Dockfield to Field Locks

Another bright day persuaded me out to explore some more of the local canal towpath, taking photos for the mono project I'm doing with some of our camera club members. I tend to prefer the photos in colour, especially now the spring blossom is starting to flower. I felt like I got the shots I wanted, anyway, both in colour and mono, so it was a useful excursion. 

Rather than walk the whole way from Saltaire, which would have been an eight mile round trip, I decided I'd park the car at Dockfield. Here, on the eastern edge of Shipley, a few industrial units and a newish housing estate, built on on a brownfield site, lead the way to the railway bridge (the Bradford to Ilkley line). 

Once under the bridge, the scenery becomes more rural, though the looping wires and electricity pylons are a reminder that you're not far from suburbia. Gorse and blackthorn shrubs were full of blossom. The canal here was built along the valley side, above the level of the river which runs in the valley bottom. The railings in my photo below enclose an overflow drain that, if necessary, would discharge water down into the river. On the other side of the canal, the noise of a train was a reminder that the railway also follows the contours of the valley side on its way to Leeds. 

Eventually you arrive at the swing bridge that takes Buck Mill Lane from Idle and Thackley down to Baildon. This is an ancient route that used to involve a ford and stepping stones over the River Aire adjacent to Buck Mill, a corn mill dating back to the 13th century. The construction of the canal in the 1770s required a bridge to allow traffic to continue to use the lane. Eventually, in 1889, an iron footbridge was constructed over the river too, to make the whole lane safer. 

Beyond the swing bridge, the canal loops round in a rather more attractive stretch through Buck Wood. Meanwhile, the railway disappears into a long tunnel, Thackley Tunnel, reappearing at Apperley Bridge.