In the Kirkgate Centre

Back to my Bradford outing from a few weeks ago...  As shopping malls go, there's nothing really wrong with the Kirkgate Centre. I think it has just outlived its usefulness as shopping habits have changed, the population of Bradford gradually alters and the locus of the city centre has shifted south with the opening of the Broadway Centre. 

I'm not a big fan of these artificial environments, all shiny marble, glass and steel, with bright lights and recycled air. There's nothing that feels wholesome or natural about them. 

Setting the scene

Saltaire is often used as a film set and, when I was walking through the village recently, I saw preparations going on for the latest drama. Apparently various locations in the area have been chosen for making a film called 'The Choral', written by that national (and Yorkshire) treasure Alan Bennett. The story is about a choral group during the First World War, and the effects on the local community as the men leave to fight. Here, they were preparing a house on Helen Street for some filming inside, carrying in various pieces of furniture and artefacts. It must be quite a feat to film inside the tiny rooms in these terraced houses, but it has been done before. The lengths they go to, often for only a few minutes of film footage, are extraordinary. 

Our creative response

Layered history. 

River, water meadows, mills

Reclaimed by nature

'Walk and Draw' workshop, Elland (see previous two posts)  - After the guided walk, we went back to the coffee lounge, where there was a wonderful array of mostly natural materials to play with. There was charcoal to draw with and lovely paints made from onion skins (brownish), beetroot (reddish), turmeric (yellow) and red cabbage (blue/purple/pink), some of which changed colour if you added bicarbonate of soda, lemon juice or salt. I found all that rather fascinating. I'm increasingly interested in 'going natural' for cleaning materials so it was an extension of that really.  We were encouraged to make a response to what we'd seen and heard on the walk. 

Mine, above, was intended to be a stone wall overlaid by the course of the river and some of the nature I'd found on the way. The turmeric wash I used turned out too bright a yellow but never mind. I'm not at all 'artistic' or skilled in a drawing/painting way but I really enjoyed playing and wasn't inclined to be too self-critical. My daughter, on the other hand, has always been very artistic (she did Art at A-level) and produced a rather attractive grid, finding some beautiful colours and shapes.  

I'm much more comfortable with photography - and words to some extent - so the top collage (and haiku) is my usual style of response. I'll probably go back again to the photos I took and see what else I can create from them. 

Fighting back and hanging on

'Walk and Draw' workshop, Elland.  Observing nature on our walk, it's plain to see how strongly the green fights back, already repopulating what was, in the last two centuries, an increasingly heavily industrialised area. 

A broken fence tumbles down towards the river below...

A small gateway in a wall, probably well-used at one time, now almost overgrown... 

Some kind of creeper (last year's growth) tightly twisted around the uprights of a wire fence...

Valerian finding enough grip for roots atop an old mill wall...

Then there is the intricacy of nature's patterns to observe. I'm not sure what the plant above is, nestled in the bracken, but I loved its complex leaf structure, like a loosely packed cabbage.  And then of course there are the dandelion clocks (seedheads), ubiquitous but tiny works of art when studied closely. (So artistic that IKEA have a bestselling lampshade closely mirroring the structure!) 

Also ubiquitous, the Canada geese, intent on raising more even though they've effectively taken over many of our waterways at the expense of other waterbirds. 

My eye was also drawn to little vignettes of artistry - the unconscious marriage, in colour and shape, of elderberry (I think) leaves and graffiti.  Then, a graceful arc of decaying leaves caught in a fence, bleached of all colour and yet full of texture and 'story'.

Walk and Draw

My daughter invited me to accompany her on a 'Walk and Draw' workshop, part of a Hebden Bridge Arts project. I've never really done anything like that before and it was good to be pushed a little beyond my comfort zone. We met in a small group at Project Colt in Elland, alongside the River Calder. Project Colt, in a converted mill complex, is a charity that helps people with addictions to change their lives for good. There's a coffee bar there and a furniture and bric a brac store, whose profits support the charity. 

The first part of the workshop was a short guided walk along the River Calder and the adjacent Calder and Hebble Navigation, a waterway built in the 1700s to extend the routes in the area that were navigable by barges, necessary for trade. Our focus was exploring how the area has been shaped over the years by its industrial past and its impact on the environment. We started on Elland Bridge, built in the 1850s. (The pillared building on the far side was once a bank.)

Off then down Gas Works Lane - no explanation needed there, though the gas works have long since disappeared. Former mill buildings and wharf-side warehouses have been repurposed, many by innovative 'green energy' companies. If only stones could talk... those old stone setts that make up the roadway would have many stories to tell. 

Development continues, with the elegant bowed wall and the revealed tiled floor suggesting the former glory of whatever this building once was. 

A former sheep farming area, the success of the wool trade led to turnpike roads being built in the 18th century, followed by the canals and then the railway, both of which opened the way for the surge of industrialisation in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Eventually a coal-fired power station was built on nearby water meadows, to support the area's textile mills and other industries: coal mining, brick making, quarrying, engineering, sweet manufacture. These industries gradually declined. The power station was closed and demolished in the 1990s and is now an industrial estate. Factories are smaller, cleaner and much more high tech. The majority of goods are now moved by road (and to some extent rail) and sweeping road bridges carry traffic high over the canal and river.

Mills have been repurposed as residential apartments, as well as for business. There is layer upon layer of history and it was interesting to slow down and reflect, noticing too the way nature holds on and gradually reclaims the land, with or without human help. (An area that was once a quarry and ash tip for the power station is now a thriving and ecologically important nature reserve). 

Conversation pieces

No words

Man made

There are things you tend to take for granted, living here in Yorkshire, like the ubiquitous dry stone walls, made from whatever the local stone happens to be, and thus subtly different in different areas of the county. Carefully balanced by skilled wallers, often many generations ago, they mostly stand strong and proud, until tumbled by an over-enthusiastic animal or sometimes a clumsy human, a snaking tree root or a slight shift of ground destabilising things. We take them for granted and yet they can often tell you a lot about the area's history, hinting at long lost lanes and drover's routes, well-used tracks between villages and farms, pathways to work, to school, to church.  

There are squeeze stiles, designed to let people through but not animals (and generally not people with large backpacks, though, on the one above, the convenient tumbledown section solved that particular problem!). Occasionally one finds a mysterious 'standing stone' that on closer inspection turns out to be a gatepost, now marooned with neither gate nor wall but with indents that show where the rudimentary hinges once sat. 

All about the trees

There were sheep aplenty on my Blubberhouses walk but, for me, it was all about the trees. There were some beautiful specimens, though I struggled to identify most of them. New spring leaves are rather different from how they look once they mature, when I might have some chance of recognising them. Never mind, it was sufficient just to drink in all the fresh green and the wonderful branch structures, still visible through the new foliage.  

Different species produce their leaves at different rates and, although there were a few obviously lifeless trunks, it was surprising how many collapsed and apparently dead trees still managed to sprout foliage along some of their limbs.   

Sheep

My walk from Blubberhouses was enlivened by the many sheep and lambs in the meadows. I don't mind walking through fields of sheep (don't like cattle!) The lambs were both curious and a little spooked by humans in close proximity. They bleat - 'Mama, mama' - and dash for safety by their mother's flanks, then from that comforting place they peer out at this new world they have found themselves in. 

There were sheep in the church as well. In another small act of welcome, knitted sheep were hiding all over the place for children to discover. I might be grown-up but I too enjoyed seeking them out. Here's a selection. (I particularly like the one - top right - that manages to look like a cross between a sheep and an Orthodox priest!)  

Little church on a hill

I had the opportunity to call in the little church on the hill beside the car park at Blubberhouses, when I was walking in the area. I've often seen it and wondered what it was like inside. From the outside it reminds me of an Icelandic church, for some reason. The inside, however, is pure Anglican. It's full title is St Andrew's Church, Blubberhouses. It was built as a 'chapel of ease' in 1850 by Lady Frankland Russell, so that her estate workers didn't have to walk all the way to Fewston Parish Church to worship. For more detail of its history, see HERE. It was threatened with closure but in 2015 'Friends of Blubberhouses Church' was formed, dedicated to supporting, preserving and improving the church. They look to be doing a good job. It felt very welcoming. Astonishingly, there was an invitation to visitors to help yourself to a cup of tea or coffee - a kettle and mugs, teabags, coffee and dried milk all provided in the tiny kitchen. So we did, enjoying a very good Yorkshire cuppa, sitting in the sunshine on the bench outside the church. And yes, I washed up afterwards! 

The windows had a tracery pattern with tiny inset coloured panes, rather pretty, especially with the sunlight streaming in. I always love that. 

There was a little prayer tree where you could attach prayers and requests for prayer. The lectern bible was open at Job 16. With Donald Trump's trial going on in the US, it seemed an apt few verses! 

Just a note on the village name 'Blubberhouses'... It apparently derives from the Anglo-Saxon bluberhūs = "the house(s) which is/are at the bubbling stream". At one time there was lead mining in the area, and a flax mill. It's a tiny village now, with only about 40 inhabitants.

Finding peace

Unless you're going to visit Saltaire's church, there is little reason to wander down its drive and round the back of the building. Every time I do venture down there, I'm struck afresh by how peaceful it often is. It is bordered by the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and on the towpath at the far side it can be very busy, but among the trees in the church grounds there is tranquility and beauty. 

The Stable Block cottages, along the drive, have pretty gardens. If I came across this scene abroad I'd be charmed. It's easy to overlook what's under your own nose!