Photos and the City

Category: In The Movies

Heptonstall

The ancient village of Heptonstall sits on top of a steep hill on the north side of the Calder Valley, overlooking Hebden Bridge. The village once thrived in the woollen trade until the end of the 18th century when water and then steam powered mills determined that the industry was located in the tributary valleys of the Calder. (Yorkshire.com)

You cross the old bridge in Hebden Bridge and stand in front of “The Buttress”, part of an ancient packhorse route, a steep, cobbled ascent from Hebden Bridge up to Heptonstall on top of the hill. It´s not a long way, but a very steep one!

The view along the way is nice though and invites you to a short break!

View of Hebden Bridge from above, I also found a lost little friend – hopefully he got found!

Heptonstall

Finally arrived at the top! Heptonstall offers a historical guided walk around the village, the printed ones are out of print (even so the lovely gentleman at the post office/local shop offered to lend me his copy) there is also a downloadable one.

A little café was the perfect place to have a little read through and have a tiny rest.

First named in 1253, Heptonstall was

a centre for hand-loom weaving, it was also the site of a battle in 1643 during the early part of the English Civil War. The foundation stone of its octagonal Methodist chapel, the oldest still in continued use, was laid following the visit of John Wesley in 1764.

Heptonstall cottages and terraced houses were characterised by their large first floor windows to maximise the light for weaving. (heptonstall.org)

The old Co-Operative house, market – and the little café on the right.

St Thomas a Becket

Founded around 1260 Heptonstalls old church was altered and added to over the centuries but damaged by a gale in 1847 and a new church was built right next to the old one.

The paths are laid with old gravestones and in the newer part American poet, Sylvia Plath is buried.

Right next to the churches is the Old Grammar School, serving as a little museum about local history and well worth a visit! (entrance is free)

It was endowed in 1641 and closed in 1889. The building was used by the Yorkshire Penny Bank from 1898 to 1954. They kept the original school desks, headmaster’s chair and stone fireplace, which are still in position, (Heptonstall.org)

weavers Square

Designed by local architect Noel Singer, as a museum of stone and completed in 1967. Several weavers’ cottages and the old band room previously stood on the site. It is formed of cobbles and pebbles from the River Calder in Mytholmroyd, various kinds of setts, stone flags from local houses and concrete.(Heptonstall.org)

My next destination was Hardcastle Crags, a wooded valley on the other side of the hill!

30/07/2019
A Weekend in London

A wonderful concert at Highclere Castle gave me the perfect excuse for a relaxed (and lazy) weekend in London. A bus brought us from London Victoria directly to Highclere and we were awaited by lots of food & drink trucks, the Highclere Gin Truck was probably the favourite.

While the sun set slowly over the Castle the “Music of Downton Abbey” was played and performed.

Back in London, I started the next day with breakfast at Fiona’s and wandering around the neighbourhood, South Kensington.

My tiny “studio” in the house with the pink door and the stunning staircase!

I was also lucky to finally score one of the sought after tickets for the Dior exhibition at the V&A museum. It was really interesting to see the drawings, models and dresses but there were just too many people to really enjoy it!

While trying to upload this I´m sipping my Yorkshire tea and enjoy the Haworth moors all around me, my second British summer has started and the next blog post will show you my first days in Hebden Bridge.

16/07/2019
Quartieri Spagnoli

Taking a deep dive into narrow alleys and colourful life of the Quartieri Spagnoli, the “Spanish” neighbourhood of Naples.

“Napule è mille culure, Napule è mille paure, Napule è a voce d’ ‘e creature che saglie chiano chianu e tu saje ca nun si sulo:” (Pino Daniele)

Naples is a thousand colors, Naples is a thousand fears, Naples is the voice of children gently coming through

From one window you hear the voice of the beloved Neapolitan singer Pino Daniele, some football match from the next and then an opera piece – the Quartieri Spagnoli are a cacophony of sounds. Mums calling their children, men talking to each other from one balcony to the next and then there are the scooters finding their way through the alleys.

they did start as a place for the rich and noble: it was the Spanish viceroy Pedro de Toledo who chose the area in the 16th century as the perfect location for Spanish politicians and ministers to live. Apparently, he liked it because of its beauty and pleasantness, full as it was with mulberry trees and green. After the ministers and their families came Spanish soldiers, who lived in the bassi and attracted large numbers of prostitutes, ready to keep them company while they were far from home; but the military didn’t only bring around easy women, but also helped the flourishing of commerce: soon the many alleys around Via Toledo, the Quartieri Spagnoli’s main artery, filled up with workshops and stores, bringing a multi cultural and varied population to move into them. (L´Italo Americano)

In the 18th century the Quartieri Spagnolia was loved by artists who choose them as their residence. Poet Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca was one of the first and followed by many, like Goethe.

And how can we forget, to say it all, that it’s in Via Sant’Anna di Palazzo, at the heart of the Quartieri, that the most famous pizza in the world, the Margherita, was born? Indeed, it was there in 1889 that the tricolored delicacy was created in honor of Queen of Italy. (L´Italo Americano)

21/05/2019