Saltaire in pink and green

Some early pink blossom looks pretty against a backdrop of ivy and a pinkish door.   Spotted on Albert Road in Saltaire.

Green door

From a blue door in Derbyshire to a green door in Saltaire.  Very carefully painted, but perhaps a touch too complicated a treatment for my taste.  Nevertheless, the front door and its stone surround are typical of the oldest houses in Saltaire, this one on William Henry Street, built in 1854.  The street is named after William Henry Salt (1831 -1893) who was Sir Titus Salt's first son.  He worked with his father in the family business at the Mill but retired in his early 40s to Leicestershire, presumably to a life of a leisured country gentleman.  On his father's death he became the second baronet, Sir William Henry Salt.

As a complete non-sequiteur, I was astonished to hear my own dear mother say at the weekend that she 'doesn't like' windows and doors with rounded tops!  How can you 'not like' something like that?  And how can my own mother not like them, when I love them!  Funny how you never really know someone completely, even when you've grown up with them.

Gable Cottage, Dent

I imagine this doorway looks lovely when the wisteria is in bloom and I presume that's why they have chosen a pale mauve for the paint. But even when the blossom has gone, I think it's a pretty frontage. The two-bedroomed cottage is on Dent's narrow Main Street, and overlooks the church at the back. It's handy for the Sun Inn too!

It is currently For Sale with a guide price of £195,000.00 - the estate agent's details have some pictures of the interior, if you want to peek inside! They seem to be marketing it as a holiday let - and that is one of the problems besetting the Yorkshire Dales villages, where property is priced out of the reach of young couples and families starting out. The villages are becoming 'ghost towns' out of season. Let's hope that never happens to Saltaire.

Old barn door

(Best viewed large)
Dentdale, like most of the other Yorkshire Dales, has plenty of old stone barns up on the hills as well as down in the valley. This one had a nice weathered door, with a lovely selection of ferns growing between the stones.

Red door, blue door

A while ago, I posted a picture of two magificent front doors on the big houses on Albert Road - the 'posh' end of Saltaire. As a contrast, these are two doors on one of the streets of small workmen's cottages in the centre of the village. The red one looks like an original door or a faithful copy. The blue one is a poor copy (and I don't know what they've done to the stonework either!) Now that the village is a conservation area and all the buildings are 'listed', people have to abide by strict planning regulations. A lot of householders are making efforts to improve the houses (which are 150 years old now), reinstating the original features. But much remains to be done.

Incidentally, the leaded glass above these doors isn't Victorian either. Many houses had these put in in the 1930s after Salts Estate sold off the village houses into private ownership. You will note the absence of a doorbell too. These houses are small enough that a knock will do!

Grand entrances

Aren't these splendid doors? They are the front entrances of large houses on Albert Road in Saltaire. Albert Road, completed in 1868, marks the western boundary of Saltaire village and contains some of the largest and grandest homes, originally occupied by senior managers at Salts Mill and by professional people. In those days they overlooked green fields and woods, but since then another estate of houses has been built.

The burnished wood of the doors reminds me so much of conkers (horsechestnut seeds) - which reminds that it'll soon be autumn... But we will make the most of the rest of the summer. I've been on lots of 'expeditions' recently and have a stack of photos still to show you of this lovely part of the world.

The Numbers Game

I've been meaning to do this for ages - and today was the day... I wanted to go out, but I had no clear idea where to go or what to do. So I wandered around Saltaire with my camera and started snapping numbers - mostly house numbers, one on a wheelie bin! One on a road sign. The more I looked, the more I saw. And I think they make an interesting collage. It's only when you start really noticing people's front doors that you realise what an impact a smart, clean, well thought-out entrance does for a house. I came back and looked at mine... I think I have work to do!

Incidentally, when the village was originally built (1854-1868), each house had a black and white number painted by the door on the stonework - like the number 19 above. That original number is still visible on most of the houses, but many now have more modern numbers on the door or on the wall as well.

In the pink

It's the height of the season for roses and even in the smallest Saltaire garden there is room for this exuberance of pink.

Flower bower

I spotted this door, adorned with a beautiful clematis, at a house on William Henry Street in Saltaire. I think they must use the back door to go in and out of the house!

If you'd like to see what the street as a whole looks like, look back a year to this link - that picture is of George Street, which is the one next along from William Henry Street, in the oldest part of Saltaire. The houses are very similar, all built at the same time in 1854.

I'm fascinated by doors - and am delighted to find a whole blog devoted to pictures of them. If you're addicted too, take a look at Cat's blog: The Door Hunter.

Hospital door

Salts Hospital, Saltaire (see yesterday's photo), which is now converted into apartments, has this rather splendid door at what was originally the main entrance. With the rounded arched top so characteristic of Saltaire's architecture and the name and date set into the glass, it is a fine example of the grand design found throughout the village. Exquisite detailing and intricate motifs abound in Saltaire, with elegantly crafted examples of stonemasonry on even the most functional of buildings.

Piece Hall Gate

This is one of the massive gates to the Piece Hall in Halifax (see yesterday's photo). The gates date from 1871. By 1868, when the Piece Hall's original purpose as a market for worsted cloth traders had been overtaken by industrialisation, the Piece Hall was handed over to Halifax Corporation (local council). In 1871 it became the city's wholesale fish, game, fruit and vegetable market. (The Piece Hall website has an interesting history of the building, downloadable from the site.)

The south entrance was widened to allow access by large vehicles and these cast iron gates were installed, showing the Halifax coat of arms. It has a Latin text. I think it reads "Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem" - my Latin isn't great (failed O level!) but I believe that translates roughly as "Unless the Lord watches over the City". The head is that of John the Baptist. Legend says his head was buried here after execution! (Why?) I can't quite read or understand the other words - nalea fax? or halea fax? I think that must be "Halifax", which is said to mean Holy Face. There's the inevitable sheep and a flag of St George, by the looks of it. Any more ideas?

Whatever the exact symbolism, they are impressive gates. They are within the archway, so I wasn't able to stand far enough back for my camera lens to take in the whole. In the unlikely event that I progress to a DSLR, I'll go back with a wide-angle lens!

Blue door

The vibrant blue door of one of the houses on Amelia Street in Saltaire. Amelia Street is one of the older streets, lower down the village, built in 1854 (the year after Salts Mill opened). It's a row of workmen's cottages. Later the Bath and Wash House building (now demolished) was built opposite.

Amelia Street is named after Sir Titus Salt's eldest daughter (1835-1914). She was her father's private secretary, until she married Mr Henry Wright in 1873. (Of course it was not considered appropriate for women to carry on working after they married, so most probably one of his other unmarried daughters, Helen or Ada, then took on the secretarial role.)

Number 6

Ooh, I'm having such fun on my photography course at Shipley College. Last term for me was more about revisiting and learning how to do things the proper way(!). This term, we are moving rapidly on to techniques I've never really understood how to do, like using layers and layer masks in Photoshop. This week, amongst other things, we learned how to do 'spot colour' or 'colour popping' as I have seen it termed in photo mags. It's not difficult really - and, as always, there seem to be several ways of achieving much the same effect - but it's quite fun and on the right photo it can have a lot of impact. For example, I noticed in a restaurant I was in recently the menu had a montage of photos of fruit, veg and the farmers that grow them. Several of the photos were black and white with the fruit or veg in colour - and it really looked very effective.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's my first attempt at colour popping! 6 Caroline Street, Saltaire, with its nice red front door. A round of applause, please! (I know - you've all been able to do that since you were knee-high to a grasshopper... never mind. I'm enjoying myself.)

I've looked up the 1871 census for 6 Caroline Street. It is one of the three-storey houses built as boarding houses. In 1871 it housed two families: Joshua Wilson (66) a cotton twister, his daughter Ann (31), a cotton weaver, and son John (28) a worsted weaver. Also, listed as 'boarders', were the young family of John Lund (29) a stone mason, with his wife Maria (24), a cotton weaver and their baby son Albert Edward, born in Saltaire 10 months before the census. (Although Salts was a worsted mill, it used cotton fibres as the warp thread through which the wool weft was woven to produce very fine cloth. I don't know if that explains the women's job titles. )

Colour

After living in a monochrome world for several weeks now, I find I'm craving a bit of colour. It's hard to believe that I took this picture only a few weeks ago, just at the end of the street where I live. Nature's colours are hard to beat.

Festive wreath

I spotted this beautifully festive wreath hanging on a door in Victoria Road, Saltaire - it made me feel very cheerful. But that's it for Christmas this year and we must now turn our focus to the New Year. The Noughties are over - the Tenties begin! (Has anyone decided what we're going to call the coming decade?)