Huddersfield Ring
Slaithwaite
9th August 2011
Given my enthusiasm for Slawit I couldn't really leave without a few extra photo's could I?
Slaithwaite town centre (we knocked part of the warning sign off 2 years ago!)
The town has really taken the canal to its heart, remodelling its entire centre to allow it to be restored along its original route.
Slaithwaite Mills
This old mill town has lots of old cotton mills and homey cottages set in courtyards. Whilst other places suffer Slawit displays a confident and prosperous face, its shops active and its mills finding new applications. Just behind the canal is one of the country's largest wooden pallet makers.
This entrepreneurial streak is nothing new. If you take a wander over the Colne you will come to Spa Park, overlooked by Spa mill. This is all that's left of an old spa resort built around two mineral springs but up till the second world war this was the Butlins of the north. There were spa baths, theatres, roller skating rinks and all sorts.
Spa Park
Slaithwaite basin as it was
Its all gone mow but the town retains a certain amount of its old grandeur. There must be something in the water!
Mystery object from Spa Park
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Woollen mills surely this side of the Pennines?
ReplyDeleteWhen I (briefly) lived and worked in Huddersfield I was always tickled by the fact that the district to the north of the town was known as 'heavy woollens', in contrast to the fine cloth produced in and around Huddersfield. There was always the undertone that the people themselves were correspondingly less refined than the Huddersfield sophisticates.
Form the trans-Pennine train you could see a mill chimney still proudly proclaiming 'Mungo and shoddy manufacturers'.