Component 2 and Jodrell Bank Observatory

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Component 2

   The monks who founded Fountains Abbey arrived in 1132, a band of Benedictines from York who were unhappy with the laxity of their house and decided to follow the strict rule of the Cistercians. They settled in a wild, wooded valley beside the River Skell, with, as the chronicle says, nothing but thorn trees and rough stones, and over four centuries they built one of the richest and largest monasteries in England. Henry VIII dissolved it in 1539, and the ruins that remain, the great church with its soaring tower, the long cellarium and the cloister, are among the most beautiful in Europe. In the eighteenth century the owner of the neighbouring estate, John Aislabie, turned the valley into a water garden, so the ruins are now part of a designed landscape of ponds, canals and temples. UNESCO listed the whole ensemble in 1986.

   Read the complete Component 2 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Component 2 is where the day begins. Next is Saltaire.

2. 2. Saltaire

   Titus Salt was a Bradford wool magnate who got tired of the smoke, the sickness and the squalor of the city, and in 1851 he began building a new mill and a new town beside the river Aire, a few miles north. Saltaire, his name joined to the river's, was a model community: tidy stone terraces of different sizes for different grades of worker, a hospital, a school, almshouses, a church, a park, and a huge Italianate mill with a campanile chimney. The mill opened in 1853 and was among the largest in the world. UNESCO listed the village in 2001 as an outstanding example of Victorian industrial planning.

   Read the complete Saltaire write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Saltaire comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jodrell Bank Observatory.

3. 3. Jodrell Bank Observatory

   You see the dish long before you arrive. The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank rises out of the flat Cheshire farmland like something from a science fiction film, a white steel bowl seventy six metres across, tilting slowly to follow its targets across the sky. When it was completed in 1957 it was the largest steerable radio telescope in the world, and one of its first tasks was tracking the rocket that carried Sputnik into orbit. The observatory, founded by Bernard Lovell after the Second World War, has been at the forefront of radio astronomy ever since, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2019 for its role in the development of the science.

   Read the complete Jodrell Bank Observatory write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 147 km into the recorded legs you reach Jodrell Bank Observatory. Next is back through Saltaire.

4. 4. back through Saltaire

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Saltaire write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Saltaire, late in the day. Next is Component 2.

5. 5. Component 2

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Component 2 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Component 2. That is the ride.