West Yorkshire. If you’ve ever been, then you’ll be well acquainted with its post-industrial landscape. This part of the world was a veritable hub in the Industrial Revolution and evidence of this can still be seen today. Coal-blackened sandstone, canals, railways, weavers cottages, towering chimney stacks of former mills and factories - the county’s landscape is a palimpsest of past trades and social history.

C O A L   &   C L O T H

In the 19th century, the textile trade was one of the most prominent industries in West Yorkshire - closely followed by the coal mining industry. Huddersfield was the wool capital, Leeds was flax, Halifax - carpets, Bradford was renowned for its worsted wool & cloth manufacturing and so on. Each town had its own specialism.  As for coal, Wakefield was the heart - with fifteen collieries in the district. Indeed, today the National Coal Mining Museum for England is in Overton, near Wakefiled at the site of the former Caphouse Colliery. Much of this social and industrial heritage survives today through the preservation of museums and creative centres. Many former mills are now art centres and galleries. Leeds Industrial Museum is based at Armley Mills, which was once the largest woollen mill in the world. Dean Clough Arts centre in Halifax was once the site of the Crossley Carpets, the largest carpet mill of the Victorian era. Halifax is also home to the stunning Piece Hall - a vast former cloth hall, a one time epicentre for textile traders, now  home to independent shops, cafes and restaurants. It also houses an art gallery and heritage centre. However, the jewel in the crown of West Yorkshire's Industrial Heritage preservation is perhaps, arguably, Saltaire - a model Victorian village near Bradford,  built by mill owner and philanthropist Titus Salt in the mid 1800s.   

Saltaire was the brainchild of Victorian visionary Sir Titus Salt. After working most of his life in textile manufacturing in Bradford - Salt made his fortune in worsted cloth and through his revolutionary introduction of alpaca wool into the trade. By the late 1840s he was the largest employer in Bradford, its Mayor and a Liberal MP. Increasingly concerned about the pollution, poverty and over-crowding in Bradford, Salt decided to build a new mill away from the smog and the slums. He purchased some land just outside of Shipley, perfectly positioned by the Leeds and Liverpool canal, the river Aire and the Midland Railway. Saltaire Mills, or Salts Mill as it is now known, opened in 1853 on Titus Salts 50th birthday. Salt threw a massive party in celebration - holding a banquet for his workers which apparently included two tonnes of meat and one hundred vats of jelly!

Meat and jelly aside, the welfare of his workers was very important to Salt and shortly following the completion of Saltaire Mills, the design and construction of his 'model' village began. Architects Lockwood and Mawson designed a village of sandstone and Welsh slate that would take more than twenty years to build. Each house had fresh running water, sanitation and a gas supply - a drastic change from the impoverished conditions in Bradford for mill and factory workers. They also built a school, almshouses, an institute for recreation and education, a hospital, allotments, public baths and wash-houses, a gymnasium, a library with a reading room, a public park and a Congregational church, now known as the United Reformed Church. It was a highly ambitious concept of its time, a watershed in the progression of social planning. The township was hugely influential on future social welfare and urban planning development, not just in the UK - but globally. Saltaire’s important social history, heritage and architecture has led to its status as a registered UNESCO World Heritage site.

Back in August, I took a trip to Saltaire with my good friend Claire. It was a quiet, balmy day and the allotments were full of gladioli and sweet peas. Saltaire is one of them places that’s lovely any time of year, even on a grim day. But for me, you can’t beat Saltaire in the Autumn: the colours, the crispness, the leaves underfoot and the evening light on the sandstone - that certain dreamy evening light that you only get in the Autumn months - pure romance.

It’s a short and easy journey on the train from Leeds city centre, just fifteen minutes to be precise. Or if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous you can cycle the towpath route from Leeds city centre - a 13 mile path that takes you along the canal and into Saltaire. It was Claire’s first visit, but as soon as she stepped off the train and onto the platform, to my delight, she transformed into my personal tour guide - armed with plenty of good Trevor facts, (Trevor is her dad and former history teacher) a girl after my own heart - I would have expected nothing less.

“Did you know that all the streets are named after his children and that the pub here is called ‘Don’t tell Titus’ because pubs weren’t allowed in Saltaire back in his day?”

Our Trev’s facts are, of course, nothing if not accurate. The streets in Saltaire are indeed named after his children (of which he had eleven), his wife and his grandchildren. The architects that designed Saltaire also have streets named after them, as do Queen Victoria and Prince Albert - and Myrtle, Daisy and Fern place are said to be named after either maids from the Salt Household, or popular Victorian flowers. And as for the pub situation - alcohol was prohibited in Saltaire, although Titus himself was supposedly not impartial to a drink or two, it was believed to cause too many problems among the workers. Pubs were not allowed - it was another way for Salt to keep a firm grip on his workers. A paternal philanthropist yes, but some people see him as a little more controlling than that. There was the element of ‘Big Brother’ in Saltaire apparently. Pubs didn’t just mean alcohol consumption, they were public meeting houses, places for workers to congregate, to plot and scheme and discuss ideas. Places where rebellion could be born. This theory is perhaps supported by the fact that Salt also banned Trade Unions.

TITUS, WILLIAM HENRY, GEORGE, EDWARD, HERBERT, WHITLAM

CAROLINE, AMELIA, FANNY, MARY, HELEN, ADA

KATHERINE, JANE, DOVE

CONSTANCE, GORDON, SHIRLEY, HAROLD

LOCKWOOD, MAWSON, VICTORIA, ALBERT

MRTLE, DAISY, FERN

We took a stroll through the sandstone terraces, named after Salt’s kin, had a potter around the various independent shops in the village and then took a turn around Roberts park where the men played cricket.

We crossed back over the canal where the boats, of course, are named with Yorkshire themed puns - then we headed into Salts Mill for a good Hockney fix - and some tea and cake for extra measure. The Salts Mill you see today is the product of Jonathan SIlver, a Bradford man and a successful clothing entrepreneur. He bought the mill in 1987, rescuing and restoring the near derelict building and transforming the space into a creative enterprise with art and culture at its heart. Silver was a good and long standing friend of fellow Bradfordian David Hockney, which is why today the mill holds the largest permanent collection of Hockney prints and paintings in the world and how the 1853 Gallery came to be. Silver worked tirelessly on his creative vision of Salts Mill for ten years - breathing new life and a hive of creativity not just into the building but also the village itself. Silver cemented Saltaire’s place in the creative world. Sadly, Jonathan Silver fell victim to cancer and passed away in 1997 at just 47 years old. But his legacy and boundless creative energy still lives on as his family now run Salts Mill, continuing to honour his vision.

The Saltaire lions tell a tale in their own right, sitting in Victoria Square, just outside Victoria hall their names are:

WAR, PEACE, VIGILANCE & DETERMINATION

Peace passively licks his paw, while War sits with his left paw raised a little and slightly clenched - his jaw square and hard and a look of anger in his eyes. These sandstone giants are magnificent sculptures created by sculptor Thomas Milnes. However, they were not (apparently) magnificent enough for their original purpose, which was to sit at the base of Nelson’s column in London’s Trafalgar Square. Milnes had his commission dropped in favour of Landseer’s bigger, bronze beasts. But the sandstone lions were good enough for Titus, who on seeing them in Milnes studio, bought them and had them installed in Saltaire in 1869.

We ended our day out in Saltaire with a stop to admire the building of the URC church. The church is Italian in style with exquisite attention to detail - its ornate Corinthian columns hold up a tower topped  with an elegant little dome, or cupola as it is rightly known. Unfortunately there was a wedding photo shoot underway outside the church on our visit, which meant we couldn’t go inside - however I have since been back to Saltaire, and I finally got to see what the church’s interior has to offer. It certainly doesn’t disappoint.

Inside, the classical style continues - there are no obvious religious relics or iconography to be seen, instead the space is that of a blue calm - simple and elegant. The eye is instantly drawn upwards, to the elaborate vaulted ceiling, with its square paneled plasterwork, from which hang two magnificent chandeliers. The walls themselves are powder blue and are aligned with yet more Corinthian styled columns, which are coloured in hues of deep marbled blue. The church has no formal aisles but its wide central walkway, carpeted in blue - of course - is flanked by straight-backed oak pews. At the end of the walkway a large, impressive organ presides over the room. On the south side of the nave is the Salt family mausoleum, where Sir Titus and his family are buried. Titus died in 1876 at 73 years old. It was the year the final building was constructed in Saltaire, signifying an end to his pioneering spirit and development. His township and his legacy was finally complete.