Surprise View

The aptly named 'Surprise View' - a lovely vista of the ruined Fountains Abbey, with the River Skell in the foreground that forms part of the Studley Royal water garden.  There is a high-level path through the woods around the estate, which leads to a Gothic pavilion called Anne Boleyn's Seat (though she never sat there, for sure!).  Coming out of the trees, the sudden view along the valley takes you completely by surprise and is as impressive and beautiful as it must have been when it was first conceived more than 200 years ago.

I will be posting some more photos of Fountains Abbey and the Studley Royal estate on my other blog, Seeking the Quiet Eye, starting here (three posts in all).

The Temple of Piety, Studley Royal

Celebrating International World Heritage Day today...  Part of the formal gardens of Studley Royal, which together with Fountains Abbey form another beautiful World Heritage Site in the heart of Yorkshire. 

The gardens were laid out in the early 18th century (Georgian) in the Studley Royal estate by John Aislabie, MP for Ripon, who had inherited the land in 1699 through his mother's family.  The 1720 'South Sea Bubble' financial disaster ruined his career and (after a period of imprisonment in the Tower of London) he retired to Yorkshire to devote himself to his garden. After his death in 1742, his son William further developed the estate by buying the adjacent ruins of Fountains Abbey and incorporating them into the design.  Thus, one end of the gardens is a very formal French-inspired water garden and the other a much more romantic and wild landscape.  Subsequent owners (luckily) neglected to overwrite the earlier designs and so the originally conceived ideas largely still survive.  There are several buildings, like the Temple of Piety, solely intended to form focal points in the design and to highlight particular views across the valley.

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.

Hirst Wood Regeneration Group

Adjacent to Saltaire on its western flank there is a small estate called Hirst Wood, after the area of woodland of the same name about a quarter mile along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.  It is fair to say that compared to the surrounding areas it has for years been a little pocket of relative deprivation, hidden and largely forgotten.  (At one time my church used to run a youth club on the estate, which I like to think bore useful fruit.)

In 2000 a group was formed: the Hirst Wood Regeneration Group, dedicated to improving facilities in the area and 'restoring a sense of pride' in the community.  They have been very active and pretty successful in lobbying the local council and in fund-raising.  The estate now has a very nice children's playground and sports field for local youngsters. A more recent project involved 'The Triangle' - a small area adjacent to the lock on the canal at Hirst Wood, which was originally just an unattractive piece of bare earth.  It has now been landscaped, turfed and planted and some seats added.  It still looks quite 'new' but will soon mature to provide a pleasant area to sit and watch the activity around the lock and swing bridge.  Well done and thank you to HWRG!

Spring garden

A neat and simple display in a Saltaire garden - but one that brings a welcome reminder of spring.  I love the miniature daffodils.

The Monkey Puzzle tree

This large Monkey-Puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) is an exotic addition to a small Saltaire garden.  Native to the south-central Andes in South America, the trees nevertheless grow well in northern Europe's temperate climate.  The genus can be traced back 250 million years to the Mesozoic era and its spikey leaves probably developed to fend off grazing dinosaurs. (It seems to have worked well in Saltaire.  I haven't noticed any dinosaurs lately.)

The tree was first brought to Britain in 1795 and was grown as an ornamental specimen tree in botanical gardens, becoming popular with the Victorians.  It is believed to have come by its name when a visitor to a garden in Cornwall remarked that "it would puzzle a monkey to climb that".  This tree in Saltaire, the only one in the village as far as I know, must be quite old and was probably planted quite early in Saltaire's history, in the late 1850s.  It must have had a great deal of novelty value at the time; the trees are still quite a rarity in domestic gardens.  It looks a beautifully healthy specimen.  If the Health and Safety people don't have it felled (as the needles are believed to be 'as sharp as syringes' and therefore a danger to children) then it might last a good few years yet.  Some of the native trees are thought to be 1200 years old!

Clouds

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now...."  was the line that came into my head when I thought about posting this photo, another shot of the lake at Harewood.  Isn't it interesting how deeply those songs we listened to in our youth become embedded in our brains? I haven't listened to Joni Mitchell for years now, but still the lyrics - from "Both Sides Now" - are there waiting to leap into my consciousness.

"Still somehow it's clouds' illusions I recall; I really don't know clouds at all."

(Hmm, isn't it interesting as well that sometimes what you end up blogging about is a complete surprise - even to you!)

For the song on a video, click here.
For more photos around the Harewood Estate, click the Harewood label below.

For more interesting and varied offerings on the theme of 'Weekend Reflections', please leap over to James's 'Newtown Daily Photo'.

Lake at Harewood

The gardens at Harewood House were originally laid out by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown in the mid-18th century.  One of the best known English landscape architects, his skill and vision was sought after by the landed gentry of the time.  He swept away the formal English garden style in favour of huge naturalistic landscapes of sweeping grass, clumps and scatterings of trees and serpentine lakes.  It was a style that became very fashionable and many of his gardens remain today... though if you didn't think about it, you might assume that many of the grand estates that he designed - Harewood, Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle - had always looked like that.  The style fell out of fashion after Brown's death but gained recognition again in the 20th century.

Statue of Orpheus

This magnificent bronze figure on Harewood's Terrace is 'Orpheus' by Astrid Zydower (1930-2005). Added in 1984 when the original statue in this location collapsed, it forms part of a wonderful collection of 20th century art amassed by the present Earl.  Harewood also hosts an ongoing series of exhibitions of contemporary artwork.

Harewood House itself is a Georgian mansion finished in 1771.  Edwin Lascelles, who commissioned it, employed the finest craftsmen in the country - architect Robert Carr, interior designer Robert Adam, furniture maker Thomas Chippendale and garden designer Lancelot (Capability) Brown. (No expense spared!)

The Terrace (also seen on my photo of the House two days ago) was built in the 1840s by Charles Barry (who was the architect of the Houses of Parliament in London).  It is rated one of the most beautiful formal Victorian gardens in England, with fountains, statues and formal flower beds edged with clipped box hedges.  It has lovely views over the surrounding countryside and the lake. (See Paul's blog, Leeds Daily Photo)

As a complete contrast to the stunning bronze above, I also loved this smaller statue in the same garden:

Harewood Bird Garden

Harewood Bird Garden, in the grounds of Harewood House, is home to over 90 species of exotic and endangered birds, including these colourful Chilean flamingos, busily preening.  It is closely involved in conservation work in the UK and abroad.  One of the success stories has been the re-introduction of Red Kites into lowland Yorkshire.  First released on the Harewood Estate in 1999, there are now more than 300 birds in the area.  They are a wonderful sight soaring around the grounds (see Leeds Daily Photo for a picture of one).

The Bird Garden has a collection of penguins too, and daily feeding time is a sure-fire hit with little children - my daughter used to love going to watch them.  They are such sweet comical little things.

Harewood House

It's time to catch up with some more of my excursions over the summer..... one trip I made was to Harewood House, a stately home situated just north of Leeds.  They call it 'a St Petersburg palace on a Yorkshire hill' and it does have some of that kind of grandeur.  Harewood is the home of the 7th Earl and Countess of Harewood.  The present Earl, George Lascelles, (b.1923) is the Queen's cousin.  The house was built in the mid-18th century by Edwin Lascelles, whose wealth came from sugar plantations and the slave trade, and it has been in the Lascelles family ever since.  Such a significant house has inevitably had a very interesting history.  The present Earl's mother was Princess Mary (1897-1965), great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and daughter of King George V, who married Lord Lascelles and lived here from 1930 until she died.

The house sits in a huge estate which is managed very effectively, marketed as an attractive destination for tourists and family days-out and as a venue for conferences, shows and receptions.  It has beautiful gardens and a long-established Bird Garden (a collection of exotic and threatened species of bird).

Fruits of labour

However many times I walk up and down Victoria Road in Saltaire, I never get tired of this view of the magnificent frontage of Salts Mill.  It's a monument, not only to its founder Sir Titus Salt's vision but also to the thousands of ordinary men, women and children whose labour in the huge textile mill enabled that vision.  On a smaller scale, I am equally impressed by the labour that has produced the row of leeks in the foreground, all ready for the harvesting.  Normally I try and avoid getting too much of the allotments in my photos of the mill.  This time I decided the whole view made a good picture.  I noticed the patterns the glasshouse made and the colours seemed nicely harmonious.

A shady seat

A shady seat in Alexandra Square, Saltaire.  This attractive little square is surrounded by Saltaire's 45 almshouses, built by Sir Titus Salt in 1868 to provide accommodation for the elderly and infirm.  It was originally enclosed by cast iron railings (on top of the little wall).  These were no doubt removed and melted down for munitions in WWII.  In providing these houses for the elderly poor, Salt was copying other local industrialists like Francis Crossley in Halifax, taking on a role which had previously been played by landed gentry.  He offered not only rent-free housing but also a small weekly pension to the residents, who were personally selected by him during his lifetime and then by a board of trustees.  The houses are still occupied, some in private ownership and some managed by a housing trust for Bradford Council and still providing homes for older people.

Green tea?

As I've observed before, there is always something new and different to see in Saltaire, no matter how many times I walk through the village. As I was on my way out of the "Ghosts" exhibition I mentioned a couple of days ago, I spotted (sorry!) this cheerful container. The plant is perhaps a little past its best but it still made an eye-catching display. You may also note the rare (for this area) brick outhouse in the background. They wouldn't allow that to be built nowadays, in the conservation area.

Bijou

'Bijou' = small but attractive; small but elegant and tasteful...... Sometimes the nicest things come in very small packages - as with this back garden in the middle of Saltaire. It belongs to one of the 'open houses' of the Saltaire Arts Trail. To take the photo, I stood in the doorway to the house - the entire garden is only a few paces square. Unlike yesterday's garden, it didn't contain any artwork (though there was plenty in the house) but something about the way it was arranged and planted seemed to me really pleasing and uplifting. To my mind the whole little yard is in itself a small work of art: a pleasant place to linger with a coffee and a book, or chat to a friend. Small can definitely be beautiful.

Eye candy

I don't know what it is about all these pinks and greens but they're such a soothing sight. Dove Cottage garden is a photographer's paradise but none of my photos do justice to this delightful place. I've lived in this area for many years and I hadn't heard of it until my friend told me about it. I was glad I'd made time to visit. Being herbaceous, its beauty peaks in July/early August - so I must remember to go again next year.

Lavender and pink

Dove Cottage garden again - lavender and pink make such a pretty colour combination. I don't actually know what the pink one is, but it was pretty. I make no apologies for filling my blog this week with flowers. I'm seeking some inner peace... just having one of those weeks...!

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things..... And the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8

Watering can with pansies

Another pretty little corner in Dove Cottage garden. I've always liked these old-fashioned galvanised watering cans - the plastic ones have no soul!

Dove Cottage garden

Another day out... but this time south of Saltaire, towards Halifax, to an area known as the Shibden Valley. It's an attractive green space, slipped in between the urban sprawl of the city of Bradford and the gritty industrial town of Halifax and close to where Sir Titus Salt had his home at Crow Nest. I was on my way to visit Shibden Hall, but first (on a friend's recommendation) I stopped off at Dove Cottage Nursery. You wouldn't know it was there, but it has a lovely 'secret' enclosed garden, full of herbaceous plants that are at their peak in July and early August. The strategically placed benches were ideal for sitting and contemplating Nature's bounty. I was enthralled by the drifts of mauve and the feathery grasses. They looked like pink mist.

Red and Green

These pinky red flowers are everywhere at the moment - bursting out of gardens, brightening up wasteland. I'm not too sure what they are - possibly Red Valerian - but they are very country-cottagey and looked pretty tumbling through this green fence on Dallam Avenue, just outside the boundaries of the Saltaire World Heritage Site.

Advance Notice: The Saltaire Festival & Arts Trail 2010 takes place from 9th to 19th September. See the Festival website and the Arts Trail website for full details. One of the attractions this year will be a re-enactment of the grand opening of Roberts Park as it took place in 1871: "Nearly a thousand children from the three Saltaire primary schools - St Walburga’s, Wycliffe and Saltaire Primary - dressed in Victorian costume will gather in Roberts Park, where actors will re-enact the original opening of what was then called Saltaire Park by Sir Titus Salt and members of his family in 1871." Doesn't that sound fun?

(Of course, your intrepid correspondent will be covering as much of the Festival as I can, and reporting back in words and pictures.)