Milner Field walk, part 2

As I said yesterday, there's little left of the once grand Milner Field mansion, former home of Titus Salt Junior. There are, however, two gatehouses remaining, one at the bottom of the carriage drive and one at the top. Both are still lived in, though I'm not sure how comfortable they must be. They echo the mansion's heavy, solid Victorian Gothic style and must be very dark inside. 

Down the lane, on the edge of the Milner Field estate, Milner Field Farm also still exists and that too has a small gatehouse (below).  The farm was the Home Farm for the estate, supplying its meat, dairy produce and vegetables. There are traces of a huge walled garden. The farm still has a dairy herd and sells milk. 

From the gateway, there's a nice view over the Aire valley. 

Just below the farm, I turned down a narrow track, which must have been used for decades and is worn into a holloway (a sunken lane).

The track has probably existed at least since the canal was built in the 1770s, and probably even before that. 

You can see Dowley Gap Locks across the field, and the track ends at the changeline bridge, which I always think is a pretty spot, despite its proximity to the sewage works (just visible in middle distance to the left, below). 

Form here it was easy walk back to Saltaire along the canal towpath, a very familiar route. 

A threshold

Milner Field walk, part 1

So, the 1st of September arrived... the threshold of a new season, as we tip over into meteorological autumn. It has looked like the approach of autumn for a week or two, as the dry weather seems to have speeded up the fruiting of hedgerows and yellowing of the foliage. September 1st was, however, a lovely day and still had a summery feel with a pleasantly warm temperature, despite a stiff breeze blowing. 

I decided on a brisk walk up to Milner Field, a route I haven't taken for a while. I bumped into two of my neighbours on the way - a couple of brief but friendly chats to start me off on the right foot (as they say!) 

I crossed the canal (above) at Hirst Wood swing bridge and was attracted by the two bursts of red: the boat and the lady's jacket (with matching walking sticks, how stylish).

Next, I crossed the river and walked round to the weir that once powered the adjacent mill. The river is still quite low, though we'd had a bit of rain in the past few days. The weir now has opportunistic shrubs growing in the middle! I don't suppose they'll hold on once the winter flow builds up. 

Then up the hill to follow the carriage drive that goes through the woods to Milner Field. In parts it is now barely wide enough to allow the horse-drawn carriages that once conveyed gentry (including, in 1882, the then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII) up to Titus Salt Junior's mansion. Not that that bothers today's users, mostly dog-walkers. I passed one chap walking nine big dogs. Thankfully, apart from one (presumably his own pet), they were all on leads. It seemed a lot for one man to handle but apparently there is no legal limit to the number that can be walked. 

There are huge trees toppled over here too, as everywhere. 

The imposing Milner Field mansion was once somewhere in the woods to the right of my photo below. You can still find traces of it if you root around, though it was left empty from the late 1920s. No-one would then buy it, as it had a macabre reputation due to the series of tragedies and early deaths that beset all its previous owners. It was mostly demolished in the 1950s. Read about its history HERE. 

Along the canal

I always find plenty of things to interest me on a waterside walk. I feel fortunate to live close to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal so that I can access it as often as I want. The scene above, where the changeline bridge crosses at Dowley Gap, is in my opinion one of the more attractive stretches of the local canal. That boat has been moored there for so long that it is now almost completely hemmed in by arrowhead weeds.

There was a widebeam boat negotiating the locks at Dowley Gap. It was in the lower of the two locks, waiting for the water level to fall so it could progress on to Saltaire. That meant I could get a 'bird's eye view' from the walkway across the middle of the locks. There were several boats on the move. The drought has caused restrictions along the canal with many locks closed. It seemed that the Five and Three Rise locks in Bingley had been briefly opened to traffic that morning, letting quite a queue of boats through. 

It was near here that I'd seen a kingfisher in the spring, but the foliage has grown so much now that I couldn't see any perches where one might sit. I did, however, see quite a nice painting of one on the side of a boat! 

The bridge above is the one beside The Fisherman's pub, heading towards Bingley. There are moorings here and usually quite a few boats to be seen. 

I very much enjoyed the lyrical curves of a porthole and the marks where a muddy rope had hit the side of this dark blue boat. There's beauty everywhere if you look for it. 

Casualty

I set off to walk to Bingley along the canal towpath and I hadn't gone far when I came across this big tree branch lying across the path. Thankfully you could climb over it, so it wasn't a complete blockage, though people on bikes were having a bit of difficulty getting across and I wouldn't have liked to try and lift a child in a pushchair over it. Thankfully too, there was no-one trapped underneath it! I've never witnessed a tree actually falling so I have no idea how quickly it happens or with what noise. Would you have time to jump out of the way? You do hear of people killed by falling trees. It's a scary thought that you could be hurt just walking along through the woods or on the canal or riverside. The scar on the tree itself suggests that the limb was hollow inside. It does seem to me that there are many more fallen trees and branches around lately and I guess it has a lot to do with the stress that nature is under these days, with climate change, heatwaves, drought and then very wet winters. 

An evening stroll

The evening light along the canal was rather gorgeous. It makes the honey-coloured stone of the mills glow softly. There's a lot of weed in the navigation but it doesn't seem to be stopping the boats (though I think many of the locks have also been closed due to low water, which does stop the boats.) There were a couple of quite smart wide-beam boats moored beside Salts Mill. One of them had a good crop of tomatoes and herbs in pots, which made an attractive 'still life'. 

I also enjoyed the random 'still life' compositions to be found among the detritus floating in the water. 

There are quite a few white feathers, presumably from these young swans who seem lately to have settled along this stretch of water. There are three near the mills and three further up, nearer to Hirst Lock, though I've occasionally seen them all together. I guess they are all from one family.

An award winning garden

On the canalside between Saltaire and Shipley there's a historic, Grade II listed, cluster of stone cottages called Jane Hills, built in stages between 1796 and the mid 1800s. One of them has a very tiny garden, but it is lovingly crammed with beautiful plants by its owner Kamal Hussain. Last year it was a finalist in the Garden of the Year awards and it won the BBC Gardeners World 'Gardens of the Year 2024 - People's Choice Award'. Despite the dry summer we've had, it is once again vibrant and interesting this year, with a huge variety of colourful plants. Kamal says he is inspired by David Hockney's use of colour. It also smells divine, with the fragrance of honeysuckle and jasmine wafting over the canal towpath as you pass by.  What a feast for the senses!

 

The puddles are back!

Much to everyone's relief, we began to get a few rain showers from mid August, after a couple of very dry months. The heaviest were mostly overnight but, one afternoon, I was about to set off for a walk when the sky clouded over and the drizzle began. I had to wait until after dinner to get my walk. In the end that turned out to be quite pleasant. It wasn't cold, yet there weren't many people about and the light was quite nice. I only had my ancient phone with me so the photos I took are not the best, though I was attracted to the reflections in the puddles. It's a long time since we had those! 

One patch right beside the canal made a bit of a puddle puzzle picture! 

Skipton Pride

One recent weekend, I decided to go to Skipton as I needed to restock on the very expensive eye drops I have to use. My optician sells them more cheaply than I can source them elsewhere. I chose to go on the train as Skipton has a market on Saturdays so it's always busy. Boy, was I glad I did! The town was absolutely heaving with people - and cars. 

I had not realised it was Skipton Pride Day so the central car park was given over to a festival (meaning there were even fewer parking spaces than usual). I didn't wander round the stalls but there was a music stage and a small funfair. 

It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny without being too hot or humid. That brings the crowds out anyway. The pubs were busy and there was long queue for rides on the trip boat on the canal. 

It was all rather nice, a good atmosphere with people enjoying themselves. I bought my eye drops - and a long, swishy skirt that will do nicely if we have any more hot weather (and whose purchase will probably ensure that we don’t!)

Keep smiling

Another heatwave, our fifth this summer! To be fair, it's not been as hot in Yorkshire and the North as further south, where it reached 38.1°C/100.5°F.  It's been plenty hot enough for me though. I don't cope well with sun and high temperatures, being a fair skinned, once upon a time redhead. It's taken me years to understand that I need to drink water all the time once it gets into the high 20sC, otherwise I start feeling headachy and nauseous. I missed the window of opportunity to buy a portable air conditioning unit for my apartment in the spring and everywhere quickly sold out. So I've been having to be ingenious with window screens and fans. 

In an effort not to stagnate all day in the semi-darkness (!) I've been getting up a bit earlier and going out for an early morning walk, along with the joggers and dog-walkers. It can be quite pleasant. There's an anticipatory stillness in the air at the start of a hot day, as though everything is waiting...

'Keep smiling' seemed to sum up my mood! 😬 And what more guaranteed to raise a smile than a row of sunflowers in a neighbour's garden, albeit even they are looking a bit parched and droopy. 

Thankfully the temperature has now dropped a bit, though still no sign of the rain that we desperately need.

Leeds canal walk

It was a pleasant walk in the sunshine back to Leeds rail station, along the towpath of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. There are numerous bridges and it's all quite green and leafy, with waterlilies on the surface. 

A section sandwiched between the canal and river has been made into an urban park, quite untamed and full of wildflowers and butterflies. 

Graffiti 'artists'/hooligans (depending on your viewpoint!) have run amok. One wonders how they have managed to access some of the more out of the way stretches, like the wall below tightly sandwiched between the canal and rail lines.  And still more high-rise blocks are under construction. 

Here and there, reminders of the industrial past of this area have been retained. The Italianate tower (below), built in 1866 and modelled on the Torre dei Lamberti in Verona, was a dust extractor for the Tower Works, operational from 1864 until 1981, which made steel pins for carding and combing in the textile industry. 

Eventually the canal arrives at its Leeds endpoint, Granary Wharf (the name being no doubt a bit of a giveaway as to what used to be situated here). In the distance in my photo below you can see the lock that releases it into the River Aire, which becomes navigable from here through the centre of the city to the Leeds Dock marina and then into the Aire and Calder Navigation. 

Monk Bridge Viaduct

Just south of the Wellington Place development (see yesterday), what's left of the disused railway viaduct has recently been reopened as a pedestrian walkway and urban garden, linking the office development with residential areas south of the river. 

The grade two-listed Monk Bridge Viaduct was built around 1846 as part of the new railway network being constructed in the Wellington Street area of Leeds. It became an important part of Leeds Central Station which was completed in 1857, carrying high level lines to the station and connecting to the lifting tower which still stands on the Wellington Place development today.

It still spans the Leeds-Liverpool Canal as that winds its way into the city:

as well as the River Aire which runs alongside the canal: 

The old trackway has been made into an urban park, quite attractive though I'm not sure I'd want to be wandering around there at dusk.