Hello Lovelies,
this is my final post on this years Yorkshire weekend. Two days which Mum and I enjoyed so much.
This was the day after my Yarndale visit and the same day we so enjoyed looking around Skipton and Cliffe castle....a packed day for sure!
After looking around a former mill owners home, we headed to Saltaire to look around a mill.....Salts Mill.
Evidence of the industrial revolution and this area's textile manufacturing history is still prominent to this day.
Nowadays the mill buildings are often converted to homes or offices.
But this wonderful mill has a more interesting use. According to their web site today it's....
" Shopping, Dining and Art in one Glorious Building"
We arrived early in the afternoon and were feeling pretty hungry, so we headed straight to the second floor to find "Salts Diner". It was a buzzing place and I'm surprised I managed to take this empty looking picture..........
How I loved the furniture and all the colours in here....not to mention the pretty flowers on every table
And the building ......just look at those columns and the height of the ceiling........
the space made the perfect setting to display lots of artwork. Salts mill has a strong link with the Yorkshire artist David Hockney........those are his portrait paintings around the walls...........
And his cute little doggy design features on all the crockery........
We ordered the leek and potato soup, it was dEliCiouS.
I loved soaking up the atmosphere of this place and enjoyed the views across the rooftops out of the windows................
Soon my soup was all gone and I was smiling at the discovery of another doggy in the bottom of my bowl...........
It's a very industrial space, with all the "bones" of the building on show....but here they had been made stylish, colourful and fun............
The atmosphere in this exhibition space was much calmer. It covered the history of Salts mill. I loved these interesting pictures of all the stages of cloth production, from sorting the raw wool to checking for any faults in the finished cloth.............
Mum, who worked in a mill before I was born ( as their occupational health nurse), still knew the correct name for all these processes.
Here you can see this area was very different to the cafe space, but once again pops of colour brought it to life............
A little further along there was some interesting information about the building of this mill and the surrounding village. The man responsible for its construction was a philanthropist. You can read a little about Titus Salt ( and the terrible state of Bradford at the time) HERE
Many years ago I enjoyed studying the industrial revolution at school, so this was fascinating to me. And having been born in Bradford myself It certainly made me grateful to live now not then.
After mum managed to tear me away from the exhibition we found the gorgeous , light filled bookshop.............
It was the sort of space you could spend hours just browsing. I loved the stone floors and the industrial feel......
And of course the views out of the huge windows..........
It was getting close to the time we had planned to leave now, but the was just a little while spare to browse the ground floor gallery. I was thrilled to see the original of a Hockney painting I've admired for many years now............The Road Across the Wolds looked amazing in this setting..........
next to a scary old dentists chair!
You can see ( and hear) more of what this beautiful place feels like HERE. Click on the 1853 gallery. It's a 360 degree tour.
I did make a few more small purchases that Sunday. A Yorkshire tea towel from Skipton and some inexpensive Hockney postcards from Salts Mill............
The bookshop also had loads of greetings cards from many different artists. I couldn't resist this one........
Here's the blurb on the back.............
so nice to get a little insight into the life and inspiration of the artist don't you think.
How we both loved Salts Mill and hope to return one day.
I do hope you have enjoyed these posts Lovelies. I know they have been rather information packed at times.
Sometimes I go a bit Linky mad don't I :0)
Jacquie x