'Continue along Victoria Road, past the row of shops, to complete your tour where it began...' This is another little row of shops where it would be interesting to document the changing history. When the parade was first built around 1854, the shops would have been useful outlets like general grocers, greengrocers, butchers and bakers. There is still a bakery but the rest are stores leaning more towards the 'luxury' and tourist trade than anything - ethical clothing, an oriental interiors shop and a jewellers among them. If you want food and general goods then you have to trek up to Gordon Terrace or into Shipley, where a large Asda supermarket provides for most needs. The newsagent (useful if you wanted a paper to read on the train) has recently become a hairdresser. I thought the other day that ArtParade, the art gallery that is on the corner by the station, had closed down - it was emptied of goods, but someone told me they were just redecorating. Magic Number 3 is emptyish too - hopefully also simply undergoing a revamp. These are lovely shops. We need them. We need more (rich) tourists too! Saltaire's parade also contains the bar 'Don't tell Titus..' which refers to the fact (as I have said several times before) that the village's founder Sir Titus Salt would not allow the sale of alcohol in Saltaire. It was many years before the rule was relaxed.
[No 4 on the street plan]
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