interpretation
board
It wasn't until I did this walk, that I found out that these boards are known as interpretation boards! I have always known them as information boards.
The 1st Interpretation Board you find when entering Adel Woods
While doing my walk in Adel & Scotland Woods, I noticed these interpretation boards, which are a wealth of information (if you are that way inclined). I had the idea of potographing the boards, so I could add them to my photo gallery of the Adel & Scotland Woods walk, but as you can see in the photo above, the reflection of the trees makes it not very clear, also as you will see in this section, our local graffiti artist used one to practise on, there is also the elements and nature, which leaves its mark.
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So what I have decided to do is post the photos on this page and type the information that is on the interpretation boards, so that you can understand the information on the boards.
The text below is the information found on the inerpretaion board pictured below.
Meanwood Valley Trail Adel Woods
Adel Woods is the northern part of the Meanwood Valley Local Nature Reserve, and it sits between the suburbs of Adel and Alwoodley. The Ordnance Survey Map of 1847 fails to show any woodland cover over present day Adel Woods. Instead a patchwork of fields and scrubby heath dominate the landscape. This would almost certainly have been grazing land, so any tree growth would have been suppressed by the nibbling of livestock. Today, evidence of this patchwork of fields can be found in the remains of dry-stone walls that criss-cross the woods.
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The bulk of the woodland is part of a plot of 175 acres of land purchased by Leeds Corporation from the trustees of John Edwin Eddison MD in 1946. On purchasing the land, the Corporation covenanted that they would for ever after use the land for the purposes only of agriculture, horticulture or of public open space. The whole plot of land purchased by the corporation stretches from the Seven Arches in the south to Golf Farm, the white house on King Lane, in the north. In 1955 Leeds Corporation purchased a further plot of about 9.25 acres land behind Buck Stone Avenue.
The Meanwood Valley Trail is a 7 mile linear route running from Woodhouse Moor close to the city centre to Golden Acre Park in the North. It forms part of the North West Leeds Country Park.
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A route map of the Meanwood Valley Trail, together with a series of circular walks can be found HERE
Wildlife of Adel Woods
Adel Woods comprises a rich tapestry of habitats, including the prominent woodland, together with acid grassland, heathland, two streams, a pond and a large mire area. The predominant woodlandtype is oak and birch,
with a few areas of beech woodland, and along the beck can be found wet woodland types, with trees such as alder, ash, grey sallow and hazel. Woodland provides food and shelter for a wealth of wildlife including mammals, such as roe deer and wood mice; birds, such as nuthatch and woodpeckers; and wildflowers, such as wood anemone and wood sorrel.
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Dead trees are really important to the life of the woodland as well, as they provide food and shelter to a wealth of wildlife including woodlice, millipedes, beetles and fungi. These in turn are food for many other creatures, such as shrews and treecreepers.
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The cool, moist conditions in the woodland provide the perfect habitat for ferns, liverworts, mosses, and a wide variety of fungi. Including orange birch bolete, bay bolete, tawney grisette and fly agaric. The streams provide home to the rare white clawed crayfish and in the pond can be found palmate newts and common frogs.
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The mire community found in Adel Woods is the most diverse example of this habitat in West Yorkshire, supporting the regionally scarce bog asphodel and many other plants, including heath spotted orchid, devil’s bit scabious and marsh violet. Mires are areas of waterlogged ground, where water flowing over acidic rocks stagnates in valleys and hollows. Under these conditions the process of rotting slows down and plant remains accumulate to form peat. This mire is a particularly sensitive area and should be avoided to prevent damage to the vulnerable plants.
The History of the Slabbering Baby and former Flax Mill
The interpretation board near to the Slabbering Baby
In the top left hand corner of the above photo is an Ordnance Survey Map of the area from 1840. Due to it having copyright laws attached I have not posted a clear picture of it.
They say “if these stones could speak” the Slabbering Baby would certainly tell a remarkable tale. However, the tale for this quiet rural area began earlier around 1839 when the tenant Miles Potter of Mill Fall Cottage built a flax mill and utilised the water from Nanny (King Lane) Beck to power the spinning machines. Eight young women were employed, but the venture was fraught with problems, one of which was permission from the landowner George Lane Fox of Bramham Park, for the mill. In addition, the construction of the Blackmoor Tunnel (1840 onwards) to convey water from Eccup Reservoir to the Seven Arches Aqueduct was likely to interfere with water from “cuts”, which ran to various springs in the Adel Wood/Alwoodley Crags area. A wooden viaduct would have conveyed the water across the valley to the mill. The pond remains to this day and the routes taken by the different “cuts” can still be seen in Adel Wood.
The Flax Mill venture was short lived. However, the next enterprise, Verity’s Tea Shop, was much more successful and was run by Mrs Francis Verity who moved into Mill Fall Cottage in 1901, The Adel valley with its wooded slopes and babbling brook was becoming a local tourist attraction with Leeds people walking up the valley and later from the tram terminus at Lawnswood.
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Mrs Verity was certainly a thrifty lady telling her helpers, who buttered the scones, to “just peel it off again” so the layer of butter remained extra thin. In addition, you were charged more if you had your tea in the Tea Room. Otherwise, you took your tray to the shelter which was open to the elements at the front, and you sat on trestle tables.
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The Slabbering or Slavering Baby is a historical gem known to
many local people that frequent Adel Woods. For a number of years this structure had been slowly falling into a state of disrepair. Then in 2017 a group comprising Leeds City Council Parks & Countryside, the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Re-Making Leeds project (who involved the Skill Mill and Heritage Craft Alliance) and local ward councillors from Alwoodley and Adel & Wharfedale worked together to ensure the Slabbering Baby was preserved for posterity. Funding for the project came from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Re-Making Leeds and local councillors.
During the summer of 2017 the Slabbering Baby was restored with a new bowl carved by Re-Making Leeds trainee stone carver/mason, Teresa Dybisz on placement at York Minster’s stone yard. Under the supervision of Heritage Craft Alliance instructor (Gary Dowthwaite), the Skill Mill team re-constructed the Slabbering Baby and built a rough stone wall on either side.
It is believed the Mrs Verity’s husband Ben Verity, a highly skilled stone mason, carved the Slabbering Baby in the early 1900s and used it to direct spring water from the ground behind, through the baby’s mouth and into a bowl below. If you could not afford a tray of tea, then you slaked your thirst at the Slabbering Baby for free using a communal cup!
Although attempts were made to keep the café going after Mrs Verity’s death, by the 1960s the various buildings were heavily vandalised and fell into a state of disrepair. Thus, Leeds Corporation finally took the decision to demolish everything leaving only the toilet block and the Slabbering Baby.
The public toilets at Verity’s Tea Shop were very primitive consisting of a double seater privy in a shack! In 1954, Leeds Corporation insisted on a modern toilet block being constructed. The building still exists but is now closed and hidden by bushes on the opposite side of the path from the Slabbering Baby. Certainly, by the late 1950s Verity’s Tea Shop was showing its age and even the retaining wall housing the Slabbering Baby was in rather dilapidated state.
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Mrs Verity managed the tea shop all her life only leaving the area in 1953 for an urgent operation at Leeds Infirmary at the ripe old age of 83.
Mrs Verity's Tea Shop and the Slabbering Baby in its heyday
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The Slabbering Baby starting to show signs of ware
The Slabbering Baby before renovation in 2017
Scotland Wood
The Scotland Wood interpretation board near to the Seven Arches Aqueduct
As you can see the interpritation board is hard to read thanks mainly to Dillan . F who thought it would be cool to practise his graffiti on the board, also mother nature has done her best to make it hard to read.
Seven Arches Aqueduct
Seven Arches Aqueduct, built between 1841 – 42, provided a key link for Leeds first piped water supply, running between Eccup Reservoir and Headingly treatment works.
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This curved, stone-built structure carried the water in a conduit, supported by seven 10m wide arches, across the Meanwood Valley near Adel. By 1851 some 22,700 homes were connected to the mains, but unfortunately this increased public demand eventually meant the aqueduct was unable to cope and in 1866 it was decommissioned. It was replaced by a 40” diameter iron pipe, which was laid underground, followed by a second in 1891.
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Nowadays several pipes continue to carry half of Leeds entire water supply alongside the aqueduct, and although the aqueduct remains redundant, it is preserved as a Grade II Listed Structure. In the late 1990s forces in the structure were discovered to be causing it to lean at a serious angle, almost as much as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Without correction the aqueduct was likely to collapse, so its owners, Yorkshire Water, commissioned stabilisation work, which in 2000 won an Historic Bridge Award.
Trees and wildflowers of Scotland Wood
Broadleaved woodland is comprised of trees with leaves of all shapes and sizes, but they tend to be flat, broad shapes quite unlike the needles of conifers such as Scots pine.
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Most broadleaved trees in Britain are deciduous. This means that they lose all their leaves in the autumn, remaining bare through the cold winter months until the spring, when they grow new foliage. Some broadleaved trees however, are evergreen, rather than deciduous. Holly is an example. The seeds of broadleaved trees are produced within a great variety of different structures, from acorns to berries.
Trees
Rowan or Mountain Ash – this native species creates a fine display of golden leaves and scarlet berries in the autumn can usually be found in close association with sessile oak and silver birch. The old Norse name runa means a charm and legend has it that the tree has powers to resist evil spirits.
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Sessile oak is 1 of 2 native oaks, this tree prefers the moist and rocky conditions which occur in Scotland Wood. Oaks are potentially very long-lived, and it is said that in good conditions an oak will spend 300 years growing, 300 years resting and 300 years dying!
Silver birch is a tough pioneer species meaning that it is one of the first tree species to inhabit bare ground. It is exceptionally good for wildlife, although it is not very long lived. It needs plenty of light to thrive and if it becomes shaded will soon die leaving standing deadwood which in itself provides excellent wildlife habitat.
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Beech can grow to enormous sizes as can be seen near the weir below the Seven Arches. They have a tendency to shed limbs when mature, which leave ragged scars and stubs which provide good habitat for bats, insects and beetles.
Wildflowers
The woodlands at Scotland Wood are at their most spectacular in the springtime, when the floor is carpeted by a haze of bluebells, These and other woodland wildflowers – wood anemone, lesser celandine and herb-Robert – appear in early spring, before the trees produce their dense foliage which blocks out the sunlight the wildflowers need to thrive.