I were well chuffed when I remembered to ask t'guard for a return to 'Cassleford', rather than mithering the gaffer with some cack-handed southern pronunciation. Happen Castleford lies down't M62 from Leeds, eight miles yonder, but know summat, the place has nowt in the way of actual castles. The weather was nitherin', and I went bah’t at so were well nesh, but I were only in't town for an hour, so attempted a champion gander.
Castleford grew up where the River Calder joins the River Aire above a broad meander. It's seen better days. Centuries of mining have ended, Nestlé moved out in 2012 and Burberry'll be on their way soon. But easy commuting to Leeds has given the place a boost, and motorway connections mean distribution and retail sheds are on the up.
Carlton Street, the main drag, is an uneasy mix of Yorkshire heritage and downbeat reality. Haughty banks and emerald-glazed pubs mix with charity shops, sofa outlets and takeaways. The holy trinity of Poundstretcher, Cash Converters and Bright House run consecutively opposite a dumpy Wilko. Marks and Spencer's frontage looks like it slipped through a timewarp from 1988, and is all the better for it. The Carlton Lanes mall prides itself on having Argos as an anchor tenant. For my tea I went to my favourite Northern chain eaterie, Poundbakery, where two pick'n'mix pasties are available for a fraction of what a poncey southerner would pay for one.
Amber-striped woolly hats confirm we're in prime rugby league territory. The local thirteen are the Castleford Tigers, currently mid-table in the Super League, although at this stage the season's barely started. All the flower troughs at the eastern end of the high street are shaded in club colours, with the name of a great player or former achievement emblazoned on the side. A tiny lad in a thin black anorak walked up from the car park and spat into one, before hurling a snowball at a shuttered business, his sullen grin invisible inside his hood.
Down by the river is the world's largest stone grinding flour mill, or at least it was in the 1970s when Allinsons were in charge. The good doctor believed in nowt taken out, although the company's subsequent withdrawal suggests otherwise, and the building is now under the care of heritage volunteers and Dana who runs the tearoom. The next Open Day is Saturday May 6th, or today if you only want hot drinks and cake.
Immediately alongside the mill is the 21st century structure for which the town is best known, the Castleford Footbridge. Kevin McCloud's team came up with the concept for Channel 4's Grand Designs in 2008, a sinuous pedestrian bridge linking communities on either side of the Aire, with the shell of a boat sunk midway for added atmosphere. It's certainly striking, weaving out across the river above a rushingweir, and cuts at least five minutes off the previous journey for residents of the northern back-to-backs.
The bridge's sustainable decking is holding up well, and the mid-path humps add character, but the timber handrails are splattered with guano which diminished the cultural experience somewhat. A teenage couple freezing on a bench partway across, necking what I believe was genuinely lemonade, eyed me suspiciously as I attempted to admire the structure from all angles. Had they not been around I might have lingered longer, then found time to seek out the town's museum, but the train back to Wakefield was imminent, bringing my brief gadabout to an end.
Anthony McCall:Solid Light Works Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield
16 Feb - 3 June 2018
Of all the provincial post-millennial art hubs I've visited, the Hepworth remains my favourite. It has a reason to exist - the sculptures of locally-raised sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. It has a gorgeous setting on the RiverCalder beside the Chantry Bridge. And it has some physical substance about it, comprising a chain of multiple galleries to explore, unlike certainofferings which peter out after a few rooms. Plus there's an ever-changing body of other artists' work, and the whole thing's free.
The latest majorexhibition is by Bromley-born Anthony McCall, who's been creating interactive illuminations since 1973. He uses projectors and smoke machines to conjure up geometric shapes in darkened rooms, and invites visitors to step through. The Hepworth has three such works on display, its oddly-angled galleries ideal for the purpose, plus a minor retrospective in the adjacent rooms. This includes video of Landscape for Fire, a rhythmic grid of outdoor bonfires, and a considerable number of notebooks with sketches depicting mooted overlaps. [video]
In the darkest gallery, two arcs slowly bend across a distant screen, the light streaming from the projector bending in tandem. It's entertaining to observe but even more so to enter, perhaps waving a hand through the mist or stepping fully inside the beam of light. I enjoyed making a fool of myself in the empty room, interacting with the ever-changing lines, before a sprightly couple entered with their two year-old granddaughter in tow. She toddled back and forth through the lightshow with a chuckle, enjoying her virtual playground far more than a static 2D painting.
The other immersive work is called Back to Back, in a separate room, and comprises two separate projectors and screens, opposite and offset. Here the underlying geometric shapes are chopped ellipses, gently migrating over a 30 minute cycle, and the effect seems similar to before... until you step within. This time the membranes of light seemed to form a dazzling tunnel, with mist swirling ominously around its broken surface, like some heavenly gateway or giant Star Trek vortex. You'd have enjoyed watching me from outside, briefly lost in my own little galaxy before warping out, and then flying in again for another look. It seems Solid Light definitely Works.
National Coal Mining Museum for England Location: Overton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF4 4RH [map] Open: 10am-5pm daily (closed today because of snow) Admission: free Website:ncm.org.uk (@NCMME) Five word summary: former colliery with underground tours Time to allow: at least half a day
Britain grew rich on coal, the great enabling fuel of the Industrial Revolution. It lies abundantly, but awkwardly, under several areas of the UK. More than a million people were once involved in its production. That said, it also kickstarted climate change, unleashed major industrial unrest and no longer plays any part in our future energy needs. But its place at the heart of our island story is assured, and the National Coal Mining Museum allows you to experience that first hand.
For 200 years, until closure in 1985, Caphouse Colliery was a productive mine in the South Yorkshire coalfield. Its development very much followed the national picture, from paupers scratching a living to full scale industrial production, with additional technology added over the years as appropriate. The mine was nationalised in 1947, but couldn't deliver the cheap coal the rest of the world needed, so was shut down immediately after the miners' strike had proven it was no longer necessary. It reopened in 1988 as a tourist attraction, the Yorkshire Mining Museum, a designation upgraded to National in 1995. And if you can get there, it's all free to enter.
The colliery was established on the slopes beneath the village of Overton, in undulating country southwest of Wakefield. Originally the village was called Over Shitlington, but unsurprisingly changed its name in Victorian times, as did neighbouring Middle Shitlington (to Middlestown) and Nether Shitlington (to Netherton). But I digress. If you're driving the museum's not too far from junction 39 on the M1, and if you're coming by public transport the hourly 130 bus between Wakefield and Dewsbury stops right outside. Look out for the two giant miners either side of the main entrance.
The museum covers 45 acres, encompassing two pitheads, dozens of outbuildings and a fair chunk of the surrounding countryside. To begin you want the non-heritage building, the large shed which houses reception, the cafe and the main displays. This is also where to book yourself onto the underground tour, which you want to do as early in the day as possible to ensure they haven't 'sold out'. No chance of that on a snowy day in February, but apparently in the school holidays it's a different matter. Your free tour costs £4, for which you receive a souvenir brass miner's check, which you're welcome to return for a refund afterwards, but I bet very few people do.
Official mine regulations still apply, so on checking in for the tour you have to hand in anything which might cause a spark underground. That means no phones, no cameras, no electronic key fobs and most intriguingly, no digital watches. This means you'll be heading underground with no concept of time, and no means of recording the visit for Instagram, which it has to be said improves the experience no end. The average tour spends an hour and a quarter under the surface, but I got lucky on a quiet day and spent two hours... in temperatures much warmer than on the snowy surface.
Togging up to go underground requires a hardhat, plus a dangly lamp looped over your neck, just like the most recent miners would have used. While waiting you can peer down one of the brick shafts, 140m to the bottom, which is the same distance you're about to descend in the cage. No other part of the tour was quite so evocative as squeezing into a shuttered metal box and being winched down into the earth a distance deeper than the London Eye is tall, just as generations of miners had been before. They went five times as fast, we were told.
At the foot of the shaft great wooden doors act as an airlock, to keep the oxygen in, and then you're through to the mine proper. The tour starts off in an early 19th-century-style passage with wooden supports, then moves round to the introduction of steel props and ends up with whopping hydraulics supporting the roof. Initially you don't walk far, but eventually the wiggles and passageways get longer, and it feels like you're on a proper safari. There are also a couple of opportunities to crawl rather than walk, technically optional although our guide pushed us hard to give them a try. As I shuffled through an original narrow coal-strewn tunnel on my knees, I regretted picking my best pair of jeans out of the wardrobe six hours earlier.
The guides are former miners, and I hit gold with mine. He led our group round recounting tales, imparting information and putting us all on the spot with questions, delivered with a edgy Yorkshire bluff. I was one of the few Brits on the tour, the others being from America, Canada, the Baltic States and the Netherlands, but Taz ensured nobody felt left out. What I genuinely hadn't been expecting was a focus on philosophical matters, specifically the need to make the most of the fleeting brevity of life, but the point was well made in a dangerous subterranean environment which cut short so many.
The tour is the centrepiece of any visit, but there's plenty more to explore. Various buildings have been left much as they were when the colliery closed down, including the winding engine house, a clunky electronic control room and the window where small brown wages envelopes would have been handed out. The place I found most evocative was the Pithead Baths, with its separate racks of lockers for clean and dirty gear, and a starkly echoing shower room inbetween. I remember the Miners Strike all too clearly, and to have seen the private areas where it all played out has made the tragedy all too real.
As you'd expect, plenty of mining history is on show, both in the central building and a two-storey outhouse. The individual displays are themed rather than running through anything chronologically, for example focusing on social conditions, unionisation or mining technology. The presentation was well done for its time, and includes several child-friendly activities, but feels a little dated now. Perhaps one day someone will add a global warming section, in place of the upbeat claim that Britain's coal reserves "are potential energy resources for our future", "providing power for modern living".
The site actually covers two collieries, the younger Hope Pit being five minutes walk away. It's easy enough to follow the path, but some days a tiny battery-operated train runs instead for a nominal fare. All I saw was it covered in gently drifting snow. As well as additional buildings to explore, there's usually a blacksmith to pop in and visit, and a large equipment store which might or might not be open. Younger visitors will appreciate the large clambery playground, the nature trail down into the valley, and 'pit ponies' called Eric and Ernie, whose friendly stablekeeper is more than happy to chat.
I found the whole place fascinating, all the more so for being genuine, and was pleased I'd made the effort to visit. I now have a greater empathy for a key British industry, and those who risked all to bring it to the surface. But most of all, hell yes, I have now been down an actual coal mine, twice as deep as anywhere in London delves.
