Letting Go of the Bay Leaf: March 2022

Sunday, March 27, 2022

Mosaic Monday #171: Leeds and Liverpool Canal

I love history. Maybe that is one of the reasons I enjoy returning to the UK so often - visiting new places there is almost always inextricably intertwined with a walk back in time. In this post, allow me to teleport you to the late 1700s. The Industrial Revolution started in the middle of the century, bringing new machinery that saved time and made some people very wealthy. By contrast, it was a difficult life for poor people.

A rising population, rural unemployment and migration to towns were the hallmarks of this period. I am reminded of the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics, which took place in London. The most-viewed Olympic opening ceremony in the UK and the US, it featured vibrant storytelling. I can still see the farm fields being stripped away to reveal the rising mills and factories of the industrial era. Remnants of this epoch can be seen the length of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. On November 2, 2021, we walked just 6 miles of it!

We began near Keighley, just across the road from East Riddlesden Hall (see December 19, 2021 post). I was immediately entranced with the curves of the canal, the autumn leaves scattered along the path, the mirror of the water reflecting the trees back to the sky, itself populated with fluffy clouds. Canals were the equivalent of our motorways, with the boats like lorries (read: trucks) transporting freight. In the early days of canals, the boats were pulled by horses. Their legacy? Scenic, smooth, flat walking trails!

This particular canal runs 127 miles from Liverpool in the south to Leeds in the north. We walked south-bound, and the periodic mile markers (just like a highway!) reminded us how far we had come.

Birds were prolific along the path, but difficult for me to photograph. Imagine my delight when several swans paddled to us, along with their cygnets! Check out the video!

Some stretches of the canal were wild and untamed; others were lined with houses. It appeared to me that some industrial properties had been converted into apartments. Would you like to live in a 18th century building along a scenic canal?

Early canals usually followed the contours of the land, as it was easier and cheaper to go around a hill than through or over it. As speed became more important, canals were cut straighter, which meant constructing long flights of locks, tunnels or aqueducts. Bingley Five Rise Locks are the steepest staircase locks on the longest canal in the UK. The locks are more than 200 years old, but they are still lifting boats 60 feet up (or down).

Staircase locks were used by early canal engineers to overcome sudden changes in height. They are very wasteful of water and in later periods, engineers chose more sophisticated options such as inclined planes and boat lifts.

The Five Rise Locks (to the left) and Three Rise Locks (1.5 miles further south) were built in 1774. Both were designed by John Longbotham of Halifax, the Canal's first engineer.

As luck would have it, a canal boat arrived at the base of Five Rise Locks just as we did. Over the next 20 minutes, we watched the lock-keepers open and close the gates, allowing the boat to rise 60 feet and continue on its way north. Below are two videos; the first one is five minutes and shows the boat entering the first lock. The second video is one minute; the boat is guided into the final lock. Fascinating stuff!

At this site, signs explained the lock mechanisms and provided maps of the walking trails and other points of interest.

There are 92 locks along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, most of which are grouped together. The Canal is unique in having many staircase locks, which help the Canal climb more than 487 feet up the Pennines and down the other side.

Between Bingley and Leeds, there are 3 sets of two rise locks, 4 sets of three rise locks and the famous Bingley Five Rise Locks.

As we left the Five Rise Locks behind, we noticed a heron fishing to one side. I put an arrow on the photo to help you spot it.

Bingley prospered during the Industrial Revolution. Several woollen mills were built and people migrated from the surrounding countryside to work in them. Many came from further afield such as Ireland in the wake of the Irish Potato Famine. The chimney stack you see in the photo to the right gives testimony to the mills of that day. (This is the same stack you see in the first photo of this post.)

Along the way, we saw more buildings that appeared to have been converted to nice-looking residences. Who wouldn't enjoy these views every day?

We paused at a pub for a refreshing beverage, and I was quite amused by the sign. "Beer shortage coming soon ... panic buy here!!!" That's one way to turn the downsides of the pandemic into some humor and good old-fashioned marketing!

I didn't know it then, but as we left the pub and this bridge behind, we began to approach the village of Saltaire.

In the 19th century, Sir Titus Salt chose to build his textile mills and a village for his workers here. With the village, Sir Salt's intent was to create a model community where his workers would be healthy and contented and fine fabrics would be produced in his modern and efficient mill. Quite a progressive idea for its time!

Today Salts Mill displays the world's largest collection of work by Bradford-born artist David Hockney. An exciting array of independent shops, cafes and restaurants can be found throughout the mill and village. We had very limited time to explore Saltaire that day, so we shall have to return!

Work began on this beautiful church in 1856, and it was opened/dedicated in 1859. Sir Titus Salt paid 16,000 pounds for the building; in today's money, that would be $2.6 million! The Salt family is interred in a mausoleum on the south side of the church.

Saltaire became a World Heritage Site in 2001. The only other World Heritage Site in Yorkshire is Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal (we have visited there several times).

To become a World Heritage Site, Saltaire had to demonstrate that it had "outstanding universal value". Saltaire is a complete and well-preserved individual village of the second half of the nineteenth century. Its textile mills, public buildings and workers' housing are built in a harmonious style of high architectural standards and the urban plan survives intact.

We'll be going back!

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.

The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Mountain time).

Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.

Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.

As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.

Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.

Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us.

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Mosaic Monday #170: Counting Down!

Twenty-five days until we fly to the UK! Yay! Yippee! Hurray!

So I better finish writing about our LAST trip to the UK, right?

In my December 19, 2021 post, I left off with our visit to East Riddlesden Hall. A short drive from the Hall is the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, a unique 5-mile branch line railway set in the heart of West Yorkshire. Heritage steam and diesel trains run through stunning Bronte Country, an area which straddles the West Yorkshire and East Lancashire Pennines in the North of England. It was a broody, rainy day, and with the windswept land of heather and wild moors outside the train windows, it is hardly surprising that this region became the inspiration for the classic works of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

I was fascinated by the switching station in the picture to the right. If you look at the bottom left of the photo, you can see cables running from the switch house to the railroad track. Inside the switch house are levers that are pulled or pushed, which move sections of the track, directing the train to one set of tracks or another! I had never imagined it was such a simple AND manual process!

We purchased a ticket that allowed us to get off the train at various stops. We began on the diesel train, which you can see in the picture below. The various stations evoked bygone eras with signage and other features.

The 1970 film The Railway Children was filmed in various locations around West Yorkshire, including the Oakworth Station, one of the stops along the branch line. Today, the Station contains a variety of film artifacts. I was captivated to learn that Jenny Agutter played the oldest of the children - I know her from her role as Sister Julienne in Call the Midwife!

Above is the original poster for the film, signed by several cast members, including Jenny Agutter. The poster is owned by Mr. Jim Shipley, former long-serving Station Master at Oakworth Station and who has compiled a book on the railway's behalf, entitled "The Making of The Railway Children".

While we waited for the steam train to arrive, we thoroughly explored the station, which had real coal fires in the men's and ladies' waiting rooms. The ladies could enjoy the comfort of a proper toilet with a ceiling pull; the men had to go outside to a latrine with no roof at all. For all the times I have had to stand in lines for the women's room, I felt a certain sense of satisfaction with this arrangement!

Below is a video of the steam train pulling into the station. There is something so entrancing about the chug-chug-chug, the billowing smoke from the engine and the lonesome whistle heralding its arrival.

Spousal Unit has long been a fan of beers brewed by Timothy Taylor's. Wouldn't you know that the Brewery was established in the center of Keighley in 1858, and the steam train serves Timothy Taylor's beers? Spousal Unit and my father-in-law were in heaven!

Oxenhope is the terminus of the Railway in the shadow of the surrounding moors. We had only 30 minutes to peruse two museums co-located with the station, which was not nearly enough time. (In that time, the crew moves the engine from the "front" of the train to the "back", so that we can make the return journey.) I had to take pictures of the signs for the Great Northern Railway; coincidentally, the Great Northern Railway built the depot that houses the museum where I volunteer once a week! Not the same company, obviously!

One of the museums exclusively focused on vintage carriages. Visitors could walk through some of them, and others were available for viewing from the outside only. The museum had enabled this by building large viewing platforms at window level. Most of the carriages had placards in the windows, listing the movies and/or TV programs that had utilized the carriage as a filming location. The display at left gave just a few examples. (all pictures will enlarge if clicked on)

Below are close-ups of the side panels - you can see the names of programs (such as Peaky Blinders) that have featured these carriages!

Despite being dedicated to the restoration of carriages, the Vintage Carriages Trust also owns three Victorian locomotives.

The museum also had intriguing displays on other topics, such as Railway catering, and how it has changed over the years. As I say, 30 minutes didn't begin to cover it; you could easily spend a half day just at the two museums at this stop!

I am grateful that railway enthusiasts have invested such passion in the preservation of history, to the benefit of us all. Even one of the stations was an outstanding example of conservation. At Ingrow West, the original station was so badly vandalized between closure in 1961 and re-opening in 1968, all that could be done was to keep the site tidy and use it as an unstaffed request stop. Bradford Council and the Railway Preservation Society took the opportunity to improve the site by replacing the station building. A suitable structure was found just across the Pennines at the disused Foulridge Railway Station near Colne, Lancashire. The Victorian building had lain disused since the closure of Foulridge in the 1960s. Here is how it looked when it was chosen as the replacement.

The structure was removed and rebuilt at Ingrow West; the unveiling took place on July 22, 1989. Here is how it appears today!