Wainsgate Chapel

Wainsgate Chapel is a former Baptist Chapel, perched on the hillside above Hebden Bridge in the hamlet of Old Town. It's a historic Grade II listed building, now used - imaginatively - as an arts centre: home to artists' studios, concerts, dance performances (about which there was recently a fascinating article in The Guardian HERE), film nights, markets and all sorts of other community events. (See HERE) They had an open day recently so I went along to explore it. 

It's a large chapel with lots of rooms above and behind too, presumably at one time housing a Sunday School. The first chapel here was built in 1750, during an exciting period of Evangelical Revival in the north of England. The present chapel dates to 1815, built to house a growing congregation. It was closed in 2001 and is now in the care of the Historic Chapels Trust. 

The Mitchell family, owners of the local woollen mill, were generous benefactors, presenting the alabaster pulpit in 1891. In front of this, under the floorboards, is a full-sized baptismal pool in which adult church members could be baptised by full immersion, as is the Baptist tradition.  

The Mitchell family also gave much of the stained glass, which is rather wonderful. I don't think many non-conformist chapels have much stained glass; I think it was considered too fancy. 

The windows in the Sunday School look out over fields, with beautiful views, and one of them has coloured glass too.  

The chapel itself has numbered box pews on the ground floor. In the entrance lobby there is a seating plan. Members of the congregation were expected to pay a pew rent and the plan shows who was allowed to sit where. 

If it was a rainy Sunday and you brought in a wet umbrella, there is a special rack in the entrance lobby where you could leave it:

There are some beautiful details like the amber glass door handles:

The chapel is now run by an enthusiastic group of local volunteers, and there are many projects being undertaken. The large graveyard is a wildlife sanctuary and there are plans for a 'Garden for Lost Workers', a national memorial to all those who have lost their lives at work. The existing graves are being mapped to tell the story of those interred here, and burials and the burial of ashes are still allowed, as the ground is unconsecrated, welcoming those of all religious and non-religious traditions to this peaceful place. 

Random things growing in odd places

Here are a few more photos from our outing to Leeds. I mentioned earlier that the Leeds-Liverpool Canal forms something of a greenway through the urban area. The photo above is a good example of how lush parts of it are. That view somehow reminded me of Boston's (USA) Public Garden, which is an oasis of green and water amidst the skyscrapers of the city. (Leeds, however, is not nearly as beautiful.) 

I was seeking out photographic subjects that could be linked - and 'random things growing in odd places' became something of a theme. 

I will no doubt go back another day to explore this area even further. There's plenty to see and I enjoyed wandering along the relatively peaceful towpath in the middle of the city, with traffic and trains and busy people all around the margins. 

Inspired by Monet?

Waterlilies on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in the centre of Leeds are not, I'm sure, as romantic as those in Monet's garden. Still, I was surprised to see how many there were. It's not something I'd really associate with an inner-city environment. I couldn't resist taking a few photos and, as with the mooring rings, making a little collage project out of them. 

'In a marshland amongst the crocodiles, there float beautiful water lilies! Even in the Hell, one can find the good and the beauty.' Mehmet Murat Ildan

Haha, well 'Hell' is a bit strong to tarnish Leeds with and I didn't spot any crocodiles but, even so, the lilies were unexpected. 

Mooring rings

On the Leeds outing with my camera club, I was consciously trying to find linked photos that I could display together, like mini-projects I suppose. It's too easy when there is a sizeable group to come back with much the same images as everyone else. Anyway, I do like finding the detail in a scene. Alongside the Leeds-Liverpool canal there is no shortage of these iron mooring rings and I enjoy the way they are all 'the same' and yet 'different' - different backgrounds, different ropes. 

Building Leeds

Wherever you look in Leeds there is building work going on, with numerous cranes along the skyline. It's the sign of a city that is prospering, I suppose. Our camera club outing was exploring the area behind the station and along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal as it winds its way to its terminus in the city centre dock area. It is a fascinating mix of old canalside warehouses, factories and mills with a huge amount of relatively recent construction too - offices and residential blocks. The canal forms a greenway through the urban sprawl. 

There has been some effort to preserve features of the older, more industrial past. This rather ornate 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. It's now dwarfed by the surrounding new office blocks built as part of the regeneration of the Holbeck Urban Village area. 

Bridgewater Place (below), an office and residential skyscraper that was completed in 2007, was the tallest building in Yorkshire at that time though now superseded by a block of student flats. It has been dogged by problems as it creates a 'wind microclimate' around it. A local man was killed in 2011 when a lorry, buffeted by the wind, overturned on him. Baffles have had to be constructed around the structure's base to mitigate the dangerous wind speeds and models for new skyscrapers in Leeds are now subjected to enhanced tests in wind tunnels. 

Leeds bright

I met up with friends from my camera club in Leeds and we had a mooch around the area behind the rail station and along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal where it terminates in the city. Somewhere at the back of the station there is this wall of colourful artwork. You really need people on photos like this, to make them original rather than just photos of someone else's work. There were few people about in this area though and I didn't want to lose my group by hanging around too long. 

The mural is called 'Here We Go Now' by an artist who calls herself Hixxy (Josephine Hicks). The whole thing is 50m long and can be seen in its entirety HERE. I thought it was really rather good and energising. 

Not far away, I came across this metal utility box that had been livened up with an explosion of colour. 

Leeds these days is quite bright! 

Bradford Grammar School art exhibition

There is an absolutely excellent art exhibition currently in the roof space in Salts Mills. It shows a large selection of work by students across the year groups at Bradford Grammar School. (Incidentally that is David Hockney's old school, so the art tradition clearly continues there). The work on display was interesting, innovative, original and executed to a very high standard. All of it was good and some of it was outstanding. I really enjoyed looking and will probably visit again before it closes (I think at the end of this month). 

Two pieces that particularly caught my eye were both sculptures. The one above by Khadija Desai was made of twisted books, painted and further embellished with a slice of painted oak. The one below, entitled 'Homeless' by (I think) Lara Speight, was powerful in the way it had caught the pose of both man and dog. There was a lot to see and take in, and I am sure I missed some gems in my first look around. I will return. Local peeps - I recommend it. 

Oblivious

It's a while since I went into Salts Mill and took any photos. Like the couple above, immersed in their own world, I can become oblivious to what's there. I try not to take it for granted. (People travel great distances to explore and enjoy the Mill and Saltaire.) After all, it really is a privilege to be surrounded by wonderful books, art materials and the hundreds of works of art by David Hockney displayed all over its walls.  

David Hockney is a Bradford lad, possibly the best known living artist in the world and a great friend of the late Jonathan Silver, who rescued the mill when the textile works closed. The 1853 Gallery (shown in these photos) has a permanent collection of his work, with his other exhibitions - 'The Arrival of Spring' and 'A Year in Normandie' - on other floors.  

It's somewhere I feel very peaceful and 'at home' - and, as I say, I do feel privileged to have it all on my doorstep. 

Playing again

Since I retired I have not walked this way home along the towpath nearly as frequently as I used to. It's still a lovely walk and I feel fortunate to have chances to enjoy its beauty, and the grandeur of these Victorian mills: Salts Mill on the left of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and the New Mill on the right. Despite it being school closing time, the towpath was relatively quiet. I noticed all the greenery on the canalside that was drastically cut back a while ago has regrown. I like the way it looks but it probably plays havoc with the buildings. 

It's a long time too since I 'played' with a photo and the processing apps on my iPad. This scene (originally taken on my phone) has been tinkered around with, using the overlays in an app called Distressed FX. Sometimes the added overlays look a bit much to my eye but in this case I think the textures do add quite a rich and pleasing quality to the image. 

In Nutclough Wood

Nutclough Wood sounds to me like something out of a Beatrix Potter book. It is rather attractive: a steep, wooded ravine only a short walk from Hebden Bridge town centre. ('Clough' means a gorge or ravine in these parts.) It always amazes me how such huge trees can cling to life on these precipitous valley sides. 

There is a mill in the town, Nutclough Mill, built in the 1700s, which became the first ever workers' co-operative when it was purchased in 1873 by the Hebden Bridge Fustian Manufacturing Society. Fustian is a type of sturdy, cotton corduroy cloth. In Nutclough Wood there is an overgrown pond that was once the mill dam. 'Friends of Nutclough Wood' has been set up to care for the woodland and they have a management plan which includes restoring the pond, improving the paths, placing seats and managing the woodland itself. Traces of the industrial past are there to be found, like these stone steps, part of a path perhaps used by workers on the way to the mill. 

Joy in the garden

'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' is the opening phrase of John Keats' poem 'Ode to Autumn', and wandering through the gardens at RHS Harlow Carr brought it to mind. There were all sorts of ornamental squashes. Those above almost looked like melons but I think they were some kind of marrow. 

A blackboard showed the huge list of things ready to be harvested, its accompanying display reminding me of the Harvest Festivals we used to have at school and at church. Nowadays fewer people have gardens growing such an array of produce and, anyway, we are asked for tinned and packet items for the foodbank. Gone are the days when the elderly of the parish used to receive a few carrots and an onion! 

Elsewhere, in the alpine house, specimens are displayed at their absolute best. With no pests to bother them, the tiny plants have perfect flowers, like this pretty yellow cluster. Sorry, I didn't write its name down. 

This one amused me, even more so when I saw what it's called: Oreocereous trollii or 'Old Man of the Andes'. (Isn't nature wonderful? There's such a glorious extravagance of different varieties of plants.)

Someone had given this little troll an autumnal crown - and that made me smile too. 

Lastly, a young tree standing on its own in the sweeping lawns was beginning to blush, wearing its own autumnal crown. The exact place I wanted to stand to take a photo was unfortunately right in the middle of a flowerbed - not recommended - so I had to settle for a closer view that meant part of the tree was against the sky.   

Herbaceousness

An early autumn visit to RHS Harlow Carr Gardens meant I could enjoy the herbaceous borders, which are full of rich colour at this time of year. I don't honestly know the names of most of the plants. There are lots of daisy-like flowers of one kind and another, set off nicely by swathes of soft grasses.

I loved these two plants in particular: (above) the coneflower (Echinacea), beginning to die back now but they make an interesting shape as the petals wither, and (below) the pretty pink and white frothy one, which I'm pretty sure is Oenothera lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies' (or Gaura lindheimeri). It does have a butterfly-like appearance. Here it was partnered with a vivid purple Michaelmas daisy (Aster). 

Sunday meditation: Homeless Jesus

Whilst in Manchester I came across this sculpture, known as 'Jesus the Homeless'. The sleeping figure on a bench, wrapped in a blanket, could be any person sleeping rough and at first glance looks very realistic. It's only as you get closer that you understand it is a sculpture. The wounds in the feet bring the realisation that it depicts the crucified Jesus. The artwork is by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz and is one of several installed in cities around the world. 

The Manchester version is sited outside St Ann's Church in the city centre, a church that has a ministry of outreach to those who find themselves homeless. Sadly, homelessness and food poverty are increasingly common and many agencies, churches and religious organisations put a lot of effort into supporting and caring for people through food banks, soup kitchens and other initiatives. 

'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  Matthew 25:35-40