25th August 2025

 

Sunday's Trip: After an early lunch we took off for the Bridestones.  It was an immensely long drive up to the moors, but  apparently Andrew had walked it! The Bridestones is a popular visiting place for locals and there was already a family using a camping stove for their picnic.  A short trek up to the stones and we admired that enormous landscape of moor and sky, only broken by this outcrop of stones, though further away there was a much smaller outcrop.  In the far distance Stoodley Pike and turning you could see the wind turbines turning gently.

I find the stones ugly, their rounded shapes rather frightening.  There is no evidence of them being special in the Neolithic age, but then how do we know.  They remind you of the Cornish tors.  The stones are a mill stone grit, named for their use as milling stones, you could see tiny flecks of silver in the stone.  Reading Taylor (I will give the reference at the end)

Taylor draws the same conclusion as I do about the ugliness of the weaver's cottages which have been built from this stone, he calls it a carboniferous sandstone, which helps towards the grimy blackness of them.  But as he says they are interesting because of the rows of mullioned windows that provide the light for weaving in the cottages.  Also it is impossible to clean the soot from the stone.  These cottages are a stark reminder of when the industrialised looms and great mills came into force and the independent weavers were forced down from their homes in the valleys into the mills to work for a wage.

We drove back down to Hebden Bridge as the next place to visit was Salts Mill, and all roads lead out of this town. They had changed the Hockney exhibition around also at Salt Mill.  A display of flowers in different vases and of course his French House.  Here I must say I do not like acrylics, their brightness is too childlike but I am pleased that Hockney is making a living out of his painting and will not die in penurious circumstances as so many artists do.

One funny incident.  We had parked the car, it was backed into the shrubbery, so I went round to the boot door, which is one of those that automatically open but unfortunately as it opened it tipped me into the shrubs much to the amusement of the family.  New fangled stuff for goodness sake!!
Andrew is marvellous for keeping an eye on me.  So I don't fall over or get stuck sitting on the ground.  We are indeed lucky as a family to have him.  The photo above in the car park must have been taken by Lillie.  We tend to fight over my camera, as she just takes anything she fancies clicking away, filling up the card with loads of useless views but she caught the moment we were still giggling over (once again) an embarrassing moment for me. 

Tea and cakes in the restaurant, my daughter wouldn't go out if there wasn't cake at the end of the outing.

The book by Alex Clifton Taylor on The Pattern of English Building, is a genuinely intelligent book of how building materials were used in this country. Years of work has gone into compiling this information.  And so co-pilot on my right hand side, please, please go away and take AI with you.  The human brain works brilliantly without you!