Today, despite an unpromising weather forecast, we had a magnificent turn out of fifteen volunteers, six to litterpick, and nine to help Joe Craig-Jackson, our local ranger, to work on Adel Bog.
Litterpicking
Our team of six litterpickers divided into a trio, a duo and a soloist who took separate routes covering the Village Green, the disused rugby field, Crag Lane, Adel Crag, the Stairfoot Lane carpark, the path along Adel Beck, and the path through the woods from the pond to Stairfoot Lane.
Between them they picked up four bags of litter including lots of wipes, a nitrous oxide cylinder, a large car carpet, a condom, poo bags, sweet and snack wrappers, bottles, cans, two items of clothing and an old Nokia phone.
Some of our litterpicking equipment after the event
Adel Bog
Adel Bog is a lovely secluded part of Adel Woods. In 2010 the Bog was in a poor state as it had been taken over almost in its entirety by Purple Moor Grass, though it still had populations of wild flowers such as heath spotted orchid and bog asphodel.
In 2011 the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers carried out improvement works on the bog, funded in part by a grant from Alwoodley Parish Council. Since then Friends of Adel Woods have worked to maintain the bog, removing bracken, saplings and brambles, and putting a dead hedge around its southern and western boundaries.
“I really enjoyed tackling those brambles, it was very satisfying.”
Today we continued our work under the guidance of our local ranger, Joe Craig-Jackson. We also put to good use three tree poppers purchased with the aid of grants from Alwoodley Parish Council. Tree poppers are wonderful tools which enable you to remove a sapling with a trunk size up to about 3 centimetres in a fraction of the time it would take with a mattock or a spade. Today we removed many saplings and lots and lots of brambles.
Joe with some of the Friends of Adel Woods
On the way back to our cars at lunchtime, we passed Adel Pond and were delighted that it is in much better condition than it was over the Summer – see our report on the 19th October – though it still needs work to repair a leak.
Adel Pond: water is leaking from under the bridge on the far side
Grant from Alwoodley Parish Council
Friends of Adel Woods are very grateful to Alwoodley Parish Council for a grant in October this year for the purchase of two tree poppers. The council had previously given us a grant for the purchase of our first tree popper in Autumn 2023.
A tree popper is basically a lever with a jaw at the bottom. You put the jaw around the sapling trunk and lever it out of the ground. The tree poppers enable us achieve far more in a morning’s work when removing saplings from Adel Bog, Adel Moor, the orchid meadow and anywhere else in the woods.
Join Friends of Adel Woods
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our activities and would be delighted if you would like to join us.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events such as bat walks, fungal forays and birdsong walks.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods, and make new friends.
If you would like to take part in our activities, keep an eye on our Home Page.
You don’t need to book to come along to one of our work “parties”: just come along. Our next work party is on Sunday 14th December 2025 when we will be litterpicking and clearing paths.
If you would like to join our email mailing list, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
We are just about to complete our sixteenth year since Friends of Adel Woods came into being, and the last twelve months have been successful with many work parties and educational walks and talks.
Work parties
Usually, our work parties comprises a team of litterpickers and another team carrying out a task such as path clearing.
In the last year we have had twelve mornings of litterpicking and picked up about fifty bags of rubbish – so hats off to our dedicated band of litterpickers! We haven’t kept a tally, but it seems likely that since Friends of Adel Woods was formed, we have picked up over eight hundred bags of rubbish – in addition to disposing of larger items such as tyres and beer barrels!
Some of the rubbish we have collected over the last year
As well as litterpicking we have completed fifteen and a half mornings on the following tasks:
one morning working on Adel Moor with David Preston removing bracken, brambles and saplings.
one morning clearing bracken from around the Buck Stone
three mornings mowing the orchid meadow
four mornings clearing paths and fallen trees
three mornings working on Adel Bog (1 with David Preston)
one morning dredging Adel Pond with David Preston
one and a half days of nest box cleaning and surveying with Steve Joul
one morning putting tree guards on the orchard in the practice rugby field
Working on the orchid meadow with David Preston
Educational events
Since the last AGM we have had six educational walks – five with Steve Joul, and one with Leeds City Council ranger, David Preston. They were all a great success.
A fungal foray with Steve Joul on 17th November 2024
Steve led a variety of walks:
30th June: exploring biodiversity – a joint event with Alwoodley 2030
20th July: a stream and pond safari
29 September: a fungal foray
17th November: a fungal foray
4th May this year, a birdsong walk
On 28th August David led a guided batwalk attended by twenty six adults and nine children.
A bat walk with David Preston on 28th August 2024
I know from speaking to people who attend, and the messages I get from participants after these events, that people really enjoy them.
The Friends of Adel Woods Blog
If you would like to know more about our activities, please have a look at our blog entries.
Grants
Putting tree guards on the orchard in bitterly cold driving rain
We have received two grants in the last year.
In February we received a grant from Alwoodley 2030 to purchase tree guards for the orchard in the practice rugby field as the trees were suffering damage from deer and rabbits.
This month the Leeds Together Fund awarded Friends of Adel Woods a grant to purchase three litterpickers and six bin bag hoops. The purpose of the grant was to put on a community event during May and on the 31st May we are having a community litterpick.
Improvements to the Stairfoot Lane Carpark and Crag Lane
The Stairfoot Lane carpark after improvements
In December Leeds City Council resurfaced the Stairfoot Lane carpark and created a separate fenced off path through the carpark for the route of the Meanwood Valley Trail to keep pedestrians away from vehicles. This was clearly a big improvement.
In February the council resurfaced Crag Lane from the Stairfoot Lane carpark to Old Leo’s rugby club. This involved scraping off the mud from the surface, laying hardcore and then creating the new surface. This end result is a great improvement to Crag Lane.
Crag Lane after resurfacing work
However, my particular reason to mention this is that one of our regular volunteers, Matthew, contacted me on the 9th February, before the work was completed. He was very concerned because he had noticed that the hardcore used was of poor quality – containing crushed bricks, concrete, white ceramics and plastic piping – which was completely unacceptable in a woodland area. I contacted our local councillors and David Preston and passed on Matthew’s concerns and the result was that the worst hardcore was scraped off, and replaced with better quality hardcore.
So thank you very much to Matthew.
Water Quality in our Local Streams
Possible pollution in Adel Beck
Pollution of our rivers is a hot topic at the moment and in the past it has been raised with me by members of Friends of Adel Woods. One of the problems about looking into this is having accurate information about whether the streams are polluted or not.
In October last year I met up with a PhD student at Leeds who is active in promoting citizen science projects relating to water quality of our local streams. On 10th October, I walked with her along Nanny Beck and Meanwood Beck to look for signs of pollution and in February I organised a meeting of members of Friends of Adel Woods who would like to get involved in a water sampling project. About fourteen people attended the meeting. I am organising a meeting to form two or three groups who will take responsibility for the sampling. While it makes sense for Friends of Adel Woods to help steer this project, I am hoping that this will become a separate self-sustaining project.
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust event
On the 19th November, three of our committee – Steve, Sue and myself – went to an event organised by Alwoodley 2030 when Yorkshire Wildlife Trust gave a talk on the state of nature in Yorkshire.
Thank yous
Working on Adel Bog
So as usual, I would like to thank our committee and volunteers for all the work they have done over the last year. FOAW would not exist without the committee and volunteers. And I am looking forward to another year of fun, laughter and friendship. New members are always welcome!
I would particularly like to thank Judith for all the work she has done as treasurer over the last 16 years, and Stephanie who was our secretary from 2009 until July of last year.
Steve Joul on a stream and pond safari
Thank you to Steve Joul for leading five educational events this year – and helping to raise funds for Friends of Adel Woods.
Thank you to David Preston for the work he has done with us the last year. David is changing jobs to join the Public Rights of Way team imminently, and so we may not work with him again.
Looking to the future
As I and the rest of the committee get older, I get more concerned about how to ensure that Friends of Adel Woods continues for years to come. This is something which we need to consider over the coming year. New volunteers are always welcome!
Roger Gilbert
Chair of Friends of Adel Woods
COME ALONG TO FRIENDS OF ADEL WOODS EVENTS!
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our activities and would be delighted if you would like to join us.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events such as bat walks, fungal forays and birdsong walks.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods, and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, keep an eye on our Home Page and come along to one of our work parties.
If you would like to join our email mailing list, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Another lovely day, and fifteen of us met up to work on Adel Bog and to pick up litter.
Litterpicking
Four Friends chose to litterpick this morning, and they split into two “teams”.
One team worked their way along Crag Lane, to the picnic area, Adel Crag and the Stairfoot Lane carpark and collected two bags of litter.
The other team focused on the Village Green and around the children’s play area. There was a lot of litter and they picked up two very full bags. They found two sun hats, socks, and woollen gloves in the play area and positioned them on railings in the hope that their owners might return to collect them.
Adel Bog
The rest of us worked on Adel Bog. Despite the period of almost two months of drought, the bog was looking quite green – with wild flowers beginning to appear, and lots of rushes.
Tormentil (potentilla erecta) coming into flower on Adel Bog
We focused on clearing saplings and brambles from the northern boundary of the bog, and using them to make the northern boundary clearer, and to build up the dead hedge we have constructed on the southern boundary.
Inspecting the job: saplings and brambles on the northern boundary of the bog
The removal of saplings was made much easier by our tree popper purchased with a grant from Alwoodley Parish Council.
As we cleared the saplings we came across two nests from last year – a small one, probably a robin’s nest; and a larger song thrush nest, identifiable by its smooth lining of mud [the larger mistle thrush also uses mud to construct its nest, but lines it with grass].
A robin’s nestA song thrush nest – with a smooth mud lining
We finished work at 12 noon and it was a very satisfying morning’s work.
About Friends of Adel Woods
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our activities and would be delighted if you would like to join us.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events such as bat walks, fungal forays and birdsong walks.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods, and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, keep an eye on our Home Page and come along to one of our work parties.
If you would like to join our email mailing list, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Another glorious Spring day, and seven of us gathered at the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods on Buckstone Road at 10 am to litterpick and work on Adel Bog.
Litterpicking
Only one of us chose to pick up litter but in an impressive effort lasting over two hours, she picked up litter around Nanny Beck, the Village Green, along Crag Lane and around Adel Crag.
She picked up two bagfuls of litter, including a lot of bagged dog poo, plastic bottles and paper towels. There was litter in Nanny Beck but she was not able to get to it.
She also found a sunhat which she left on a bench in the hope that it would find its way to its owner.
One of the rubbish bins on Alwoodley Village Green
The two council litter bins on the green were overflowing – which is a good sign that the majority of the good folk of Alwoodley use the bins provided.
Adel Bog
Today six of us continued the work we have been doing with David Preston, our local ranger, to keep Adel Bog in good condition.
Removing a bramble
While the bog looks very dry – which is not surprising after the long period of sunny dry weather we have had in the last few weeks – there was plenty of water underfoot, and there were very many rushes springing up all over the bog.
Today we focused on removing saplings, and brambles from the northern and western edges of the bog.
Working on Adel Bog – with the dead hedge in the background
The bog is a fragile environment and we would like to keep dogs and walkers away from it, so we used the materials we removed to build up the dead hedge which we created with David Preston on the southern and western perimeter of the bog in 2023. A dead hedge is – as the name suggests – a hedge consisting of non-living plant materials.
We were delighted to find a lovely patch of well over a hundred wood anemones in flower in the central area of the bog.
Five happy Friends of Adel Woods
Friends of Adel Woods: get involved and make a difference
Friends of Adel Woods is a community-led group dedicated to protecting, preserving, and celebrating the natural beauty and biodiversity of Adel Woods, a treasured woodland area in [North Leeds. Our mission is to ensure that this vital green space remains a thriving habitat for wildlife and a peaceful retreat for local residents and visitors.
Through conservation projects, guided walks, educational events, and collaborative efforts with Leeds City Council we work to foster a deeper connection between people and nature. Whether you’re a seasoned naturalist, a weekend walker, or someone who simply enjoys the calm of the woods, there’s a place for you in the Friends of Adel Woods.
Join us in caring for this special place—together, we can ensure its legacy for generations to come.
On the 4th May, our expert naturalist, Steve Joul, will be leading a birdsong walk in the woods. Our next “work party” is on Saturday the 17th May when we will be litterpicking and path clearing.
If you would like to make a difference to your local environment, there’s a place for you here. No experience necessary—just enthusiasm and a love for the outdoors.
If you would like us to add you to our mailing list, please click on the comment button on this page.
A cool and damp day, but not enough to cool or dampen down the spirits of seven Friends of Adel Woods!
Today the plan was to litterpick and work with David Preston, Leeds City Council ranger, on Adel Bog.
We met up with David at the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods in Buck Stone Road. Two of us chose to litterpick, while five of us chose to work with David on Adel Bog.
Our plucky litterpickers set off
The litter pickers made their way up to the village green, along Crag Lane to the Stairfoot Lane car park and then back along Crag Lane to the Slabbering Baby and back to Buck Stone Road. En route they collected two bags of litter.
Adel Bog looking westwards
The “bog team” transported tree poppers, mattocks, saws and loppers to Adel Bog where the plan was to remove saplings and brambles and create a “dead hedge” around the boundary of the bog.
The bog is a special habitat in Adel Woods. It is home to heath spotted orchids, bog asphodel , cotton grass, and other plants which are not found elsewhere in Adel Woods. Friends of Adel Woods have done a lot of work on the bog over the years to preserve it: if saplings and brambles are not removed, the bog will soon turn into woodland.
David standing in front of our new stretch of dead hedge
A dead hedge is what it says on the tin (or would do if it were in a tin!), a hedge but made with stakes, tree branches, uprooted saplings, brambles and the like. We started making a dead hedge last year and we were pleased to see that willow wands in the hedge had taken root to make the hedge even more effective.
Two friends of Adel Woods – with a tree popper (yellow device on the left)
The purpose of the dead hedge is to deter people from creating paths across the bog or picnicking there and to preserve this special spot in Adel Woods.
David with three happy members of our team, standing in front of the dead hedge
We removed many saplings with the use of our tree popper, and uprooted many brambles, all of which went into the construction of our dead hedge. Thank you David and team!
JOIN FRIENDS OF ADEL WOODS!
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our activities and would be delighted if you would like to join us.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events such as bat walks, fungal forays and birdsong walks.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods, and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, just come along to one of our work parties or get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
For further information, please have a look at our home page.
A wintry surprise this morning when we woke to find half an inch of snow on the ground. Nevertheless, we had a clear blue sky which meant it was a beautiful crisp morning.
Our local ranger, David Preston, and his fellow ranger, Heather Wagstaffe, had scheduled this morning for carrying out some trimming of the trees on the southern boundary of Adel Bog and requested the help of Friends of Adel Woods in using the off-cuts to make a “dead hedge”.
Adel Bog is a special habitat in Adel Woods: home to a healthy population of heath spotted orchids, bog asphodel, rushes, flag irises, cotton grass, tormentil and crossed leaf heath, to name a few plants found there. Friends of Adel Woods have done a lot of work over the years to preserve it and improve its condition – removing brambles, tree saplings and bracken and I am pleased to say that this Autumn and Winter the bog is looking great. It is the wettest it has been for years – every footstep risks sinking six inches into the mud!
Bog asphodel on Adel Bog, June 2014
The purpose of trimming the trees was to increase the open area of the bog, to create a clear boundary, and to reduce the problem of trees dropping seeds into the bog, and thus turning the bog into woodland.
Five Friends responded to David’s call for help, and joined David and Heather at 11.40 am, by which time they had completed their work and were ready for the clear up.
We worked till 1 pm using some of the off-cuts to make stakes for future dead hedging around the bog, and using the rest to create a dead hedge to make a clear boundary along about 10 metres of the southern perimeter.
Adel bog, showing the dead hedging on the southern boundary
A dead hedge is a barrier made of natural materials, usually held in place with stakes, though on this occasion, due to time constraints, we wove the materials between the trees around the edge of the bog. Whilst the hedge is called a dead hedge, it is possible for off-cuts to take root or for plants to grow within it, so that it becomes a living hedge.
The purpose of creating a barrier around the bog is to keep it safe from disturbance, particularly from dogs whose droppings are very damaging to the bog flora and fauna.
At completion of our work, we put a couple of notices up in the dead hedge explaining its purpose.
Four Friends of Adel Woods standing next to the dead hedging on Adel Bog
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various jobs, and we also put on educational events. Recently, we have had a bat walk, and a fungal foray.
Our next “work party” is on Sunday the 10th December, when we will be litter picking, and carrying out path maintenance.
If you would like to take part in our activities, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should find a button below.
A cool but dry morning when we met at the Slabbering Baby entrance to Adel Woods on Buckstone Road. Our plans this morning were litterpicking and working on Adel Bog with David Preston, our local Parks and Countryside ranger.
Happy litter pickers
Three Friends (of Adel Woods) chose to litterpick. One of them, Steph, also went off to clear, as far as practicable with a pair of loppers, the branches of a tree which had fallen across the path down from the picnic area to the Meanwood Valley Trail.
A fallen tree, after Steph removed small branches
The work party working on Adel Bog was boosted by six strapping lads from Ahmadiyya Youth Association in Bradford who we hope will join us again. So in all we had eighteen volunteers – from memory our second largest turn out ever!
Only three more metres of brambles and saplings
The bog is a a distinctive habitat within Adel Woods and we usually include one morning a year to look after it. It needs care and attention as the surrounding trees drop thousands of seeds on it each Autumn and it is a constant battle to push the boundary back to where it was twelve years ago, so that bog plants like bog asphodel, heath spotted orchids, devil’s bit scabious, and rushes can continue to thrive.
The task today was to remove brambles and saplings from the bog and establish a clear boundary around the perimeter. On the southern edge, our plan was to mark the boundary by creating a “dead hedge”.
David Preston uses a “thumper” to drive a stake into the ground to create a dead hedge
Creating a dead hedge involves driving stakes into the ground to form a framework into which uprooted brambles and saplings, and branches can be interwoven to create a barrier. The stakes are ideally straight branches of trees or trunks of saplings. David had brought with him some stakes gathered from another site. You can find a photograph of the completed dead hedge at the end of this post.
A Friend sharpens the point of a stake using a billhook
Fortunately, apart from a heavy shower at about 11.30 this morning, the weather was dry today. However, one very positive consequence of the heavy rain we have experienced in the last month (Storm Babet in mid-October and Storm Ciarán over the last couple of days) was that Adel Bog was wetter than it has ever been. Everywhere was extremely squelchy – which was not very pleasant for people who had arrived in trainers!
Pulling up brambles!Two happy workers
This was a chance to use for the first time a tree popper which FOAW purchased with the assistance of a grant from Alwoodley Parish Council – for which we are very grateful.
As the photograph shows, a tree popper is a lever with a jaw at the bottom. You put the trunk of a sapling in the jaw, and it is then very easy to lever a sapling out of the ground in a matter of seconds.
Two more happy workers!David P with twelve Friends of Adel WoodsOur new stretch of dead hedging
Thank you David and all our volunteers!
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various jobs, and we also put on educational events. Recently, we have had a bat walk, and a fungal foray.
Our next “work party” is on Sunday the 10th December, when we will be litter picking, and carrying out path maintenance.
If you would like to take part in our activities, please get in touch by leaving a comment on our website.
Friends of Adel Woods 