Wednesday, 24 May 2017: Verity’s Tea Rooms and the Slabbering Baby

Did you know that until the late 1950’s there were tea rooms, known as “Verity’s Tea Rooms”, in Adel Woods?  They were run by Francis Verity who arrived there in 1901, aged 30, and stayed there until she died in about 1953.

Stephen Burt, in his book, “An Illustrated History of Alwoodley” says this of Mrs Verity and the tea rooms:

“She had a tragic life.  Her husband, Ben, was a highly skilled stonemason but he died suddenly after falling off a roof he was mending.  Her son, Benny,  was a disabled child and she spent large amounts of time looking after him.  Perhaps this led to the  harsh expression on her stony face as many remember her as always seeming to be in a foul mood.  In addition, when Mrs Verity took her cap off she had unusual lumps over her head.  The children who visited the tea-shop were always scared of her….By the mid fifties the sheds had become very ramshackle.  Children used to volunteer to help and their reward was ‘a free tray’.  Mrs Verity used a motley collection of crockery, a lot of which was brown glazed.  She sold Smith’s crisps with salt in the little blue bags and collected the tokens that came with them to get free pens.  In addition she sold home-made scones and cakes but was a thrifty lady and told helpers who were buttering the scones to ‘just peel it off again’ so that the layer of butter remained extra thin.

“Bank holidays were particularly busy as people caught the tram to Lawnswood and then walked along the sandy paths through the woods to the tea-shop.

“Facilities were very basic and the privy was famed as being a double seater….

“In 1953 Mrs Verity became very ill and ended up in Leeds Infirmary. She was anxious to return home to look after her cats but on being discharged was so weak that the had to stay at Crag Farm for a month or two while the Todds looked after her.  When she died George [Todd] carried on the tea-shop before it was leased to another family….It was demolished in the late fifties.”

If you are wondering where the tea rooms were situated, they were on the path now known as the Meanwood Valley Trail, where it meets the path into the woods from Buckstone Road.

The only remaining vestige of the tea rooms is the Slabbering Baby, a water fountain fed by water off Adel Moor.  The people on the right hand side of the picture above are queuing for drinking water from it.  It was called the Slabbering Baby because the water streamed out of a carved face – as shown in this newspaper picture.

In recent years, the Slabbering Baby has fallen into disrepair, and the gushing stream shown in the photograph diminished to a barely discernible trickle.

Friends of Adel Woods have long dreamed of the Slabbering Baby being restored to its former glory, but have not had the expertise or resources to do it.

Fortunately others have stepped up to the plate and with the aid of a £200 grant from Councillors Barry and Caroline Anderson, a scheme to restore the Slabbering Baby has been put into effect.

You may have noticed that the Slabbering Baby disappeared in November last year.  It has now returned with the addition of a new bowl, as shown in the picture below.  The work is not yet complete.

See our next blog entry for 26 May to see the final result and for further information about who has done the work, and see this entry for a video of the Slabbering Baby.