LOCAL photographs dating possibly as far back as the 1860s tend to be rare, which makes this old view of the Marquis of Granby, in its idyllic setting beside the canal at Riddlesden, all the more interesting.

It appears that a party of guests are about to leave, with inn staff seeing them off. In long skirts, the women look to be riding side-saddle, which can't have been easy.

Local people on the bridge stand watching as the party prepare to set off.

The local stretch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal had opened in 1773, celebrated by the ringing of church bells and 'bonfires, illuminations, and other demonstrations of joy'.

It was completed in 1816, when emigration agents offered an idyllic passage by canal to 'Skipton, Liverpool, and America'.

The photograph, which previously appeared in a Telegraph & Argus Memory Lane page in 2008, belonged to the late Edna Hall, of Keighley.