Haworth and Saltaire

Yesterday we visited the villages of Haworth and Saltaire. Two distinctly different villages, each famous for entirely different reasons. Yet they are only about 8 miles (13 kms) apart.

We used our West Yorkshire Metro DayRover passes and took the bus from Keighley to Haworth, about a 15 minute ride. Our friend Glen had given us a walking map of Haworth and we decided to follow that route.

Ruth, in Haworth's beautiful Central Park.

There are many public footpaths that run on private property in England.

This walk brought us beside an old unmaintained graveyard.

With beautiful scenery.

Another cemetery.

The town of Haworth is famous because the three Bronte sisters (Wuthering Heights etc) lived there. A Bronte museum exists and of course a lot of local businesses have tried to capitalize on the Bronte name so it's a bit of a touristy place. But not overly so, and there are a lot of walks in the area, and beautiful scenery.

We walked through the Kissing Gate, so had to take advantage of the moment!

The main street in Haworth. 

Then we took the bus back to Keighley. We wanted to take the train, and there is a line going through there but it's only for a tourist steam train and they wanted too much money for our liking. When we got back to Keighley, we took the train for Keighley to Saltaire.

Saltaire is a Unesco World Heritage site, mainly because the wool mills that were designed there had housing built specifically for the workers, and it's one of the few British towns laid out with a grid pattern.

Besides the mill, there's also a beautiful section of walkway along one of the canals.

Housing built in the 1800's.

Saltaire.

Longboats going along the canal.

And through the locks.

We had a really good day, but would have liked to have spent more time in the area. In fact, there is so much to see and do in the Leeds and the West Yorkshire area that we find ourselves wanting to return even before we have left. Really wish our original three week house sitting plan had come together. We'll just have to find a reason to return!

But, we leave this morning for Bristol. We've only got a day and a half there, and then we're looking forward to a couple of weeks or more with Ruth's cousin and her family where we'll be staying in Somerset. We've been going pretty much non stop for two weeks now and we need a break!