20 Flowers For 2025

There's a new Hockney exhibition just opened in Salts Mill. '20 Flowers For 2025 And Some Bigger Pictures' is a contribution of Bradford-born artist David Hockney, and Salts Mill, towards Bradford's City of Culture 2025. 

As exhibitions go, it's not one of his most amazing. (Little could top the previously displayed 'Arrival of Spring', for me at any rate.) It consists of twenty iPad drawings of flowers, plus a few other paintings made from his home in Normandy. Nevertheless, it's worth seeing - and where else in the world could I just walk into such an exhibition, on my doorstep, completely for free? I feel so fortunate. 

The image I like best is the one (above, with detail below) of Hockney looking at the flower paintings. It's a photograph but, such is Hockney's playful and curious nature, even in his late 80s, that he has shown himself seated twice in the image and the rest of it consists, effectively, of a collage of other photos. 

He says of it: 'This is photographic but it is in no way an ordinary photograph... Ironically, the only things not photographed in this picture are the flowers themselves. The objects on the floor are all photographed in 3D, one walks round the object and then the computer makes an image that can be turned any way you want. This is why I called them photographic drawings. You can place them anywhere in the picture, so I think it's a new kind of photography that avoids perspective. I am continuing with this research.' 

That's why I love this man's mind. From his fairly early photographic 'joiner' pictures to his use of an iPad for painting, he is continually thinking about and playing with concepts of time, space and perspective. Fascinating. 

Even though it was the opening day of the exhibition, there were quite a few visitors to the gallery. 

I enjoyed the broad view and then looking closely at the details of each picture - how he paints glass and how he has found at least twenty different ways to depict a checked tablecloth. 

More winter trees

Walking from home involves either a steep walk downhill, towards Saltaire village, the canal and river, followed of course by a steep trudge uphill on the way back - or vice versa. Arguably it's easier to do the steep climb uphill at the beginning when my legs are fresh, so it's a pity really that that is my slightly less preferred route. It takes me up into Northcliffe Park, a large area of land donated to the people of Shipley by Sir Norman Rae in 1920. It is lovely really. Much larger, less formal and more varied than Saltaire's Roberts Park, it has an extensive meadow, woodland and recreation areas. At this time of year though, the meadow is boggy, forcing me to stick to the paths, and there is little to see along the paths other than trees, grass and sky. 

I like it when I'm in a certain mood, when the sun is shining and the sky is blue and I feel like a taste of freedom. It's expansive, somehow. It doesn't feel like 'home' to me though, not in the way that walking through Saltaire and along the canal or river feels. Additionally, there is a much more limited choice of route, just three or four paths all going much the same way - boggy meadow, tarmac path, muddy woodland or down through the wood in the steep and dark ravine. And there are so many dogs, off the lead. Some are a bit scary, I find. Dogs in Saltaire, more often than not, are on a lead. 

Oddly, it bothers me that there are also no coffee shops in the park. I rarely actually buy myself a coffee when I'm out on my own... but it always feels good to have the possibility there. 

Still, about once a month I'll take the uphill route and mostly I will enjoy the walk. Northcliffe does hold one of my favourite winter trees, the one in the photo above, which I like for its graceful arc of a trunk. It looks to me like it's dancing. 

Keeping an eye on things

Every now and again, if I'm in Shipley on an errand, I'll walk the long, 'scenic' route home, along the canal and up through Saltaire village. It enables me to keep an eye on what's happening on the site of my old workplace, where they have demolished all the buildings and are supposed to be preparing the ground in order to build a large new 'village' of housing. Last time I walked by, before Christmas, there were big diggers on site, apparently starting to fill in the huge hole that was the basement and foundations of the office block. This time... no diggers or anything. It's all just come to a halt. A chap walking past saw me looking through the fence. He said he lived nearby and he reckons the contractors have gone bust. He said the demolition took longer and was more difficult than expected. Of course, that may just be speculation but it does seem odd that, on such a valuable site, work is not continuing. Let's hope it does not become the equivalent of Bradford's former 'hole in the ground', where the Broadway shopping centre now stands. That stood empty for ten years due to economic downturn and failure by the developers to make progress. 

A closer look

I was out with my camera looking for inspiration - and specifically seeking 'minimalist' images for an upcoming competition at my camera club. I trained my long lens on the dome of Saltaire's church tower. Now, I'm not sure this could qualify as 'minimalist' by any stretch, but it did reveal details you're hard-pressed to see with your eye, from the ground. It's rather lovely, isn't it?

Textural

In winter, beauty is as much about texture as colour. The little stream that runs through Harlow Carr Gardens, often almost dry, was, naturally, full of water after the snow. It was cascading over the small rock ledges rather prettily. The textures change from the smooth, shiny pools that catch the light, through the ribbons tumbling down in the cascades to the bubbles swirling around at their base. 

Dead seed heads looked like spun silk with the light behind them. A wall covered with ivy was enlivened by the strong shadows. In winter gardens there's 'not much to see' but plenty to find if you look closely. 

A winter colour fest

Even at the lowest ebb of winter, Harlow Carr Gardens has welcome pops of colour here and there. The red table and chairs are now a bit faded, but still demand a photo. I enjoyed the adjacent planting of (what I think is) a variety of hebe with purplish tips (in the foreground of my photo) which echoed the warm theme. 

Any flowers that survived the weight of the snow (mainly hellebores) inevitably looked sad and bedraggled. Elsewhere, the kitchen garden showed the most colour, with a variety of ruby chard rather broken from the snow though its richly coloured stalks still glowed brightly. A similar purple hue shone from the plant below, which I guess is some sort of red kale. 

The little shrub (above) was just catching the light, its red twigs gleaming so brightly that it reminded me of that Bible passage about Moses and the Burning Bush.  

Of course, the dogwoods reliably bring colour to the Winter Borders. In certain lights they seem to spark like fireworks.  

 

The beauty of winter trees

Having been frustratingly confined indoors because of the weather, once the snow started to melt it was good to drive over to my 'happy place' at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens for a walk. The main woodland is on a north-east facing hillside that doesn't get much sun in the winter, so it was out of bounds and still covered with a layer of lingering snow. I was quite happy exploring the central areas, around the lake and streamside, and in the kitchen garden. 

It was the trees that really caught my eye. The little copse of young birches, recently planted by the lakeside, shows a great deal of photographic promise, though I have not yet nailed a composition or been blessed with the spectacular lighting that would most enhance it.   

The sky was a wonderful blue and the bare branches really stood out, sometimes catching the sun, sometimes in silhouette. 

The shape of the weeping tree (willow, birch?) seemed rather dramatic, looking like something that had just leaped out of the shadows with a roar. Gaaargh! 

Further along, a crow sat in a tree, making a very long, loud, chattering speech to nobody in particular. Maybe he was just enjoying the sunshine too.

Winterlight

Same old scenes but a rather magical winter light gave them a pleasing quality I enjoyed.

Above, looking west along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal from the Victoria Road bridge. Unfortunately the garish ice cream boat/shop is a permanent fixture these days. At one time they used to take it away during the winter when it's closed. 

Below, Saltaire's URC church (which, as Barbara noted the other day, has a lot more behind the tower than you might think from its front view.)

And bottom photo, looking east along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal from the Victoria Road bridge, between Salts Mill on the right and the New Mill on the left.)

'Mills Transformed'

Following on from my little 'history of wool textiles' series, I managed to catch an exhibition I've been meaning to see for a while at Bradford's Industrial Museum. (It closes on 2 February.) Called 'Mills Transformed', it's a project by photographer Neil Horsley to document the many former textile mills that still survive in our landscape, in particular to explore how they have been transformed and repurposed in a variety of ways. He says: 'Across the north of England mills dominate skylines and define communities. Mills are as an important a part of our national heritage as churches, cathedrals and country houses. Local people often have an emotional bond to mills as nostalgic connections to their childhood, places where members of their family once worked and monuments to long gone industries and trades.'

It's true that they are everywhere, in our towns and in our rural valleys, and so much part of the scene that it's easy to overlook them, ignoring both their rugged grandeur and the part they've played in our history. Those that have been repurposed range from the hugely significant - my local Salts Mill being at the forefront - to the relatively mundane: small mills that have been revamped as residential units. 

Most of those pictured were familiar to me. Some, like those in my first photo, are still falling into dereliction and awaiting their various owners' ingenuity, money and persistence if they are to be saved. From L to R: Dalton Mills in Keighley, Midland Mills in Bradford and Temple Works, a former flax mill in Leeds. 

The second photo shows Bents Mill at Hallas Bridge and Old Town (Mitchell) Mill at Pecket Well, both residential conversions. 

The third image shows Legrams Mill, now student accommodation, and Douglas Mill, now a school, Dixons Sixth Form Academy. Both are in Bradford.  

I found the exhibition very interesting, reminding me of the gritty beauty of these buildings and the fascinating heritage we have access to. 

There's a comprehensive website on Neil's project HERE and a book about to be published. I might be persuaded to treat myself! It would provide me with some inspiration for a few more exploratory adventures. 

Edit: I did treat myself to the book, a signed copy from Salts Mill bookshop. The photos are wonderful and the text most readable and highly educative. For example, I have learned that the term 'family heirloom' derives from the practice of families passing on their most valuable possession - their weaving loom - to their descendants. Neil is, apparently, a member of Bingley Camera Club. He must be pleased with his new publication, the product of what must have been hours and hours of work, planning, research, organising, interviewing people, in addition to the actual photography. (I did note a few small errors - like 'overlockers' houses' in Saltaire that should read 'overlookers' ie: the mill's foremen.)  I highly recommend the book, especially to local folk interested in our heritage. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #9

 

Burling & mending:

The final stage of the worsted manufacturing process was burling and mending. This involved highly skilled workers inspecting the finished cloth by sight and feel, for imperfections and knots. These were then teased out and invisibly mended, to leave a perfect length of cloth. This photograph, hung on the wall of Bradford's Industrial Museum, captures the process - and the concentration required - very well.

It reminds me of when I was first a student at Bradford University in the early 1970s. I rented a room high in the attic of a house in Bradford. From my window I could look down into a room in the building across the road where workers sat with huge rolls of cloth. Not being from this area, I was rather puzzled - until a fellow student, Bradford born and bred, explained that the workers were highly skilled burlers and menders in the textile industry, which in those days still survived as a major business in the area.

HERE  is a photo of the Burling and Mending Shed at Salts Mill. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #8

Weaving:

Once the yarn was spun it was woven into a fine, wool worsted cloth, used for suiting and other clothing. The quality of worsted produced by Saltaire's Salts Mill, especially that made with mohair and alpaca as part of the mix, was highly regarded. It had a cotton weft and was fine and lustrous, which made it very suitable for the crinoline dresses that were popular with Victorian ladies. It is said that Queen Victoria, who kept two alpacas in Windsor Great Park, sent their wool to Salts to be made into cloth for her dresses.

Some of the cloth made was kept in the natural shades of the wool, and the various different wools twisted together gave pleasing variations. But there was also a dye-house in Salts Mill where cloth (and probably yarn, I don't know) was dyed to order, before being dried, pressed and packaged ready for despatch to the customer. It seems the dye-house had a particularly unhealthy atmosphere and was a dangerous place to work.

Seeking escape

Gosh, it's really not the weather for outdoor photography at the moment. It's not so much the damp as the fact that there is just no 'light' at all. Bad weather can be atmospheric but drizzly, dark days with not much wind are neither one thing nor another. It's not stopping me going out, but it is militating against interesting photos. I went with a friend to Bolton Abbey and we had a walk upriver to the Strid (above), the point where the Wharfe plunges into a narrow chasm. Despite the recent snow, there has not been much rain so the river level was very low and the - often thrillingly turbulent - Strid was ... well, pretty boring really! 

I didn't find much to point my camera at. Not that it mattered, as we were chatting away and not always focusing on the scenery. My friend did point out a curious blemish on a tree trunk that we both agreed looked like a female figure... perhaps the Spirit of the Tree?

Or perhaps I could conjure up a line of dancing girls...! 

 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #7

Cogs and wheels:

These are the huge cogs and wheels on one end of a spinning machine. You can see from this how big an issue health and safety would have been in a Victorian mill. There don't appear to be any guards on the machinery. Workers, especially women and children, were frequently injured or killed by the machinery - hair, clothes and scarves got caught, fingers trapped and limbs crushed, and there were reports that some children - who worked long hours until factory reforms were eventually brought in - were scalped when they crawled under the machines or killed when they went to sleep and fell into the machinery.

Thankfully, Titus Salt was not at all uncaring about his workers. In 1868, he built Salts Hospital (see HERE) - originally as a two-storey building with a casualty ward for accidents at the mill. In time, this grew into a cottage hospital for the whole community. 

It's interesting to see that the manufacturer of the spinning machine in the photo was a company in Keighley (pronounced Keethley!), a few miles up the Aire Valley from Saltaire. When textile production in this area died out, it affected many more than those who actually worked in the textile mills themselves.

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #6

       

Spinning:

Spinning was the final stage in converting wool to worsted yarns which could be woven. The machines drew out the roving to its final thickness (count) and added twist for strength (just like a hand spinning wheel does). There are three main types of spinning machine (flyer, cap and ring) but they all work on similar principles and mainly differ in the way the twist is made and the yarn wound onto bobbins. 

When I think of a textile mill, I suppose it's the spinning machines that I imagine. They would have been tightly packed together and the noise from them would have been incredible. From the picture of the mill on the wall above, you can see how narrow the aisles between the machines were. I imagine that the children, for so long employed in these mills, would have been very useful - their smaller bodies would have more easily been able to move under and around the machines.

The industry gave rise to some wonderful names for the different trades. One of my favourites is a 'bobbin ligger' - the person who put the bobbins on the spinning frame that filled them with thread. The 'bobbin doffers' would take the full bobbins off the spinning machines.  

There are some of Ian Beesley's wonderful photos of people doing these jobs HERE. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #5

 

Bobbins:

Drawing was the process by which the combed 'tops' were gradually reduced from thick slivers of wool to a 'roving' from which yarn could be spun. The wool passed through a series of machines with rollers, each designed to play its part in the gradual drawing-out process. You can see the difference in the thickness of the wool between yesterday's top balls and the bobbins in this picture. To give some idea of scale, each of these bobbins is about a foot (30cm) high. (Isn't 'bobbins' a lovely word..?) But the wool is still way too thick for weaving and has no twist to make it strong.

The world in a muddy puddle

Rapid snow melt leaves everywhere looking so mucky and muddy. It also leads to a lot of puddles, to be hopped over or splashed through depending on your personality (or perhaps age!) I'm glad I don't have a dog... every day must be a bath day after a walk in these conditions! I tried to capture Saltaire's church (and its Advent window, still illuminated) in the puddle on the cobbled drive but the pool wasn't really big enough to show very much of the church's reflection. I might have done better with my camera but I only had my phone. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #4

 

Top balls (!):

The next stage of the worsted manufacturing process was Top making or Finishing. The wool slivers were further treated to make them a uniform thickness and moisture was added to enhance the suppleness of the wool. The Top ball produced was the woolcomber's finished product and the Tops could be packed and transported like this. 

Many of the textile mills in Bradford specialised in just part of the overall manufacturing process - woolcombers or spinners; whereas Salts Mill was such a huge enterprise that it saw the complete process through from end to end - from raw wool to the finished worsted cloth. 

That had been Sir Titus Salt's vision for Salt's Mill and village, to concentrate all the processes from his various mills in Bradford into one enormous factory. He bought the land, on a greenfield site well away from the filth of disease-ridden central Bradford, and, in the 1850s, set about creating a much healthier place for his employees to live and work. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #3

The Noble Comb:

The sorted wool was scoured and washed to get rid of dirt and impurities. It was then prepared (the equivalent of carding, which couldn't be used because it would break the long fibres needed for fine worsted). By this means the fibres were disentangled and aligned more or less parallel, in long 'slivers' of wool. These were then ready for combing, a process which further straightened the fibres and sorted out the long ones (tops) used for worsted, from the short ones (noils) which couldn't be used. There were various types of combing machine. The one in my photo is called a Noble comb and Salts Mill would have had many of these.

Funnily enough, the Shipley pub where we sometimes used to have get-togethers from work is called The Noble Comb. Until I went to the museum, I hadn't realised where the name originated. I think there must be a lot of pubs in this area whose names relate to the wool industry. There is, of course, the famed Woolpack in the TV soap Emmerdale. (Maybe I'll go on a pub name hunt one day!)

When Salts Mill was opened in 1853, a grand banquet took place in the Combing Shed - there were over 3,500 guests, so you can imagine how big the room is. 

Snow melt

With temperatures jumping from below freezing to just under 10ºC (50ºF) virtually overnight, the snow melt came quickly. Hooray... at least in many ways. I made it to the supermarket on Monday to replenish my food stocks, though at that stage there was still plenty of snow and ice lying about. Even the supermarket car park was a bit tricky to negotiate in parts. By Tuesday morning, however, all the snow had virtually disappeared, a welcome, if rather surprising, sight when I opened my curtains. 

Rapid snow melt does, however, lead to rapid rises in river levels. The Aire was churning over Hirst Weir and just beginning to flood the riverside footpath. A couple walking ahead of me turned back, saying the path was underwater further along, at the bridge where a small stream joins. So I only ventured as far as the Rowing Club HQ. I think it will get worse before it gets better, though I don't think much rain is forecast. Snow melting off the fell sides in the Dales will no doubt make its way down to us in the next few days.