Along the Aire The Great British Story: Regional Histories

Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales. It's been here for tens of

thousands of years - carved out by the melting waters of ice age

glaciers. If you look over the edge, it's hard to imagine that this was

once a colossal waterfall as big as There's history under your feet

here. Close by, one of Yorkshire's most important rivers springs to

life with countless stories wrapped up in its progress. We will be

tracing the river's course, discovering some of the history

over thousands of years. We travel back in time a long one of the most

important waterways of the North. Malham Tarn - the highest lake in

England. And the start of a seventy mile journey above ground and below.

As the water drains from Malham Tarn, it begins an underground

journey going on a few miles south of here to become the small

beginnings of the River Aire. Gordale Scar. A tiny beck trickles

down the mile long canyon and on through Malham village. Then, this

little stream joins the water that went underground at Malham Tarn,

bubbling to the surface at a place called Aire Head. Then, the journey

of the River Aire begins. There's layer upon layer of history here. A

landscape so familiar that it's surprising to discover what once

roamed the gentle countryside. Just ask Tom Lord - an amateur Historian,

with a passion for the Dales. is a limestone country. We have

springs and caves. In the caves, bones from the for the last Ice Age

have survived. This does not look like a Shi'ites tooth. That is

rhinoceros. A rhinoceros, it is unbelievable people pay a fortune

to go on safari and hundreds of thousands of years ago you could

see it here. This would be a Yorkshire safari, we would see

hippopotamus in Leeds and all the way up and on high ground as it

gets more open and grassy, rhinos, elephants and packs of hyenas

hunting the big animals. And then people come and the record for

people is really quite curious because this bone here... This is

not a human bone. It is a wild horse bone. But it is telling a

story. This is the first The to Brit behind the skull and if we

turn it over, you can see a tiny scratch. Those are not tooth marks.

Those are the marks made by a stone tool cutting the horse's head off.

This is a wild horse that was hunted and it has been butchered.

This is the earliest evidence we have of people coming back into the

valley at the earliest evidence of people coming back into Yorkshire

after the last glaciation. This bone has been dated at 14,400 years

ago. The River Aire meanders steadily across limestone country

and before long it flows past its first major town the Gateway to the

Dales. Here's another name for your trivia stockpot, Sheep Town, the

It's a town that used to make a healthy living from livestock and

wool. Now it's still a market town, but the trade is for tourists and

trippers and locals with an eye for a bargain. There's one place in

town though that seems like it's never changed. Permanent and

protective. Skipton Castle. During the English Civil War Skipton

Castle was the last standing stronghold of the Royalists. It's

amazing to think it stood up to a siege that lasted three brutal

It held out for so long because of the way the castle was built, five

hundred years before. It is a perfect fortress. The front is

built on bedrock and behind a massive gorge and that makes it

impregnable from the back because you cannot attack. It is sheer

precipice. There was a massive outer wall, a 12 ft big, it was

protected and there were guns. Very powerful guns. How much did local

people have to do with a castle surviving in the siege? An integral

part. It was a strong loyalist area. People want to supply the cars with

food and there was Cole to heat the castle and there was led mind. The

parliamentarians want to cut off the water supply which they did.

They did not take into account the good Yorkshire weather. Never short

of rainfall. A quarter of an acre of roof space which gathers water

in a rainy period. There was enough water for drinking and cleanliness

purposes and they were quite comfortable. The history of Skipton

Castle is inseparable from the Clifford family, who owned it for

generations. The formidable Lady Anne Clifford stood firm for the

King in the Civil War and restored the damaged Castle after the

fighting. She planted a yew tree in the courtyard to mark it's

completion. 350 years later and Now the Castle has new owners. The

Fattorini family have lived here since the 1950s and are keeping the

building alive for future generations. The castle came for

sale and no-one would to the expense and there wasn't anybody

about to take it on. The National Trust did not want it at that time.

The local council did not want it. I am the third generation and we

are still repairing it and the visitors help us keep on top of the

jobs. It is rare to have a privately owned Castle. What is it

like to live in? It is very cold in winter! I imagine it is freezing.

It is cold and damp, probably not good for arthritis if you haven't

got it and if you haven't, you will get it! But it is great fun. It is

like an old car. It is fun to drive, needs a lot of looking after but

you don't have all the comforts. the nineteenth century, it wasn't

the River Aire but another stretch of water that would bring wealth to

Skipton. The newly opened Leeds and Liverpool Canal was an important

and lucrative method of transport. The main purpose was to get cold

here and to get from Skipton limestone, cotton, wool and flour

and grain. It was the major link to Leeds and Liverpool. What does the

canal mean now? The amount of tourists it fetches is massive.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. The ONS the canal is an amazing way

to see the history Skipton has. just get income any town with a

canal, the history is there to be seen from a different angle. You

can sort of work out how life went on for the boatmen who worked on

the canal and the trade, and what was loaded and unloaded and how it

worked. It was the main supply and to the railways. It is great.

the Aire valley now, trading countryside for industry. Through

Keighley and on to the most famous Victorian village in the world.

Saltaire. Industrialist Sir Titus Salt wanted healthy workers so he

moved them from his five factories in the heavily-polluted Bradford

area to here - the banks of the River Aire where he built the

biggest and most modern factory in Salt had made a fortune from wool

and the textile industry now he used his vast wealth to build not

just a factory but an entire village. Salts Mill was a cathedral

of industry, 1200 looms, 4000 workers producing eighteen miles of

cloth a day. This is a fully integrated factory and all the

processes of production are under one roof. It is not like Bradford

with different mills for different processes. You put it in at one end

and out of the other comes a suit length. Everything was done under

one roof. And that was new. Everything about Salts Mill was new.

The workers' lives were as regimented and mapped out as the

streets they lived in. For 50 years Frank Senior worked in the factory.

Few were well paid, but Frank knew the living conditions in Saltaire

were a world away from the dirt and grime many still had to endure.

When Sir Titus Salt builds this, the working conditions in Bradford

were horrendous. Disease was rampant. And the people to be

offered a job in a brand-new mill with houses, with toilets, outdoors,

it was paradise. As the village took shape, Sir Titus joined his

name with the river that had built fortune. He christened it Saltaire.

He built houses and a church. He built shops, a library and a school.

And the streets carried the names of his children. If you lived here,

though, you lived by Salt's law. There was no pub, no demon drink.

No washing was allowed to hang in the streets. But there was, though,

a real sense of community. A very busy place. If you saw the mill

breaking up for meals, it was like crowds going to a football match.

The weaving and all of the looms clattering away. The noise was

horrendous. People like my mother who had been working there were

long time, they learnt to lip-read and they would constantly... How do

you do this, how do you do that? The Saltaire History Club are

keeping the community spirit alive organising guided walks and other

fundraising events for the village. He said nobody can p in the River!

We have flashes. If you lost your job in the mill, you were picked

out of your house. Titus Salt would not allow you to live here if he

They can take pride in history, they only have to walk through the

streets and they are walking along the same pavements but workers used

to come in their clogs and the shawls and there is a sense of

history walking around. And it's true. Before you know it, a place

like this gets under your skin. formed art groups, festivals, World

Heritage weekend, it is the people in the village that put the streets

back, not the council -- the street signs. There is no other village in

the world like this. Titus Salt looked at a site before Psalter.

Burley in Wharfedale, he was ready to sign up for that sight but as

late for the appointment and somebody else got in there. If he

had bought the site before Saltaire it would be sold war. The village

is now a world heritage site, recognised for its international

influence on town planning. The houses meant for his workers are

smart, well kept and no doubt a tidy investment, too. I'm sure Sir

Titus would still recognise the place, though and be more than a

little proud. He'd be proud how history has treated him and his

reputation. It took Sir Titus the last years of his life to complete

the job but he was determined to do it. After 25 years of building work,

the last brick was laid in 1876. Sir Titus Salt's vision was

complete. Later that year, he died. Sir Titus Salt is buried in the

Church he built for the village. And it's said a hundred thousand

people lined the streets for his funeral. A remarkable tribute to a

The Aire's skirting Bradford now, heading for Leeds. On the way

though, we've time for a quick look at the blessing of another

Victorian legacy. In the mid- nineteenth century, William

Stansfield of Esholt Hall couldn't abide the stench from the river. He

complained to the council and now, six generations later, Stansfield's

stately home finds itself right in the middle of Yorkshire's largest

water treatment plant. At that time, 100 years ago, the Wall Industry in

Bradford was massive. 20% of the wall was washed in Bradford. But

the waste had a massive impact on the River Aire. It basically killed

the river, the smell of the river was horrendous. It came past the

hole, Stansfield had a battle with the Bradford Corporation to do

something. Eventually, the corporation compulsorily purchase

the land to build the first sewage treatment facility here. With over

a square mile of treatment works, the scale of Esholt takes your

breath away. It is hard to imagine there were no sewage works so all

of the waste was going into the river. It was. There was no

treatment and the river could not cope. It was dead. It was a very

smelly and not pleasant. I know the waste is going through the cleaning

process. Could it look like that. It would have looked similar,

absolutely dead and smelt horrendous. And that brings

illnesses in the Victorian days people buried in that. Yes, and

possibly used the water for drinking. It does not bear thinking

about these days. In terms of the waste due process. What is the

average. We normally treats up to 3,200 litres a second. Per second?

Per second. But is a lot of waste coming through. A huge amount of

waste. It is. By the end of the 19th century before this place was

built, the River Aire would have looked something like this. No

wonder it was such a killer. Now, thanks to purification, the waste

coming into this place goes out looking like this. Cleaner than the

Further down the Aire valley next stopping at one of Yorkshire's most

familiar sights the evocative ruins of a twelfth century Cistercian

We are over half way now, on the northern outskirts of Leeds. And

this is regarded as one of the most important historical buildings in

the city. Although the way it's been treated in the past, you

wouldn't necessarily think so. Kirkstall Abbey. The monks who

built the abbey in the twelfth century had found their ideal spot

close to water, in the dense forests of the Aire valley. When

the are but found this spot, he was delighted. It was a wooded area by

the river and it was on the right axis east to west. Henry VIII saw

the abbey closed and sold off though and at one time the owners

actually allowed the main road to run straight through the middle of

the nave. It became private in 1539 but nobody cared, it was just land.

Basically, it was just left. They pulled the walls down and the doors

and windows out. They let it go to rack and ruin. The road ran through

the church. There is graffiti on the walls were people carve their

names. And it has also used as a forest. Yes, the last set of ruins

was the Infirmary and the stone was used for Leeds Bridge. -- a quarry.

Some say that's just an early urban legend. But whether it's true or

not, Kirkstall Abbey is simply lucky to be still standing.

On through the suburbs of Leeds, now and into the city centre. If

you're looking for clues to the industrial past of a great city

like Leeds, there's no better way The waterway is the key

communication link of the town and it was fundamental to prosperity.

They used to say Leeds was a city of 1000 trades and it's true. You

could hardly think of anything but was not made in Leeds.

important is the River Aire to Leeds 6 S? It was fundamental. The

first railway came in the 1830s. Until that point, for the largest

air transport of heavy bulky goods, the waterways are everything. The

culmination -- combination of the River Aire and Leeds-Liverpool

canal meant you had the M62 of its day really and that meant Leeds was

connected directly by transport to America or connected by transport

to the Continent. That meant Leeds in the clothing industry and cloth

industry, the world was your oyster. We are coming up to Leeds Bridge

and this was the original crossing points of the river. This was

hugely important. Almost all of the people who brought their cloth into

Leeds from the West Riding came over this bridge and the cloth

market was held on the bridge in the 17th century until it moved

higher up where the wall and cloth market was one of the wonders of

the world. On the left we have the remains of the enormous, 10 story,

where house building. You can see how the modern building has been

put on the stone basement of this 1820s building and this was the

centre of Leeds docks as they are created in 1,700. What could we

have pictured here? You would have seen a host of barges and boats

pulled up. We would have seen cream factories, warehouses on the

quayside but a hive of activity. You could walk across the river

Kevin Grady has no doubt why so many people have a real and genuine

interest in their own local history. Continuity of history and people's

place in a sequence of history is important in how you feel about

yourself and how you fit in and the progress. Particularly now the

River Aire and its banks are for people sprayed round -- playground,

when they come a long they enjoy the quality of experience and

understand why the buildings are there. It increases people's

Now we're heading south east from Leeds, to a place familiar to

millions of motorists. The giant cooling towers of Ferrybridge Power

Station. This is an ancient crossing place where the Great

North Road bridges the Aire. In the fifteenth century just up the road

near Tadcaster Britain's bloodiest- ever battle was fought at Towton.

Only the day before, though, Ferrybridge witnessed its own

The Wars of the Roses was a fight for the throne that went on for

years - north against south, brother against brother. The House

of Lancaster held a wooden bridge at Ferrybridge but the Yorkist

armies we're determined to take it and march north. It was going to be

brutal. The Yorkists knew they had to get

the army across the River Aire to face the Lancastrians. They chose

this points to cross. What they found was the Lancastrians were

holding the bridge in some numbers. For several hours, page writer

forced across. It must have been absolutely carnage. The Yorkists

were on their way to eventual victory at Towton. But many would

die before battle was done. context, during the D-Day landings,

the allied forces attacked Omaha Beach and lost 2000 men against an

entrenched defender. In those days, they had machine-guns, artillery

fire and mortars. During the Wars Of the Roses, this attack on the

River Aire where they lost 3,000, imagine the carnage that took place

when all they had was longbows, crossbows and swords? Motorways and

roads cut through the landscape of Ferrybridge. Thousands and

thousands of drivers speeding across the history beneath them, a

history almost hidden by concrete and industry. It may not look like

much now but just use your imagination because for thousands

of years this whole landscape was of huge importance. Where there's

now motorways and a power station, there was the Ferrybridge Henge a

place of ritual, worship and burial. Ferrybridge is the furthest south

of all of Yorkshire's ancient henges. It was probably a series of

circular ditches and banks, likely to date back five thousand years -

a monument of great importance. Now though, Ferrybridge henge lies

hidden underground between the power station and the busy motorway

network. You really do need an archaeologist's eye to spot it.

henge is an earthwork enclosure, large and secular. Placed here as

in the other major river valleys, there is a henge because it is the

lowest crossing point. What was the henge used for? Probably a

gathering place where you took rituals and as a place where you

exchanged goods. For traders will. Yes, and social contact. In 2003

Blaise Vyner and his team made another discovery at Ferrybridge. A

chariot two and a half thousand years old and the remains of the

man who was buried with it. He was in his forties, we do not know what

he died of. Presumably wealthy. He had a following which ensued he had

a flashy burial. And he's sure the finds are all connected. They are

part of a rich were landscape. It emphasises the fact Ferrybridge

with a henge, the burial where people came to for a long period of

time. Maybe the henge site and dislocation is important richly

until maybe a 1000 years ago. do you think the history has been

lost? Well, because of the intensity of industrial development

in West Yorkshire. Looking around us now, industry is what dominates

the landscape. What does not dominate his archaeology. You have

a job to see it. You have to go elsewhere to see the major wonders.

You have to go to Thorn brother really, further north but you will

see big earthwork enclosures exactly what was here. A very

significant sites of the kind we do not envisage being at Ferrybridge.

It was eroded out of the landscape. What does it tell us about history?

In the last 200 years, we have been more interested in industry and

economic development. Increasingly, and if you look at the interest in

the Jarryd burial, there is a growing interest in the past and

our origins and development and Ferrybridge is a good place to see

The last leg of the journey, now. Ferrybridge to Airmyn, close to

Goole. It's where the Aire flows into another great Yorkshire River,

and then onto the Humber and the This is where the journey ends.

Who'd have thought, 71 miles could carry with it tens of thousands of

years of history? Starting with the little trickle in Malham Tarn all