Tag Archives: Shipley

FROM SHIPLEY TO SALTAIRE

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West Mill, Saltaire

West Mill, Saltaire

I was disappointed when I arrived in Shipley by way of Ilkley Moor. I thought the centre of this industrial Yorkshire town had been altered unsympathetically by 1960s redevelopment. Few of the Victorian buildings remain. The slums were replaced with low-rise modern retail outlets. A central square serves as an outdoor market and an underground indoor market is situated beneath a tall,  market hall tower which is a landmark for many miles around. I thought it was a block of flats when I noticed it.  A second phase of clearance in 1966 saw the construction of an Asda supermarket (now the main building in the town centre), a library which had a small section on local history, a swimming pool and a health centre. By 1970 2,900 slum houses had been demolished.

Railway Line beside West Mill, Saltaire

Railway Line beside West Mill, Saltaire

I saw from the map that Saltaire was nearby and when I got my bearings I soon saw the large former mill buildings not too far distant, on the other side of a railway line. This was a gem in industrial architecture. The township built by Sir Titus Salt alongside the River Aire is now a UNESCO world heritage site. Part of the Salt’s Mill complex contains retail outlets and another section of it is devoted to commercial use. There are some nice restaurants inside. I thought Belfast’s old mills were big but Salt’s building has a frontage that is 545 ft long, with six storeys rising 72 ft. At one stage in the 1800s some 4000 people worked here. The weaving shed of the mill housed 1200 looms, producing 30,000 yards of alpaca and other cloths daily.

Shop in former Salt's Mill

Shop in former Salt’s Mill

 

FROM CULLAMORE TO SHIPLEY

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Lough More, Cullamore on Tyrone/Monaghan border

Lough More, Cullamore on Tyrone/Monaghan border

After finishing some work on the programme for the 2013 William Carleton summer school next month, I travelled back through Carleton country to North Monaghan. I went past Kilrudden, home of the late Mary McKenna, a former President of the William Carleton Society. I had earlier visited her grave at St Macartan’s (the Forth) chapel, where I also tidied up the grave of my McCann relatives, two of whom had made the journey from this beautiful Tyrone countryside to work as doctors in Shipley in England. I will tell you more about them later and how I found myself following their footsteps to Yorkshire last month.

Grave of Mary McKenna, Kilrudden House

Grave of Mary McKenna, Kilrudden House

The old road from Augher towards Monaghan takes you past Kilrudden and up Dunroe hill. Heading towards the border along a road that has now been re-connected with County Monaghan, you pass the townland of Cloonycoppoge where the McCanns came from before they moved to Aughnacloy, and then you come to Cullamore. I remember talking to Mary about them as she brought us on a Carleton tour one year.

Although it was 10pm it was still bright and I met a couple who were out walking. I stopped to look across at Lough More, a lake that marks the boundary between the UK and Republic of Ireland. The lake covers approximately 30 hectares and contains a good stock of wild brown  trout including the Ferox trout. The Lough More Anglers Association controls  fishing  on this water and day permits are available.

Carleton tells us in the Preface to The Black Baronet (1858) that “the titles of Cullamore and Dunroe are taken from two hills, one greater than the other, and not far asunder, in my native parish; and I have heard it said, by the people of that neighbourhood, that Sir William Richardson (of Augher), father to the late amiable Sir James Richardson Bunbury, when expecting at the period of the Union to receive a coronet instead of a baronetcy, had made his mind up to select either one or the other of them as the designation of his rank“.