Ahh.... Saltaire Arts Trail, what a breath of fresh air compared to most days of my week. Once a year in May, the Saltaire Arts Trail brings together a chance to go in Salts Mill, buy nice things in the Makers' Fair and have a nosey around people's houses. This year was especially nice as the sun was beaming down and everyone seemed to be in a good mood!
I headed down with my Mum and a family friend, Jenny, to have a look around - first stop was the Makers' Fair where I bought a lovely selection of cards (about 11 cards - but you ever have too many cards, right?!). Six of them were from Sunlight on Closed Lids, who create really nice printed cards with clean, bright designs. I've been coming to the Arts Trail for the last 3 years and always stock up on these cards; they sell them in the Mill also but you can snap them up for only £2 each on the stall (or 3 for £5). The rest of the cards were from artists dotted around the fair - I bought so many cards as I wanted the large scale prints but couldn't justify buying 11 of them!
The Makers' Fair was in the beautiful Victoria Hall (you can see the ceiling below) and was filled with lots of handmade goodies - from necklaces and prints to hand carved wooden chopping boards and ceramics. The stalls that caught my eye most were the stalls with screenprints - such lovely designs!
Next we moved to look in Salts Mill which is always a pleasure. Salts Mill, set up in its current guise in 1987 by Jonathan Silver, was once a textile mill opened by Sir Titus Salt in 1853. The mill today houses galleries, restaurants, shops and the most beautiful book shop I've ever seen. The mill is a shrine to one of my favourite artists, David Hockney, and the gallery-cum-shop (the photo to the right below) lets you look at the art work AND buy art equipment at the same time. I love it in here but I always end up leaving with a new piece of equipment I'll never use (I have some charcoal tucked away that I bought 5 years ago but in that moment I just HAD to have it).
Finally we moved on to have a look around the houses...
The houses surrounding the mill were built to house the workers of the mill and are ordered so that the foreman's houses at the end of each street were the tallest and largest houses on the street (apparently so the foremen could keep a watchful eye!). All of the streets are named after Salt's children (Mary, Helen, Amelia, Albert, Fanny and more - he had a lot of children!) and the houses are small and perfectly formed. As part of the Arts Trail about 20 of the houses open their doors to present artwork for sale - giving you a chance to look at the art work and have a good nosey around people's houses! Of course, I always want to live there before the day is through as the houses are just so nice.
All of the houses that have artwork for sale have red bunting outside and range from the weird to the wonderful. My favourites were Clare Caulfield who creates really nice illustrations and Salts Press who I bought a lovely print from for a tenner.
Saltaire is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is kept in beautiful condition - it's my favourite place in Yorkshire and I would recommend a visit all year round but it is especially good when the Arts Trail is on.
