A Bench on the Waterfront

Back when I lived in Leeds, its waterfront was emphatically not A Thing. It was certainly not called The Waterfront, being a disregarded area of town rotting behind the station, with long-closed mills and factories collapsing into weed-smothered decay. These dessicated buildings stood alongside ill-repaired streets, deserted except by cars whose owners parked here for free before scurrying off to work or shop in a more salubrious part of town. The River Aire, the Leeds-Liverpool Canal were uninviting, rubbish-clogged. The area wasn’t anybody’s idea of a good day out.

Nowadays, what a surprise! Mills and factories have been restored: repurposed as offices, shops, bars and restaurants. It’s busy day and night with local workers, tourists and pleasure-seekers. Canal boats saunter in and out. Here’s a woman enjoying a quiet moment, probably in her lunch break, on a bench overlooking the canal.

And here are members of a local art group, sketching the area in all its vibrancy one sunny August day. They seem to have commandeered all the benches-for-one.

For Jude’s Bench Challenge.

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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

35 thoughts on “A Bench on the Waterfront”

  4. what an interesting bit of urban regeneration! Certainly looks worth spending some time there. That said, I would love to have seen and photographed long-closed mills and factories collapsing into weed-smothered decay!

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  8. I really like the blue tone you’ve used on some of these, it suits the subjects so well 🙂 And I could rewrite your first paragraph substituting Newcastle for Leeds, the Quayside for the Waterfront and the Tyne for the Aire! The first time Chris took me there in (I think) 1980, I remember seeing a large rat 😀

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    1. Thanks Sarah. Yes,it seems every city and town having a waterside that used to be a place of toil is now re-inventing it. I’m thnking St. Katharine’s Dock in London which I saw for the first time a few months ago. Commenters to this post have mentioned, as you have, other place that tell the same story.

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  9. It’s an interesting turn of events where manufacturing and industry spaces have been replaced by service industries and recreation spaces. Buildings like those aren’t constructed any longer, are they? It does look like a wonderful place to visit and sit down a reflect a bit….

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  10. I like how you chose to showcase these photos in monochrome. A sort of nod to the past. And yes, certainly very different atmosphere to the last time I was in Leeds which was probably 1996. How did the op go? I am surprised you are using a screen already.

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  13. Nice to see old places getting a new lease of life. The canal boats intrigue me, another thing that used to be functional but boat life is quite a trend now.

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