Thornton

Thornton, where the Brontë birthplace is situated, was once a separate village but is now a commuter suburb of Bradford, and in truth is a little run down in parts. Apart from the newly rescued and renovated parsonage where the Brontë sisters were born, perhaps its best known attraction is the collection of 19th century workers' cottages known as South Square, renovated in 1982 as a community arts centre with studios, a gallery and a café (above). 

Up on Market Street, quite near the Brontë birthplace, is the curiously shaped building known (for obvious reasons) as 'Coffin End'. This was once the Star Inn. One of its former landlords was transported to Australia for the crime of stealing ten shillings.

A signpost in the village points to various local places of interest, including the adjacent hamlets of Egypt and Moscow. Established in the early 19th century to house local stone quarry workers, their quirky international names were inspired by British military victories during the Napoleonic Wars. They are not far from the hamlet of Jerusalem and the Walls of Jericho, originally massive stone walls that held back the quarry spoil heaps. The walls have now been demolished for safety reasons but I remember them from my younger days - high, dark and forbidding. 

One of the nicest things, in my opinion, about Thornton is that it sits on the hillside overlooking Bradford dale, where streams come together to form Bradford Beck, a river which ultimately runs down to and under the city centre. There's a massive Victorian railway viaduct and far-reaching views from the village streets. 

Random notes from a walk

The view along the railway line towards Saltaire has been opened up quite a lot since Network Rail has been assiduously felling trees along the length of the line. I assume it is to prevent problems with fallen trees, and leaves on the rails in the autumn, though I did read that it was part of a programme to encourage lower shrub and hedge growth, which are apparently better as wildlife corridors. Who knows? I was a bit dismayed as the bare patches and stumps left behind currently look a bit unsightly but I suppose it will all recover somehow. I note that they have also removed the young birch tree that was growing through the parapet of the railway bridge. That did need doing, as it would soon have seriously destabilised the stonework.

Meanwhile, growth in our woodlands is unchecked. There are currently hundreds of celandines blooming. Their yellow, sunburst flowers look very pretty en masse. I almost like them as much as the bluebells that come later... and I especially like them when they're interspersed with wood anemones. 

There are a few early bluebells just beginning to unfurl on the south-facing banking alongside the river. These are always much earlier to flower than those in Hirst Woods, where it's more shaded. 

The old, repurposed boat by Hirst Locks is getting more fragile as time goes on, but when the spring flowers bloom it still looks quite attractive. 

Blue sky day

Another balmy blue sky day... Although I'd had appointments in the morning, I felt I needed to make the most of the warm sunshine, so in the afternoon I walked up the hill to Northcliffe Park. The view across to Baildon was a little hazy but you can just see the top of Salts Mill chimney jutting above the trees in the middle. That shows how Saltaire sits deep in the valley, down by the river. Once the trees have leaves it gets hidden altogether. 

This being a park rather than a completely natural area, there are daffodils in the woods. Quite pretty but they don't really fit in woodland, in my mind! 

I don't hear many birds (because of my deafness) but I have the Merlin app on my phone and I enjoy watching as it picks up and identifies the sounds around. It's not guaranteed to be 100% accurate but I think it's pretty good on the whole. It helps me to feel closer to nature and I can sometimes scan around and spot the little birds once I've been alerted to their presence. I could hear the wood-pigeons ('My toe hurts, Betty!') and the cawing of the crows. I also heard the woodpecker tapping. But the little birds are too shrill for me to pick up. 

At various points of my walk, as well as those listed above, the app picked up: Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Nuthatch, Song Thrush, Coal Tit, Goldfinch, Chiffchaff and Siskin - and I saw a few Magpies too. There are Jays in the woods - and sometimes Ring-Necked Parakeets too, though I wasn't alerted to either of those that day. It just goes to show how important these suburban green spaces are. Well done to the late Sir Norman Rae who, in 1920, gifted Northcliffe Park to the people of Shipley in perpetuity.  

Willow trees are among the first of our UK species to 'green up', though in reality that early colour is a strident acid yellow! Echoing the yellow, there were hosts of daffodils around the children's play area, as well as in the woods.

It was a 'good to be alive' kind of day. 

Whither the weather?

So far here in West Yorkshire we seem to have avoided the worst of the winter weather that other parts of the UK have suffered: snow, particularly in Scotland; wind and flooding in the South-West. It has certainly been damp and miserable but nothing terrible. It sometimes makes for interesting photos. I stopped at the top of High Bank Lane (aptly named!) to enjoy the storm clouds along the valley, looking towards Baildon Moor.  

Another morning, I drew back the curtains to discover thick fog outside. I had an appointment for a cut and blow-dry at a hair salon on Gordon Terrace. By the time I went out, the sun was breaking through and burning off the mist. I enjoyed how the light was catching the trees that grow on the waste ground (what was once a small quarry, I think) on the walk down. Despite my neatly coiffed (for once!) head, I decided on a walk before I returned home but, during the hour of my appointment, the fog had totally disappeared. It made for an enjoyable walk in the sunshine, which was actually remarkably warm for the time of year.  

A linear walk #4

Saltaire to Bingley Five-Rise Locks

Beyond Park Road, a short and rather boring stretch of canal between two high walls leads to the Three-Rise Locks, a staircase that lifts the canal about 29 feet. You can see from my photo that the approach has a sharper turn than it would have had when built in 1774, because the canal below the locks was moved over to the right (north east) from its original position to make room for the new road. On the left of the photo you can see a pedestrian bridge over the new road. 

Below, looking back from near the top of the lowest lock, you get a reasonable view of both the canal and the road, with Park Road bridge in the distance. 

Alongside the locks, a wall has been painted with a mural depicting various local places of interest along the canal. (It was an attempt to deter the frequent graffiti sprayed on the blank wall - and it appears to have worked.) 

Just above the locks, a swing bridge provides an access point to the canal towpath for pedestrians and cyclists. There's another mill conversion here, with flats and townhouses. 

Looking back towards Bingley town centre, the tower you can see in the middle (below), with a red structure at the top, was until 1972 Bingley's fire station, now a bar. 

Where am I?

If you're a regular reader of my blog and you don't know, then you haven't been paying attention! 

No prizes for guessing correctly... This is, of course, one of my happy places - the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey, the Duke of Devonshire's Yorkshire estate. Although it was threatening rain, I decided I'd make myself walk the circular route, past The Strid (which is usually as far as I get) and along to the aqueduct, returning on the other side of the river.  According to my phone app that's about four miles, with some quite steep ups and downs along the way. 

The grandly castellated aqueduct hides the pipe that carries water from reservoirs up in Nidderdale to the city of Bradford. It's a good place to cross the river if you don't want to walk all the way to Barden Bridge. 

There's a good view from the aqueduct. In the distance you can see Barden Tower, once a hunting lodge for the estate, dating back to the 15th century. 

From the high path on the far side of the river you get a good view down into The Strid, the famous chasm where the wide river suddenly narrows and deepens dramatically to pass through a rocky ravine. After a couple of days of rain, the water was churning through, quite unlike the slow flow I saw on my last two visits here. 

And so, back (in the drizzle which by now had set in) for a drink and a cherry bakewell tart (my favourite!) in the Cavendish Pavilion, before driving home. A good day out.

 

Wild Uplands #3

Here's my own 'take' on the 'Wild Uplands' above Haworth. Honestly, who needs artworks when you have all this beauty? There are layers and folds in the landscape, gradually assuming a purplish hue as the heather starts to bud. 

Tumbled chunks of gritstone lie in the hollows, felled by some unseen force. Ferns push their way resolutely upwards through the thin soil.

The moors that the Brontë sisters trod are gradually being tamed. The heather, once prevalent, is gradually dying back as grass, bracken and bilberries march across the land. 

In the far distance on the mid-right in the photo below, you can perhaps just discern the ruined farmhouse and the lone tree at Top Withens, reputedly an inspiration for Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights'. (See HERE for more detail.) 

Lower Laithe Reservoir (below), like all our watercourses, is somewhat low in water due to our very dry spring weather. 

As I was exploring, I stumbled - almost literally - across another artwork, this time rather older. It consisted of various embedded stones carved to look like books. It's entitled 'Literary Landscape' by Martin Heron and was installed in 2003. There are apparently ten of these sandstone carvings scattered across the moorland, the books not titled, but prompting us to recall our own favourite 'literary landscapes'. Gradually the moor is reclaiming them so they look 'planted' in the soil.  

Through the mill windows

Workers in the spinning sheds in Salts West Mill enjoyed far-reaching views, across the zig-zag of the roof of the combing shed, across the administrative block, with its little decorative arch (where I think the mill's bell once hung) and then through the trees (which I suppose were smaller and younger in the 19th century) that surround the church with its domed tower. 

Twisting slightly to look north, the view is dominated by the ornate chimney of the New Mill, modelled on the campanile of the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. Hope Hill and Baildon Moor rise behind. The New Mill is actually on the far side of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, which threads between the two mill buildings. The stone building in the middle ground was mainly warehousing, situated on the canalside so that goods could be taken on and off canal boats.  

Nowadays, we have the great pleasure of being able to view paintings by David Hockney (see HERE)  inside the spinning shed on this level, and then these beautiful views outside. 

16 thousand steps around Silsden

I had a bit of a mad day recently, having to take my car for its annual service and MOT. My garage is in Silsden, about a half hour drive from home. I got there fairly early and dropped the car off. Then went home again on the train... but the nearest rail station is a half hour walk from the garage. It's not an unpleasant walk, though the roads are busy. There's a lovely view along the River Aire, which here meanders lazily through a flood plain. It was a still day and the reflections in the water were lovely. Green shoots on the shrubs show that spring is here, though it was a cold day despite the sunshine. 

The view in the opposite direction isn't so lovely. Silsden has very recently been augmented by several massive new housing estates. This one is not only situated right in the flood plain, which doesn't seem very sensible, but also typifies those mass-produced little boxes that the large developers seem to like building. They are ostensibly 'detached houses' but there is barely room to thread a sheet of paper between them. I do wonder why they didn't just build a terraced row! 

Anyhow, later in the afternoon I set off back to collect the car, again using the train, but I was early so I had a walk around Silsden too. Then they informed me the car needed more work and they wanted to keep it overnight... so, I had another trudge back to the railway station. 16461 steps in total, that's just over 6 miles according to my phone app.  Good for my fitness anyway! 

Top of the world

If I walk up the hill to Northcliffe Park, rather than down the hill to Saltaire and Roberts Park, it's like being in a different world. In the top meadow, there are rolling grasslands and big wide skies. Walking in an easterly direction there are far-reaching views across the valley. There is more newly-installed gym equipment here. I wonder if anyone ever uses it? 

I stuck to the main path rather than descending through the wooded ravine. This was a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that the trees were very definitely starting to turn autumnal and, where there were wild roses, there are now bright rosehips. (Which reminded me that as a child we used to be given 'rosehip syrup', which I loved. I wonder if you can still buy it? I think it's a bit of a chore to make, needing straining carefully.) 

Victoria's views

Usually when I'm inside the Victoria Hall, my attention is focused on what is going on in the rooms, and I rarely have the chance simply to look through the windows. When you do look, wow! The Hall is centrally placed as the focal point in the village, a little up the hill from Salts Mill itself. Opposite is what was originally the Factory Schools, still used educationally by Shipley College. The view stretches well beyond Saltaire, up to the moors, and demonstrates why Sir Titus Salt chose this healthy, green space to build his new mill and workers' village, away from the poverty and filth of the city. 

Looking north, you can see across the rooftops the vast south frontage of Salt's Mill, opened in 1853. At the time it was the biggest and most advanced factory in the world, employing almost 4000 people to produce 27kms of woollen cloth every day. It contained the world's largest room, equivalent to 6.5 full-sized football pitches and had (has) a rainwater reservoir in the basement with a capacity of 2,273,045 litres. (I didn't know that before!) 

Looking northwest, one is struck by the distinctive architecture of the houses immediately outside, on the corner of Lockwood Street and Victoria Road, as well noticing the dome of the church tower in the distance. 

Blackshaw Head

If you follow the road up from my daughter's home to the west of Hebden Bridge you eventually, after much hair-raising climbing up steep, narrow lanes, arrive at the small village of Blackshaw Head. We went up there for their annual Village Fete at the end of August. (I'm a bit late with my posting!) 

The village has some 17th/18th century houses and farms (with a few more recently built). There's a Methodist Chapel built in 1815, that serves both as a place of worship and a community focus for the village. I occasionally used to take my youngest granddaughter to the playgroup here when I looked after her - and it was delightful; so welcoming and a real haven for lively children and tired mums/grans. The tea and cake was delicious! M used to be so tired afterwards that she'd sleep in the car on our way home. I sometimes used to drive miles so she could have a decent nap! 

The chapel itself, built in two tiers as was customary, isn't very big but is attractively panelled with large, light windows. It was set out with 'quiet spaces' for meditation and provided a peaceful haven away from the busy fete.  

This area consists of a high Pennine moorland plateau, cut through by deep valleys. (Hebden Bridge itself is right down in the bottom of the Calder valley). Blackshaw Head's elevation is over 1000ft (350m) above sea level, so there are panoramic views from here, looking around to the other villages and hamlets on the moorland. (The photo below is looking north towards Colden.) It is not far from the Pennine Way long distance footpath, which goes through Colden.