Salts Mill Christmas

I always enjoy a wander round Salt's Mill's galleries and shops and it is even more special just before Christmas. It has big, tastefully decorated Christmas trees - nothing tacky or overdone. At the weekends in December they have choirs or bands performing festive music in the 1853 Gallery, amongst the Hockney artworks, the books and art materials, and the precious Burmantofts pottery. When I was there, the Bradford Concert Band were playing, just a handful of musicians but in that vast, enclosed space the sound reverberates really strongly.  I was humming 'Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly' for hours afterwards! Fa la la la la la la la la!

Advent Windows #3

Sir Titus Salt, the Victorian founder of Saltaire, usually creeps in to the Advent references somewhere. His luxuriant beard makes him a dead ringer for Father Christmas, so why not? This was a window in a house on a narrow street in the heart of the village, where there are inevitably cars parked outside. The reflections of the lights in the car roof added even more sparkle to the scene. 

In the old Salts Hospital, now apartments, one of the residents, Lou, has taken up an ongoing theme of the Christmas song 'On the first day of Christmas'. Each year the next verse is depicted, but with a 'Veg on the Edge' (our community gardening group) twist. She says she only initially intended to do one verse of 'The Twelve Days of Vegmas' but people have made it clear they expect to see more! Seems like she's given herself a challenge for quite a few years to come. 

Advent Windows #2

Deceptively simple and actually quite clever, two creative displays that make good use of the multiple panes in the windows of our Grade II listed houses. 

Elizabeth, who made the display below, has gone for a Victorian theme, in keeping with the age of the surrounding village: 

Advent Windows #1

As is now the tradition, Saltaire's residents and businesses have gone all out this year to create 'Advent Windows' throughout the village. One or two are revealed every evening from the first of December until Christmas Eve, the period of Advent, to make our own village Advent Calendar. This started in 2006 and has become a much loved feature of Saltaire. I know many regular readers of this blog have come to love them as much as I do, so I shall of course show a selection again this year. 

My first choice has these two angels with doves, and bright stars in the sky. I think these vibrant, bold but essentially simple designs are usually the most successful - certainly the easiest for clear photos. Its creator, Natalie, says she is 'wishing for love and peace in the world'. Aren't we all? 

All the windows, as they are revealed, can be viewed on the Saltaire Inspired website HERE.

Mizzle

'Mizzle' was the best description for the weather on a recent short walk at Bolton Abbey. I found this helpful explainer: 'Mizzle' is not, exactly, the same as 'drizzle'. As the word implies, it is mist that is lightly precipitating into droplets, but the droplets are small enough to remain airborne and do not fall as drizzle.' It added atmosphere to the scene but didn't make for the most pleasant walk, especially when it did occasionally segue into proper drizzle. Happily the café in the village provided coffee and then soup to bookend the expedition. 

Our rivers are swelled by so much rain but generally speaking they are just about coping with the volume. 

In parts, a few autumn leaves still cling on despite the best efforts of named storms to dislodge them. (We have just had Fergus, hot on the heels of Elin - fancy names this year!)

There was a waterfall that I haven't noticed before, cascading down near the footbridge. On the other side of the bridge the stepping stones were nowhere to be seen. 

From the end of the bridge you get perhaps the best view of the ruined end of Bolton Abbey, trashed by Henry VIII's reforms in the 1500s, though the other end of the building was preserved as a church for the local population, and it is still used for worship to this day.  

Swan song

Two very random shots taken on a walk along the short stretch of canal towpath just beyond Salts Mill. There were more swans than I've seen in a very long time. This year's brood must have been very healthy and the cygnets kept safe from predators. 

Further along, they are continuing the process of demolishing HMRC's (the tax office's) old banking centre. They have trimmed all the foliage beside the railings so that you can now see the building in a way you couldn't before. What you can't see from my photo is the ditch alongside the towpath that prevented me from getting close up to the fence - so it's a poor photo but one that I'm posting just as a record of the demise of this once busy and significant building.

When it has been demolished (a long process due to the amount of equipment, electricals and asbestos in the fabric) plans have been approved to build a riverside village of 289 houses here, with some small commercial office space for flexible working and a café facing a new 'pocket park' - Saltaire Mark II you might say. See HERE for impressions of how it may look. 

As a postscript, I'm adding a couple of photos I took (on a different walk) from the other side of the river, where you can see the HMRC building from the back. From there, there is more evidence of the demolition actively happening. It won't be much fun for the people who live in the adjacent Victoria Mills apartments (to the left in the bottom photo), whilst all this work goes on. They have a construction site opposite too, where some retirement apartments are under construction. It won't be long before the area has completely transitioned from a business and industrial zone to a residential area. 

A lone tree and an old sign

A bit of an arty shot, taken on the edge of Barden Moor just above Embsay. Lone trees are attractive to me in any season but the lack of leaves in winter shows off the wonderful structure. This was only a small bush but evocative nonetheless. 

In the village of Embsay, I came across this old signpost, wreathed in a creeper. I love the pointing hands. You don't see those on modern signs. 

St Mary's Church, Embsay

Between the village of Embsay and neighbouring Eastby lies the village church, St Mary's. It's a Victorian church consecrated in 1853, and built to serve the mill workers and poorer people of the parish. Previously they'd used a room in the school for worship or had to travel to Skipton to the parish church there. In the 19th century there were six cotton spinning mills in the village, with a large population of workers needed to staff them. 

The church is in an attractive setting within a graveyard and with a lych gate at the entrance. I was happy to discover it was open to visitors. It's not fancy inside but has some very lovely stained glass. 

The window behind the altar is especially fine, depicting the Ascension in glorious saturated colours. It was made by a Belgian artist, John Baptiste Capronnier, and cost £250 at the time, equivalent to nearly £40,000 today. You know my love of stained glass. I think it's an under-appreciated art form, with fine pieces like this scattered throughout our churches and not able to be brought together in exhibitions as paintings are. 

Another window commemorates Rev'd Charles Vernon Brown, vicar here for 40 years from 1884 to 1924. That was made by Shrigley and Hunt, a Lancashire stained glass maker, according to the church's website. 

There was every sign that St Mary's has a lively worshipping community, which is good to see in this day and age.  

A winter walk from Embsay

The weather has been such that you have to seize the good days for walks and stay cosy inside when it's wet and dreary... and there have been far more wet, dull days than bright ones. On one 'good day' I went for a circular walk from the village of Embsay, just outside Skipton. It's a nice little village with a good community feel, originally a medieval monastic holding which grew during the Industrial Revolution when several mills were built in the area. I imagine the pond in my photo above was once a mill dam.  

It was a really frosty morning, temperatures hovering just below 0°C, with a winter sparkle on the foliage.

Looking back down into the valley there were threads of mist hanging over the river. 

Just above Embsay is a small reservoir, popular for summer boating judging by the number of small sailboats on the shore.  

Depending on the direction I looked in, the scenery was either quite intense and colourful or interestingly bleached out due to the low sun. That's Embsay Crag in the photo above. 

As I climbed higher up towards the Crag the views were lovely. 

It wasn't a long walk, less than four miles, so the path soon turned back downhill, returning to Embsay through fields - and always with that delightful view. 

Find the walk route HERE.

Santa's Christmas cruise

This started during the Covid lockdown as a way to bring some Christmas cheer but it now seems to have become something of a tradition. The folk at the Gallows Bridge boatyard in Shipley persuade Santa and his missus to have a short cruise along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal through Shipley and Saltaire, to the delight of our local children. 

I got my camera settings right this year. (I do learn!) To get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action in the gathering twilight, it needed a very high ISO but the 'noise' (grain) generated was easily dealt with by Lightroom's new denoise feature. Smiles all round! 

Harewood's Christmas #2

Harewood's log fires were lit and the rooms felt cosy, despite their grandeur. Christmas is perhaps the time when many of us would like slightly bigger spaces to decorate. I can't even fit a proper tree into my tiny sitting room, so I'm hoping my new apartment with its larger lounge will have enough space for one. 

I know there'll be no room for a rocking horse, though ever since I was tiny I've had a secret yearning for one! The wooden painted horse that had just been 'unwrapped' in Harewood's library was absolutely beautiful. 

The Cinnamon Drawing Room holds some fabulous portraits, though it was a little hard to see past the references to Christmas board games that decorated the room. I don't remember one called 'Easy Money' to be honest. 

In the Gallery, which is the most fabulous, huge room with rich red wallpaper and an absolutely stunning Adam ceiling (see HERE), the fireplace was prettily decked with swags of baubles and somehow that did highlight the famous El Greco painting: 'An Allegory'. 

Harewood's Christmas #1

Harewood House has a tradition of dressing its State Rooms for Christmas. I really enjoyed the displays last year so thought I'd go again this year. It was good - not quite as amazing as last year, which would have been a hard act to follow, but it was still enjoyable to wander through the beautiful rooms and enjoy the Christmassy feel. It is all done with such care and flair. 

I think it was the trees themselves that left me slightly underwhelmed this year. They had huge cardboard cutouts adorning them, which I thought detracted from their inherent beauty. 

The theme this year was 'Harewood's Great Time Travelling Christmas' (designed by Studio Mutt) and each big room took inspiration from a time in the last fifty years as well as looking forward to what Christmases might be like in the future.

The menu for Christmas dinner in the 'future room' had lab grown turkey with hydroponic sprouts, and the Christmas tree was 'virtual'. Not what I'd get excited about ...  Christmas for me has to have a healthy dose of nostalgia and familiarity. 

There was music in the music room - a spotlit piano and a stunning chandelier had impact though whether the display referenced Elton John or Liberace I wasn't too sure! Elton, I guess, looking at those starry specs. Is he a fixture in people's Christmases? 

Anyway, enjoy a Christmassy tune, courtesy of Elton and Ed Sheeran, HERE and just gaze at that marvellous chandelier. Now, it would be fun to find one of those among my presents! 

My view

Hot (well, cold really!) on the heels of the first snow, we had a little more overnight. It was very wet and the roads locally soon cleared but the same forecast persisted for a day or two. It rarely gets too bad here in the valley but higher up on the moors and dales it is usually far worse. 

For various reasons I wasn't able to go out to 'enjoy' the snow, too many tasks to do inside. I'm never very sure if I do enjoy it anyway! It's better when it is crisp and bright but it was the wet, slushy, misty kind of snowfall. So I stayed lingering luxuriously for a while in my cosy bed with a cup of tea and my iPad, before reluctantly rising and getting on with life. I like to open the curtains a bit and enjoy the lovely view of trees outside, always beautiful, in snow or none. The little orange patch that's visible is the netball post in the yard of the school opposite. After 25 years of it, I shall miss this view, though I will be able to see trees from my new flat. When I was looking for a new place, I realised that was a non-negotiable element.

First snow

We woke on the last day of November to find the first snowfall of the winter had happened overnight. It wasn't entirely expected in this part of Yorkshire. The 'amber alert' area had been further north and east but was revised overnight. It was jolly cold, a heavy frost exacerbating the effect of the minor flurry of snow. When the sun came out it soon melted the ice where its rays touched but in the shadows the frosting lasted all day.

I had already planned to go for a walk so it was pleasant to stroll along the riverside at Bolton Abbey. I enjoyed the effect of the sunshine catching the trees and turning them gold, whilst the river was mostly enveloped in a blue-brown shadow.  

I crossed over at the aqueduct bridge, that strange crenellated structure, and walked back to the Cavendish Pavilion along the higher route at the other side.