Kate Lycett

I had a lovely end to last week. The ‘Cragg Vale’ painting (in my last blog) sold last week and will be shipped to Houston, Texas in the New Year! Exciting to be so well travelled… I love to know where my paintings go, and they were such nice people.

So, after I’d stayed very local in the coldest winter months (though it’s the darkness I mind more than the cold), my friend Nancyann dragged me out to see her bits of Calderdale. After painting Akroydon a few years ago, I knew of Edward Akroyd’s other model village at Copley:

We parked near Copley village, walked over the footbridge to the church, out through the woods and up towards Pickwood Scar. From a gap between the trees you can see the river Calder, passing under two railway bridges, and back down to the Village.

Originally named ‘Copley Mills’, the village was first conceived as a model housing scheme by Jonathan Akroyd for the workers of his near by mill. The original Copley Mills had 136 houses, 4 shops, it’s own school, library and co-operative society. After his death it was completed by his son Edward, who went on to build a whole model village – ‘Akroyden’ – in Halifax.

I came back at the end of our walk to wander up and down the little streets. The early blossom and the washing was out in the front gardens. Then I went and sat in the woods just above the church. I drew the church, and I drew some of the houses. But I couldn’t work out how to put it all together without the church dominating the painting. It took a few weeks to sort it out in my head, and I went back just as the bluebells and the blossoms were fully out. Copley feels very hidden and very quiet. It’s lovely.

On this same walk Nancyann and I headed up to find Ladstone rock on Norland Moor. I’ve run leg 1 of the Calderway Relay fell race a few times, and the route goes past it (or near it). It’s a bit of a blur and there’s never time to stop and take in your surroundings! I know it’s a nice flat bit of the run, and I remember the way the heather feels underneath your feet. I especially enjoyed painting the heather and the curlews in this picture.

Ladstone Rock sits on the edge of the moor and seems to be a special place for many people; a quiet thinking place, overlooking the green valleys of Rishworth and Ripponden. Of the rock, I’ve heard stories of marriage proposals, wedding photographs, evening walks for bilberry picking, family picnics and of a cat that liked to be walked up there on a lead!

Next up was ‘Ripponden’…

This is the view that sums up Ripponden for me. I know it (again!) from the Calderdale Way, coming down from Norland Moor. On the day I drew this picture I’d just visited the children at Triangle School. We’d spent the morning making paper lanterns. It was February and cold and mizzly, but the edges of the trees were just starting to soften with the earliest signs of spring.

Don’t be fooled by these blog pictures. Norland Moor is a BIG painting. Nearly 150cm wide in its frame. As is this one – ‘The Golden Yellow Boat’ – of the Mayroyd Moorings in Hebden Bridge.

The importance of the Rochdale Canal to the development of Calderdale gave me a good excuse to go all out with colourful boats in Hebden Bridge. It’s where we all go for a splash of much needed colour on the gloomiest of winter days. There’s a boat covered in blue pots, my favourite is the golden yellow boat which is like a ray of sunshine on a drab day. There’s always bunting, fairy lights and washing. I’m sure boat life isn’t all sunshine and roses; I’ve heard it’s sometimes quite cold and damp. But from the other side of the tow path it looks very idyllic in the summer, and pretty cosy in the winter when all the little chimneys are smoking.

A friend who used to have a boat near Callis complained that there were SO many locks between Sowerby Bridge and Rochdale. I now know that the canal was very difficult to build and that constructing 14 locks was far less expensive than building the alternative tunnel. Several reservoirs were constructed to supply the canal, including Blackstone Edge and Hollingworth Lake! The canal was essential for joining the emptier upper valley with the more industrial end of Calderdale which starts with Sowerby Bridge and sprawls through to Brighouse.

The last one for this post is ‘West Vale & Greetland’.

This links with the Ripponden, Norland Moor and Copley paintings really.

I’m never quite sure where West Vale Ends and Greetland begins. I first went there in 2009 when I was doing a project with the children at Greetland School. The first thing I did was go to the wrong school – West Vale Academy, and they sent me up the hill to Greetland. Hattie, only 3 at the time, would come with me to the school sessions and either be left to watch Percy the Park Keeper on the teachers ipad, or be left to draw with a few of the older children. We played around with brusho inks and salt and built two big paintings of their town as they saw it. I remember catching Hattie licking the salt from the pictures – the blue tongue gave her away!

I love the contrast as you drive into West Vale, with the array of old industrial mill buildings on one side and the 17th century Clay House on the other. The West Vale Academy, St John’s Church and Victoria Mills add to the collection of tall towers that distinguish West Vale. Up through the railway arches to the leafy streets of houses of Greetland and the right school! And St Thomas’s Church with the green hills behind.

I’ll stop now. Well done on getting to the end!