Leeds Liverpool Canal - Leeds to Shipley (or Saltaire)
This is one of my favourite cycle rides, which I've done many times cycling home from work on a warm Summer's evening.
It's surprisingly beautiful, has much of interest along the way, and can easily
be extended in small increments, to Saltaire, Bingley, Keighley, Crossflatts and
Skipton. All these places have railway stations, and there are half-hourly trains
Monday to Saturday and hourly ones on a Sunday. The trains are nice modern ones
(generally) and they all take bikes.
The route starts in the middle of Leeds, right next to the railway station. The
River Aire actually flows right under the station, and the canal runs parallel to
it. The easiest way to get to the canal is to go down the side of the station (Neville
Street), under the "Dark Arches", and turn right into the arch leading to the shops
at Granary Wharf. Unfortunately that's closed for redevelopment at the moment
(2009) so you have to go on a little further. Go past the Hilton hotel, turn
right into Water Lane (illegally), then into the car park of the accountancy firm
on the right and find the bridge over the canal. Finding the canal towpath is just
about the hardest part of this ride, as the canal and river run side-by-side here,
and the centre of Leeds can be very confusing. If you encounter an enormous shiny
building that looks like a 1950's Kenwood mixer, that's Bridgewater Place and you're
going in the wrong direction.
Right at the start of the walk on the left, there are three interesting chimneys.
These are from Tower Works on globe road, a pin factory that closed down in 1981.
After that it became home to lots of small workshops, including a top underground
shooting range which is long gone now. One tower is by William Bakewell,
based on
Giotto's Campanile in Florence. The other is by Shaw and
is styled after the Torre Del Communa, Verona.
These were renovated in the mid 80's, when one Saturday morning, the workmen dropped a scaffolding pole which shot like
a javelin through the roof of the shooting range
below, smashing a table in the lounge
where the owner' son and his mate were busy
doing their school homework. Fortunately
nobody (builders included) was killed.
This Leeds obsession with classic architecture is a bit weird really; there's a
fake eqyptian temple
round the corner, and the old Woodhouse library
was modelled on
something Italian, but I can't remember what.
Having found the canal towpath, there's already a sense of tranquility that you
don't expect in the middle of a thriving city. Following the canal towpath away from Leeds you pass enormous blocks of awful overpriced apartments, and within minutes are in the Kirkstall Valley heading out of Leeds. The path is really good quality,
and stays that way all the way to Shipley.
The Kirkstall valley used to be one of the industrial hearts of Leeds, packed with
engineering firms and manufacturing companies. Nowadays it's a whole lot quieter,
and large parts of it are a nature reserve. The canal follows the valley side, so
you get great views over the valley, and though it's industrial, a very pleasant
view it is. At this point the river is running parallel to the canal, so there's
good views over that too.
As you go down the valley, there's a bridge over the canal at Armley. This point
is within spitting distance of the JW Roberts factory, thankfully long closed now,
which polluted the whole surrounding area with asbestos dust for many years. The
problem was so bad, that houses in Armley became virtually unsaleable in the early
90's because of the problem of decontaminating them. Nobody knows the death toll,
but it's at least 30 with many cases in the past going unrecorded, and because of
the nature of the disease, more cases yet to come. Much as I despise most members of the current parliament of whores,
I have
to say that John Battle MP has done
magnificent work on this problem.
On a more cheerful note, right next to the bridge is Armley Mills museum, a former
textile factory now resurrected as an industrial museum. That's worth a visit if
you have time, but try and get there when they've got the steam train and the mill
engine working - it's far more interesting. My Mum was a pattern weaver in a mill
very like this one in the 1950's, and she reckoned it was pretty authentic when
she went for a look.
Carrying on by the canal, this is now really beautiful countryside, and if you want
to visit Kirkstall Abbey, the next bridge is the one to leave at as there's no direct access fom the canal.
Entry to the abbey ruins is free, but you have to pay to get into the Abbey House
museum. And it's rather a good museum with an excellent cafe. But the real problem
with the abbey is that an extremely busy main road (A65) runs right alongside it,
and that destroys the sense of tranquility that it needs. The five million quid
they've just spent on restoring the abbey would have been far better spent as the
downpayment on a road tunnel. But that would involve thinking big, and we're talking
about Leeds City Council here.
Continuing along the canal towpath, you can see the Abbey ruins in the distance
beyond the Leeds Rhinos training pitches. You then come across another two sets
of locks, one of which is Forge Locks. These are named after Kirkstall Forge, a
massive industrial site visible on the right. The site had been continuously used
for heavy industry since about 1200AD, and was famed for the making of heavy axles.
Unfortunately, in these days of the "service economy" where we don't actually need
to make anything to earn a living, it finally closed. A massive redevelopment scheme
was approved in 2005, with a railway station, housing, and of course bars, cafes,
fitness centres and the like to service the new residents. The footings were dug
and foundations laid, but the whole project was then abandoned when the credit crunch
arrived. Let's hope it doesn't turn into another Ravenscar!
After Kirkstall, the canal passes through beautiful countryside, passing
several sets of nice locks at Kirkstall, Forge Locks and Newlay Locks. These are
great places for picnics, and on the far side of the canal, Bramley fall woods come
right down to the canal bank. If you fancy a stop, the woods are great to wander
round. They're riddled with old quarries, and it's quite a wild area.
From Bramley Fall, you can see Horsforth far above on the right, and then the canal
passes near the villages of Rodley, Calverley and Apperley Bridge. There's a couple
of watering holes in this section if you need a break, and there's some new-build
developments. The new developments are a mixed bag, some good, some bad and some
indifferent, but overall there's been little development near the canal, so even
with the new developments, the canal is still going through lovely countryside.
At this point it gets a bit pongy when you have to pass the back of Esholt sewage works,
but it's still fine open countryside. Thereafter the canal continues
to the outskirts of Shipley, which is a great favourite of mine. The canal barely
touches the town, so the temptation is to speed past, but it's worth a detour. It's
a good honest little town, with a nice selection of cafes and chip shops, plus the
worlds's ugliest clock tower. It's also a good place to catch a train back, because
it's the junction of two lines, so trains to Leeds are twice as frequent as they
are if you go further up the line.
From Shipley to Saltaire, the canal goes past an enormous new build factory
in the style of an old mill. This was the home of Filtronic Comtek, one of the Great
White Hopes of the Yorkshire electronics industry in the 1990's. I think they're
gone now, as the last time I passed the building was to let. Presumably like most
of the electronics manufacturing industry the jobs are now in Eastern Europe or
the Far East.
The next mill along is Salt's Mill, and that's now the home of Pace micro, best
known for set-top boxes. Again they've had a rough ride at times, but have managed
to survive and are thriving. On the other side of the canal are New Mill and Victoria
Mill, a mixture of private housing and NHS offices.
And that's it, the middle of Saltaire is reached. A great place to look around and
then catch the train home. There's actually an awful lot to see here, but that'll
be covered at a future date.