retiredmartin

October 2023. Saltaire.

Well, the Shears looked a picture when we got back from our nights out in Halifax,

though quite how we passed by a late opportunity to admire the Websters brewerania in the Three Pigeons I’ll never know.

Halifax is a town of endless treasures, though I can understand how a visitor might find the walk from the shiny Piece Hall past the Shay slightly unprepossessing.

The same is, I guess, true of Bradford, several of whose pubby gems lie in the dark of industrial estates.

But in the morning we headed for posh Saltaire, where I had an enormous row with Mrs RM who insisted on using a parking app that required us to move a mile to Shipley Asda car park, rather than stay where I’d just parked.

As you may remember, Shipley is not the most salubrious of places, even in Bradford.

But it has a Spoons, a good one for the ale drinker

but not the refillable coffee lover, and Mrs RM’s mood worsened as successive cups of Americano were rejected.

Better awaited at Salts village bakery opposite the mill, though I couldn’t help notice how pricey the pastries were. Is Saltaire the new Harrogate ?

Certainly the visitors to Salts Mill could have come from upmarket Yorkshire,

but at least they were there for the Hockney as much as the high tea.

Salts Mill is a wonderful building, and the historical video a classic of its kind.

I don’t know what teetotal Titus would have made of Fanny’s by Gaslight.

Having taken on West Dorset CAMRA over their “Giant Dongle”, it can’t be long before Discourse rages over Fanny’s, robbing a generation of future pub bloggers of puerile humour.