves outwards. I remember being fascinated by the complex life cycle of ferns when I studied them in biology at school. 

It's a pity blogs can't transmit scents as the woodland fragrances are rich and varied, and at this time of year the pungent scent of the wild garlic is memorable. 

It's a lovely walk down the streamside to Gibson Mill, where the café offers drinks and snacks and we (seven of us) were able to sit and chat. Beautiful place, good friends - what a blessing. 

The Humber Bridge

I've lived in Yorkshire for all these years and had never seen the famous Humber Bridge. I remedied that recently when I went to Hull. I made the lengthy journey mainly to see the annual exhibition of the federation of Yorkshire camera clubs, which was on display at Hull University and in which many of our club members had images accepted. A slight detour to view the bridge proved quite a pleasure. It's a lot more elegant and slender than I had expected. Sadly it was raining at the time so the sky was very dull but perhaps that shows the bridge off better... ?

The bridge spans the Humber estuary (into which both the River Ouse and River Trent flow) and joins north Lincolnshire with Yorkshire. It was opened in 1981 and the whole project, including the approach roads, took almost ten years to complete. For 16 years it held the record as the world's longest single-span suspension bridge. From the viewing area on the north side, where I stopped, it wasn't possible to get both towers in one shot.  

The mural (below) was near the building that houses the Humber Rescue boat. It made me smile. Humber Rescue is an independent charity that provides search and rescue services on what is one of the most unpredictable and treacherous stretches of water in the world, with strong currents and shifting sandbanks.