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. 

Taking the scenic route back home

From the top of Shipley Glen, I walked down through the woods where outcrops of millstone grit stud the valley side. The views over the Aire Valley from here are far reaching. At the top of Trench Meadows a huge tree has fallen, its bare branches looking like the ribcage of some mythical giant. 

I wandered down to Crag Hebble Dam, built in 1911 across the stream called Loadpit Beck to supply water to the dye works at Salts Mill.  It's a peaceful spot though, like many of our water courses, the dry summer has led to an overgrowth of algae that rather spoils the beauty. 

Another ancient bridleway links the mill dam with the Milner Field estate, once home to Titus Salt Junior. 

The boundary of the estate here is marked by a peculiar metal 'kissing gate', erected in 1872, known locally - for obvious reasons - as 'The Birdcage'. 

Another track leads along the estate's boundary to one of the two gatehouse lodges built for the mansion at Milner Field. The mansion itself was demolished but the gatehouses remain and give an indication of the heavy Victorian Gothic style of the original building. 

Again, good views from here looking out towards Shipley. (Saltaire is hidden, to the left.) The cows belong to Milner Field farm, once the home farm for Salt's estate, which still continues as a dairy farm. 

From the gatehouse, the broad straight drive back down to Saltaire is the Coach Road, once the main carriage drive up to Milner Field House. 

 

Betwixt and between

Frustratingly, there is a big hold-up in the legal processes for the purchase of my new flat, waiting for some information that I'm informed has not even been requested yet! (Not my solicitor's fault.) So it could be several weeks before I can move. Frankly it is 'doing my head in' as they say colloquially. I can't do anything to expedite it though, so I just have to chill. You'd think chilling would be effortless when the temperature outside hovers around 0°C but it ain't easy! 

At least we've had some drier and brighter weather. My favourite stretch of the canal looked beautiful the other day. They are about to close this length to do repairs and upgrade the towpath, so I'm making the most of it before it is barred. 

One of the little bridges over Load Pit Beck is more visible now the vegetation has died back. I'd not really noticed before that even this has been built with a Victorian Gothic arch, as was the style for all of the Milner Field estate. 

Further up the Coach Road, it almost looked spring-like with the sun coming through the trees. 

So here I am, betwixt and between in every way! Reaching for the light, like the new shoots that are just beginning to appear in my garden tubs. 

Sparable Lane

For once, a sunny, crisp Saturday! I decided to celebrate by going for a ramble and headed off along the Upper Coach Road. At the gateway to the Milner Field estate, the path branches and I took the right fork which winds its way up towards the village of Gilstead. It follows the boundary of the grand estate of Milner Field, which I've written about before: the huge mansion built by Titus Salt Junior around 1870 and now ruined and almost forgotten. See HERE.

At the 'birdcage gate' (see HERE) I followed the old pathway up towards Gilstead and then, on a whim, I decided to follow a path branching off to the left, noted as Sparable Lane. I've never tried this one before. 

I'm always fascinated by these ancient thoroughfares, dating back to the time before vehicular traffic led to our network of roads. When people walked or used horses, these paths connected village to village, farm and mill to market. A little research suggests that Sparable Lane existed before Titus Jnr built his grand house: 

"An article in the Leeds Mercury of 2nd November 1869 comments about the picturesque old hedges being removed and these quaint landmarks which rendered the district so rurally interesting being replaced by stone walls which ran through the meadows and up the hillsides. This is a direct reference to the new Milner Field being built by Titus Salt Jr. Also mentioned is a pathway to Gilstead which formerly opened onto the moor (referred to as "an odious snicket") being built between high walls. This is a direct reference to the adaptation of Sparable Lane as one of the natural boundaries to Milner Field Estate. The field walls and boundary walls to the Estate still exist, as do the kitchen garden walls." (From a Bingley Town Council document)

A stream had evidently been diverted into a culvert, maybe to supply the lake in the house's grounds. 

The 'odious snicket' wound its way between its walls along the Milner Field boundary. Parts of the path were quite hard going for me, as it was steep and uneven.  Recent wet weather had led to it being rather more of a stream than a path in parts.

This area, now fields, would have been the edge of the moor, looking towards the trees that line the steep sides of Shipley Glen. 

The route skirted the remains of what was Milner Field's kitchen garden (below), where vegetables for the house would have been grown. The Garden House is still here somewhere, hidden away behind walls but still used as a residence, I think. 

Eventually and rather abruptly I found myself at the end of Sparable Lane, where it joins the top of Primrose Lane. There is no pavement there so a car shot past my nose just as I got to the road. Luckily I'd paused, rather than stepping out into its path!

From there it is only a few hundred yards down the hill to the driveway to the Milner Field estate itself, where the very solid Victorian Gothic gatehouse, one of two remaining lodges, still stands. 

Then a pleasant if muddy saunter downhill brought me back to the Upper Coach Road. Almost 10000 steps and a new walking route discovered. 

Milner Field excavations

I've posted before about the 'lost house' at Milner Field, a grand Victorian mansion built in the 1870s as a family home for Titus Salt Jnr. (See HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.)  I'd read that over the past year or so a group of people had taken it upon themselves to start to excavate the site. I thought I'd go and look what they'd done. I've not been up there for over a year so I'd not seen any of their hard work - and wow, what a difference they've made. We can skirt around the knotty issue of whether they should be excavating at all... They maintain that the site is owned by a dormant company, is lying neglected and that it should be 'cared for' and rediscovered. Others perhaps disagree and think it should be explored only by professional archeologists or left alone to be reclaimed by nature as has been happening since most of it was demolished in the 1950s. Nevertheless, what has been uncovered is fascinating. 

Here are the remains of the grand arched entrance that led to the house from the carriage drive that comes up through the woods from Saltaire. The arch opened into a large courtyard in front of the main doorway to the house. Here, visitors would be helped from their carriages and welcomed into the house, before the horses were led away to be stabled. Visitors included, in 1882, Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. 

Much of the excavation work is taking place at the 'domestic' end of the house, where the kitchens and servants rooms were. Several staircases have been uncovered: 

 Fragments of floors: 

A fireplace and its yellow tiled hearth in the kitchen: 

At the other end of the house, the mosaic floor of the huge conservatory has been visible for years but has been cleared of weeds and swept, so that you can now see its outline much better. 

The long corridor - the orangery - between the house and the conservatory has been unearthed:

as has the doorway that led back into the main house: 

These steps were part of the garden, leading up to long-vanished lawns. In the intervening years trees have taken over the whole site, roots writhing through the old stonework. It's not clear what the plans are once all these areas have been uncovered. It is and remains quite a dangerous site, and the digging may well be leaving some of the trees in a more precarious position than when there was more soil to root into... Hopefully the vision for it is a long-term one and not just a whim that people will tire of once the initial excitement has passed.  

PS: Since I originally wrote this, I believe that the excavation work has been stopped. The local History Club were against it and it seems the landowners may have stepped in to halt the unauthorised work. 

Try Googling 'Milner Field' if you'd like more info and photos. There's quite a lot to see, plus some info on Wikipedia HERE. 

I'm adding this old photo of the house just for the record. It's possibly still copyright to somebody, though I think copyright runs out after 70 years and it is older than that. It's a well-known pic. You can see it was a very 'heavy-looking' house, in Victorian Gothic style. The domestic areas that are being excavated are to the right of this photo and the orangery leading to the conservatory is the bit on the far left. 

 

If stones could talk...

Here are a few more atmospheric images of the derelict mansion that was Milner Field, Titus Salt Jnr's house. For a brief note of its history, please see HERE. The lumps of masonry scattered among the trees are overgrown with moss and lichen but you can still see the detailing on some of the pieces. I think the chunk above may have been in the garden, perhaps a pedestal for a statue? 

There a several pieces that appear to have a gully in them (below), possibly part of the rainwater guttering system. 

It's really hard nowadays to see exactly where the house would have stood. There are piles of rubble from its demolition but, since the 1950s, trees have rapidly reclaimed the site. Some of them are barely rooted under the soil, seeming to have wrapped around the stone like tentacles, like the one in the photo below. 

The vast and empty conservatory floor is perhaps the most poignant part. You can see the outline of the floor plan and some of the remaining mosaic. Sad to think it was once a showpiece full of exotic ferns and plants, enjoyed by - among others - the then Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) and his wife on a royal visit in 1882 (when 'the conservatory was lighted with small coloured incandescent lamps, concealed among the foliage and had a lovely effect'.) It seems it was the done thing to invite the Prince's mistress, Lillie Langtry, too - otherwise the Prince might turn down the invitation!

However grand the house was in its heyday, it was really quite an ugly, heavy-looking building. Perhaps no great loss then. I much prefer the natural beauty now gracing the site. I loved noticing the tiny new leaves on this sycamore tree.