Saltaire

See also Saltaire, New York, United States.

for Saltaire at grid reference SE139379

Saltaire is the name of a Victorian era model village in the metropolitan borough of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, by the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The village is served by Saltaire railway station.

In December 2001, Saltaire was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This means that the government has a duty to protect the site. The village has survived remarkably complete, but is somewhat blighted by traffic, as the Aire valley is an important East-West route. There is also a need to restore the park which has suffered from vandalism. The buildings belonging to the model village are individually listed, with the highest level of protection being given to the Congregational Church (since 1972 known as the United Reformed Church) which is listed grade I. Saltaire is a Conservation Area.

Saltaire was founded by Sir Titus Salt in 1853. He moved his entire business from Bradford to a rural site near Shipley partly to provide better arrangements for his workers than could be had in Bradford and partly to site his large textile mill by a canal and a railway. Salt employed the Bradford firm of Lockwood and Mawson as his architects.

A similar project had been started a few years earlier by Edward Ackroyd at Copley, also in West Yorkshire. Other model villages predate Saltaire considerably, eg Robert Owen's village at New Lanark, Scotland, which was developed as early as the beginning of the 19th century, and is also a World Heritage Site.

Salt built neat stone houses (much better than the slums of Bradford), wash-houses with running water, bath-houses, a hospital, as well as an Institute for recreation and education, with a library, a reading room, a concert hall, billiard room, science laboratory and gymnasium. The village also provided almshouses, allotments, a park and a boathouse.

Sir Titus died in 1876 and is interred in the mausoleum adjacent to the Congregational Church.

The Congregational Church (1856-59).

There is controversy as to whether Titus Salt was a philanthropist or simply a very astute capitalist. There is little doubt that the quality of life for the workers in the village of Saltaire was better than that of many of their counterparts elsewhere. However, it was also very highly regulated. Whether this was a cynical business decision or a paternalistic one based on Salt's Christian beliefs is uncertain, but it was claimed that the lack of a pub, while Salt himself owned a wine cellar, was to inhibit the formation of a trade union, which Salt forbade. Life in the village certainly reflected Salt's own preferences, for example, he built a Congregational church at Saltaire, as noted above, but did not provide for members of the Church of England, whose nearest church was at Shipley.

Saltaire mills from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal

When Sir Titus Salt's son, likewise Sir Titus Salt, died, Saltaire was taken over by a partnership which included James Roberts from Haworth who had worked at the mill since the age of twelve, and who would travel to Russia each year, speaking that language fluently. Sir James Roberts came to own Saltaire but invested heavily in Russia, losing his fortune at the Revolution. He endowed a chair of Russian at Leeds University and bought the Bronte's Haworth Parsonage for the nation. He is mentioned in T.S. Eliot's Wasteland. He is buried at Fairlight in Sussex.

Nowadays, the mill complex contains a variety of businesses, with the old mill containing a shopping centre with a major art gallery housing works by the Bradford-born artist David Hockney. Its industrial use continues, as it is also home to the electronics manufacturer Pace Micro Technology. The new mill contains offices for the local National Health Service Trusts and apartments. The Institute houses the Victorian Reed Organ Museum.

The Saltaire Festival, which first took place in 2003 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Saltaire, is now held every year for a week in September.

Other model villages

External links

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World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom (list)

England: Avebury · Blenheim Palace · Canterbury Cathedral · Bath · Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape · Derwent Valley Mills · Durham Castle · Durham Cathedral · Hadrian's Wall · Ironbridge Gorge · Jurassic Coast · Kew Gardens · Liverpool · Maritime Greenwich · Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey & St. Margaret's · Saltaire · Stonehenge · Studley Royal Park · Tower of London

Scotland: New Lanark · Edinburgh Old Town & New Town · St Kilda · Skara Brae

Wales: Beaumaris Castle · Blaenavon · Caernarfon Castle · Conwy Castle · Harlech Castle

Northern Ireland: Giant's Causeway

Overseas territories: Henderson Island · Gough Island and Inaccessible Island · St. George's

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