Here's the view from the clock tower at Leeds town hall, looking west, up the course of the River Aire. The Aire begins near the limestone bluffs of Gordale Scar in the Yorkshire Dales, runs amid dormant mills in a dozen small post-industrial towns, passes under the Leeds train station and onward just two blocks from our flat, and finally joins the River Ouse to flow into the Humber, the estuary that appears as a distinctive cut on the north-east coast of England.
The hill in the foreground is built up with the dense terrace and back-to-back houses that provided inexpensive workers' housing during the industrial development of northern England, and that today is such an important part of the landscape. Behind that are houses on a slope overlooking the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. Out of sight on the valley floor below are the impressive ruins of the 12th-century Kirkstall Abbey. Along the distant skyline is Ilkley Moor, a peaceful plateau between the River Aire and River Wharfe, where stone circles and Bronze-age rock carvings have weathered thousands of years of rain and now withstand the thunderous departure of aircraft from Leed-Bradford airport in the valley below. Kelly and I took a great afternoon walk there a few weeks ago, crossing between the towns of Ilklely and Saltaire, checking out the archeology sites, and sharing some cold white wine in the late summer sun.
