CAMBRIDGE LETTER
Permanence and change
BILL KIRKMAN
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Saltaire, near Leeds, a 19th century industrial town that is now a U.N. heritage site, has weathered rather well the changing circumstances since its establishment.
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Last week my wife and I spent three days travelling on a narrowboat along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. We began our journey at Bingley and left the boat, hired by my cousin, at Leeds. The distance is not great but the time required to cover it is long, because the boats, ideally suited to canal travel, for which they were designed, travel slowly, and at frequent intervals there are locks to be negotiated (and operated manually) as the canal moves from one level to another. The pace of travel is relaxing. Working the locks provides exercise.
The journey was through magnificent scenery, with woodland in many places coming right to the canal bank – and this only a short distance from Leeds, one of Britain’s largest cities. It was also a reminder of an important aspect of the country’s industrial history. The canals were constructed mainly in the early 19th century, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, to carry raw materials and finished products to factories and to consumers.
Changing roles
Their commercial role was crucial, but did not last long, as railways developed from the middle of the 19th century. When that happened there was a steady decline in the use of the waterways.
Our trip was a personal reminder too. Some 46 years ago, we decided to live on a narrowboat (on the Grand Union Canal) and for two years it was our home. By that time, little commercial cargo was carried on the waterways, and now the commercial traffic is virtually non-existent.
That does not mean, however, that the canals have fallen into disuse. Quite the reverse is the case, as more and more people have discovered the pleasure of cruising on the canals, in the traditional narrowboats, as an active holiday experience. There are still some 3,000 kilometres of man-made waterways in Britain. Birmingham, the second largest city in England, has more miles of canals (in discussing canals miles comes more naturally than kilometres) than Venice — though it has to be said that no one describes Venice as “the Birmingham of the south”!
This current use of the canals as a major resource, but a use far removed from that for which they were conceived and constructed, illustrates an important point: well based developments can prove to be adaptable to circumstances which could not have been envisaged when they began.
On our journey last week we stopped at Saltaire, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. Saltaire was the creation of Sir Titus Salt, a 19th century industrialist who made his fortune through making fine cloth from alpaca wool. In 1850 he bought land in what is now Saltaire and built on it a huge mill, designed on what would now be called “green” principles. It quickly became a phenomenal commercial success.
Hard-nosed philanthropy
Salt quickly began to build houses for the mill workers, and provided them with facilities that were unheard of elsewhere. He established a community — and the conditions offered ensured that the workers chose to remain in his employment. His philanthropy was real, but it was hard nosed. He was an autocrat, and certainly did not suffer from agonies of self-doubt: the name of the place, and the fact that his armorial shield is seen on dozens of buildings, are reminders of that.
The UNESCO description sums up the position well: “Saltaire, West Yorkshire, is a complete and well-preserved industrial village of the second half of the 19th century. Its textile mills, public buildings and workers’ housing are built in a harmonious style of high architectural standards and the urban plan survives intact, giving a vivid impression of Victorian philanthropic paternalism.”
New uses
Salt’s Mill, a vast, imposing building, is no longer used for its original purpose. It now serves as an impressive art gallery, restaurant and visitor centre. Like the canals, it has proved to be adaptable to circumstances which Titus Salt could not have foreseen. The houses, too, built for the mill workers on whose labours Salt’s fortune depended, are now highly “desirable residences”, many of them homes for people who work in Leeds, easily reached by train.
At any time, our canal trip, and our visit to Saltaire, would have given us an object lesson in the balance of permanence and change. Coming as it did at a time when financial institutions round the world were collapsing in turmoil, it caused me to reflect on how ephemeral organisations can be if their base is more shadow than substance.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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