Monthly Archives: November 2017

A very cold but beautiful morning in Adel Woods.

Today’s tasks were litter picking and clearing paths.  Twelve of us met in Old Leo’s car park – although two of our number only arrived later on due to buying tickets to see Peter Kay!  We had three new members which was very gratifying.

Having despatched the litter pickers to pick up litter (stating the obvious) the rest of us headed down to the Slabbering Baby, where we admired the new information board.

We then headed along the path which runs from the pond, towards Stairfoot Bridge, pruning back holly and pulling up brambles.  Where the path joins the stream we removed two tyres and a cast iron sack wheels which has mysteriously appeared in the stream – “mysteriously”, because it looks as if it has been in the stream for some time, but it was several hundred yards downstream from Stairfoot Lane.  It is hard to imagine that it could have been washed down by the current.

This brought us to 12 noon and triumphantly we headed to the Stairfoot Lane car park to discover that flytippers had dumped there seven or eight bags of potting compost – probably from a cannabis farm – and  an old shower cubicle.

A passerby reads the new information board at the Slabbering Baby

Your correspondent ventured down to the Slabbering Baby for the first time for a month or two and was delighted to discover that an information board has now been put up to tell it’s history.

I am also pleased to report that a steady stream of water was flowing out of the Baby’s mouth – a first in your correspondent’s experience.

Thank you to all involved in the refurbishment of the Slabbering Baby (see our entry for May 2017) and thank you to our local councillors who provided funding for the interpretation board, Douglas Louie of Leeds Parks and Countryside for designing it, and local historian Stephen Burt for checking the historical facts.