My first Random Town visit will be - as Halfie correctly, but cryptically, surmised - to Saltaire, a Yorkshire mill town with a difference, on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. I visited last July, on our works outing. Most of our time then was spent in the massive Salts Mill development, exploring its shops, galleries and cafes. I went for a little wander around the village (is it a town, or a model village?), which was quite an odd experience - I recall it as a small island of well ordered picture-box pretty stone houses (a three bedroom one will set you back a quarter of a million) surrounded by a sea of untidy, unruly deprivation - into which one had to venture to get anything as mundane as a bottle of coke and a bar of chocolate.
I believe - please correct me if I'm wrong - that the boat Saltaire is the only one of the large motor boats to exist in two halves - i.e. that there are two Saltaires. This is more common with the 'small' boats, and particularly of course with butties, where the stern end becomes the fore end of a new boat (although I can't off the top of my head think of any large GU butties this has happened to).
I shan't visit this weekend, as I need a bit of time to plan and think about it, and anyway, I have a stinking cold. But I shall go soon. I'm very much looking forward to it.
Oddly enough Saltaire was the answer to the 'Where was I' competition in the Sunday Times this week.
ReplyDeleteSAM (aka Victor Vectis)
NB 'Red Wharf'