Recycled

At Wakefield Wharf hangs a jolly recycled figure, from the crown I think that he must be master of all he surveys, here rules King Scrap.

Closer to my home turf is Millom Park plantation consisting mainly of conifers (spruce, larch and pine) where there is extensive logging going on at the moment. Nothing goes to waste when one can build a series of what I can only describe as lean-to wigwams, a nice place to relax and shelter from the weather, made complete with bespoke log seating.  The past winter has been unusually warm, which I consider a good thing. although it does come with a downside when walking (or working) in the countryside, mud, and lots of it.

Not a problem when one can slice a tree up into steps and rise above it all.  |However the photograph was taken this month and things have changed considerably.  This spring we have had a long period without any rain so everything is extremely dry but it was still enjoyable to skip from smooth step to step up the path.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at R here 

      

Men Mending

Maddening. On the way home and pop, the tyre blows but looking at it in a glass half full way what better surroundings to put things right, a sunny day on the corner of a cricket field by a quiet pathway.

Earlier in the day I had passed the signposted 'men at work' delving down the canal banking.  I don't know what their objective was

but they were certainly concentrating on the task in hand.  One thing is for sure I can't think of a

'Pennine Way' Canal and River Trust work boat

better way to arrive at work than on a boat. 

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at M here

 

Kirkgate

The Koko Bongo dance and nightclub in Wakefield, the latest of a number of entertainment venues that have occupied this building which started life in a rather more staid manner being built for the Yorkshire Penny Bank.  The street is Kirkgate, a name of Norse origin common across the north of England (especially Yorkshire) meaning 'road to the church' and if to make the 'point' there is the spire to the right, the tallest structure in Wakefield, and as it happens the tallest spire in Yorkshire.

It belongs to Wakefield Cathedral whose limestone adds a lightness to the pretty, and recently renovated interior. Sorry no photographs but here is

Postbox WF1 224

the entrance with the added bonus of a King George V (1910-1936) post box.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at K here

 

Ing, Inn and In

A late summer's day on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal with a narrow boat leaving St Ann's Ing Lock, which has the smallest rise on the canal of 4 foot and six inches so it must be one of the quickest locks to get through. Ing or ings means a meadow near a watercourse, the unsaid is that it is probably a very wet meadow.  This one is between canal and river.  I wondered about the St Ann connection but could find nothing but I know there many sacred spring wells named after her throughout the country. Perhaps she is associated with freshwater.

 

If you wanted more than freshwater then The Boathouse Inn might be just the place to imbibe something else.  I mentioned the nearby river.  What might be found there?

Well surprisingly a cat in a bath.  This is one of the sculptures on the River Aire Sculpture Trail.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at I here

 

   

Dredging

The local farmer dredging the build up of weeds and mud in the roadside channels near Kirkby in Furness in anticipation of the winter rains.  A series of bad winter storms and floods in recent years has meant this job is probably at the top of his 'to do' list.  So far this year we have had no storms and unusually warm weather but I won't tempt fate by predicting that we have escaped as a wet week ahead has been forecast so those cleared channels may yet be filling up.

Moving from the west coast east and over the Pennine hills to Yorkshire

here is the River Aire whose banks could not contain the deluge of the 2015 winter storms, reached record levels and flooded towns, cities and villages.  This is the groundwork going on near Buck Hill where they were dredging the river in 2016 and also

bank building

while clearing and building the drainage channels.  You can see I had the ideal view of both drainage channels and river from the Buck Hill cast iron footbridge, built in 1889, which unlike many of the bridges in the area had weathered the storm.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at D here

 

  

Five Rise Lock

Bingley Five Rise Locks, not the biggest in the UK but the steepest rising nearly 60 feet (16 metres) over a distance of 320 ft (97 metres).  The crowds turned out in 1774 when it opened to see this wonder of the waterways and people still come to see a piece of working history.

At the top the plaque not only mentions the Leeds to Liverpool Canal's first engineer who designed the locks, John Longbotham, but also credits the local stonemasons whose work can still be seen for the locks retain most of their original stonework

There have been modern additions such as the metal lock ladders so if anyone falls in they can get out easily (in the 18th century you would have had to haul yourself up the lock gates).  The lock gates of course haven't lasted

but their replacements are made of oak like the originals.

Here is a boat tying up at the bottom ready to make the journey up; no tripping up over an excitable dog because it has been tied up first

and was waiting patiently to get back on board.

 The boats coming down made their way out (the water can be seen gushing down in lock). The journey down takes 20-30 minutes now the locks are ready for those wanting to take the journey up however

this will take longer,  between 45 minutes and 1 hour.

but there will be company because they go up two by two

not to mention the many curious onlookers like me.

They reach the calm waters of the canal at the top to carry them on their way

but my destination was the tea room on the opposite bank which in past times was the stable block for horses.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at R here

 

Mushrooms

Perhaps one could imagine this mushroom bird feeder as a gnome or fairies high rise house.  It is peaceful surrounds, one of the trees among the ruins

of Kirkstall Abbey, once a Cistercian monastery now part of a public park by the north bank of the River Aire.  Everything was still green when this picture was taken in September however move on a month and the autumn colours are advancing with

mushrooms springing up in the woods, non more profuse than these Brittle Caps.  I'll stick to the common name so don't ask me what type they are but they all like the damp and growing on old tree stumps. One variety of brittle cap whose name I like, and perhaps it could be the one I show, is called Psathyrella multipedata, the Latin multipedata means 'many feet' because each grow on top the other 'feet' in clusters.  Little mushroom posies.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at M here

    

Leeds Link

Navigable water once determined the location and growth of towns and cities. The city of Leeds was no exception for it grew from a small market town on the Rive Aire trading wool in the West Riding of Yorkshire to expanding in the boom times of the mills of the Industrial Revolution and trading with the world. Today it is the UK's fourth largest urban economy.  Here at Granary Wharf near the city centre the whole area has undergone a massive regeneration since 2009 with residential building, restaurants, hotels, bars etc. The photograph above shows on the left the copper cladding and cedar panels of Waterman's Place apartments. The dome in the middle is the recently completed southern entrance to Leeds Railway station consisting of 2000 pieces of steel which sit on top of the Victorian viaduct of 1869. When you take the path towards the station entrance with its escalators before you get to it the first amazing sight is of the rushing waters of the River Aire cascade down to the left under the viaduct, or what is called locally the 'dark arches'.

But let me take you away from here

 past the yarn bombed boat

and away from modernity and continuing along the waterside.  This is the short canal that was built by the Aire and Calder Navigation Company to link the riverside industries to the Leeds-Liverpool canal. A lock separates the two waterways

but this is Lock Number 2 - Office Lock, so named because the bridge I am taking this photo from is where the Canal Offices are.

and the mile post tells one how far it will be before reaching Liverpool. A local wag saw me taking a photo of this and dryly said "there will be another one in a mile".

Millennium Milepost for Route 66 'The Fossil Tree'

But that is not the only way for we are also on Route 66, unfortunately not the one where one can

"take that California trip", to "get your kicks on Route 66" but a cycle route that crosses England from Manchester on the west side to Hull in the east (Spurn Head) and spends 13 of its 132 miles peddling alongside the canal.

 But I'm walking away from Leeds and looking back at the Italianate chimneys of what was the Tower Works whose Victorian owner was so fascinated by Renaissance Italy he built his chimneys in that style. The white modern building is Bridgewater Place, nicknamed locally 'The Dalek'

The canal towpath is also popular with runners so I could not resist a reflecting bridge and a red topped runner photograph, happily despite being a bit slow I got him in the picture.

St Anne's Ing Lock (Lock 3)

Canal boating in contrast to cycling and running is languid leisure interspersed with great activity when going through the lock systems (a total of 91 of varying flights on the full stretch of canal).

Oddy Two Rise Lock (Locks 4 and 5)

Being an urban area there are splashes of graffiti along the start of the canal, especially where concrete road bridges have been built over it but some are on a different scale altogether

like this funky frog enjoying his canal side view.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at L here