Wandering around Shipley

 

Michael was sure he remembered as a child, visiting Nanny Hainsworth at the mill she used to work at down the road from the Hotel where we are staying and had decided that he wanted to walk down that way today to see if he could recognise any thing. We headed in the general direction he remembered along Otley Road, though he said the road and buildings were a little different than he remembered. We walked down a way and oh my goodness there was a fabric shop, the first I’d seen that was all fabric, I had to go in! Big mistake, there was so much I wanted to buy, but I was reasonably selective, got a couple of bargains and some furnishing silk that I just could not pass by. I walked out about 100 pound (sterling) lighter and about 2.6 kilos heavier!!

 Michael remembers visiting Nanny Hainsworth in a mill around here, we couldn't find it but we found this fabric shop!

 We crossed the road and headed up Dockfield Road where there were mostly factories and some vacant land and further up some homes. We came to the canal and found a swing bridge that the barge drivers can operate to close the road and open the canal to let the barges through then open the road up again to let the traffic through and close the canal to barges.

The outlook from Dockfield Road

mostly factories and vacant land

We came across a swing bridge

 the mechanism for swinging the bridge off the canal to let the barges pass through

Instructions for operating the swing bridge

veiw from the swing bridge, looking away from Shipley

The bridge

the bridge as a road!!

We walked along the canal here where there were modern flats on the other side of the canal and old buildings on the side we were on. There was also a quaint old stone bridge up ahead, all covered in moss when we reached it we could see that the canal had a little branch off to the side just before the bridge but it terminated into a dead end after about 20 feet. Michael had remembered this little dead end but it didn’t look familiar in this setting, we crossed the bridge and walked around the end where the canal stopped, past the end of the flats and under the rail bridge at Dock Lane and up past Lock Keepers Cottage to Leeds Road almost opposite Carr Lane.

The old stone bridge across the canal......

Michael approaching the old stone bridge

Michael on the old stone bridge

"Come on, let's have a look down here!"

"I think I know where this goes!"

these trees looked stunning standing against the old fence by the dead end branch of the canal.

Away from the canal under the rail bridge...

into Dock Lane

Past the Lock Keepers Cottage

Looking back to the rail bridge

This is just where he wanted to be as our destination was Wrose for lunch at the Wrose Bull. We crossed Leeds Road and looked up Carr Lane for a bus stop, we spotted one about 50 metres up the road.  Now Carr Lane is really steep and the walk to the bus stop was as far as I could have managed without the bus this would be as far as I would go. Luckily the buses run every 15 minutes or so and you have to flag them down, they don’t just stop automatically.

 Michael standing at the foot of Carr Road, thereis a bus stop about 100 metres up the road, thank God!!

we made it to the bus stop

Looking back down Carr Road

  

We climbed on board and the bus laboured up the hill alternating between the lower gears, we got off just before the pub and walked the short distance and in for lunch. Michael was adamant that this was not the Wrose Bull that he remembered but rather another building just down the road that was now a barber shop was where he thought the pub had been. When he ordered our lunch he asked the barmaid and she didn’t know but said she would find out, she was back in a few minutes to confirm that Michael’s memory was right and the pub had indeed been in the building that was now the barbers! After lunch we went down to take some photos of the barbers and some of the surrounding buildings.

Michael perusing the menu at the Wrose Bull Pub

Pub interior

Micael in the Wrose Bull car Park was sure that the original pub was the white building in the distance part hidden by the pub and the tree

looking back acroos what Michael remembered to be a park at the Wrose Bull

It's a barber shop now but it had been the Wrose Bull Pub of Michael's memories

We walked around to where Nanny and Granddad Ambler used to live

When we went to catch the bus I spied a little Post Office and we decided to post the material we’d bought home, it took a while to organise the box and wrap and address it and of course have a chat to the couple who ran the Post Office. As we waited for the bus to take us back into Shipley, school had finished and there was a steady procession of little kids and mums dads and grandparents all heading home. Some of the kids looked too young to be at school but they were in school uniform so I guess they were school age.

The little Post Office at Wrose where we posted the  fabric home

Taking the dogs for a walk to pick up the kids from school

 ready to hail a bus at the bus stop

 The school, Low Ash Primary School, was down opposite the pub and Michael remembered it as being called Wrose Primary, which it probably was. The bus trip down was like being on a slow moving roller coaster, it was so steep. We passed a couple of double decker buses going up the hill, I reckon being on the top deck of one of those would be a bit of a hairy ride! We got off the bus at the intersection before our hotel and Michael pointed out what he thought had been the picture theatre but was now empty.

The old picture theatre in Shipley, now boarded up and empty

veiw across the canal to our hotel, the Cut restaurant is down these stairs

A dog and his man fishing in the canal

 Tonight we walked around to The Cut restaurant that is on the opposite bank of the canal and we can see from our hotel room. The restaurant is part owned by the young couple who own the Thornbill Arms in Calverley, his cousin is his business partner and the chef at the Cut. The meals were superb. I had Yorkshire blue cheese, pear and walnut tart with cranberry sauce served with rocket, it looked good and tasted better, my main course was slow cooked duck leg with baked potato and caramelised onion gravy, oh my god it just got better! For desert we both had Yorkshire rhubarb crème brulée another winner. Michael had truffle mushroom risotto with pinenuts  and his main course was goats cheese sweet potato and chestnut parcel with a cranberry balsamic sauce and buttered new potatoes, also top notch. It was a great way to spend our last night in Yorkshire as tomorrow we catch the train back to London for the last six days of our holiday.