Category Archives: Uncategorized

Another fine day in the woods. A good turn out of about a dozen Friends.  Three of us went litter picking while the rest of us went path clearing.

It was our first path clearing session for some time because the committee decided that this year we would focus on bashing and pulling bracken on the moor.

The path clearers made their way along Crag Lane from the Rugby Club to Stairfoot Lane car park.  We then worked on the path up to the hospice woodland, chatted to someone chilling out to dance music in a clearing, and finally cleared the path leading into the wood from Stairfoot Lane.  The stone monument marking the entrance to the wood was overgrown and we cleared it and the first twenty to thirty yards of the path.

We are looking forward to seeing the daffodils coming up around the monument and along the  side of the path in only three or four months.

In the meantime, the litter pickers did a fantastic job, clearing bagfuls of rubbish.

This This evening FOAW had a special event – our first ever Moth and Bat watch led by Steve Joul.  Steve has led bat watches for FOAW before – the last time 85 people came on it! – but this was the very first time that we combined it with a Moth watch.

We met in the car park of Old Leo’s at 8.10 pm and we had an excellent turn out of about 25 adults and children.

By the time your correspondent arrived, the event was already underway.  His neighbour, Paul Morris, a well known ornithologist, and now a keen lepidopterist, brought some (living) specimens he had trapped in his garden, and they were being passed around with great interest.

Steve gave an interesting introduction to the evening and showed us the two moth traps he had brought with him.  One was brand new and Steve and assistants had to work out how to put it together!  This was the one we used this evening.  Basically, a moth trap is an ultra violet light which attracts moths to crawl or fall down a funnel from which they can’t get back out.  Steve packed the trap with old egg boxes because moths like to snuggle down in them!

Old Leo’s bar had kindly given us permission to plug the moth trap into their power supply, and as dusk fell, we set off in pursuit of bats, leaving the moth trap switched on and under the care of our treasurer Judith.

Steve had brought plenty of bat detectors with him for us all to share, and we headed off into Crag Lane and the field which used to be the juniors rugby pitch. We did a circuit of that field before heading to the picnic area, and then Stairfoot Lane car park.

It was an enjoyable walk and we had a few sightings and soundings of bats, but they must have been playing away this evening.

After an hour or so of bat hunting, we returned to Old Leo’s to find that Judith was frozen and ready to go home.  However, the moth trap was safe and sound.

Large Yellow Underwing – photo courtesy of website of ukmoths.org.uk

Steve opened up the moth trap to much excitement and we found a number of moths inside.

There were three specimens of the large yellow underwing, which is one of the most abundant of our larger moths.  There were other moths but they flew off before we had the chance to see them – the younger members of our party were very excited to explore what was in the trap!

Overall, we enjoyed a very interesting and fun evening,  and we must express our gratitude to Steve for suggesting this event, leading us on it and bringing the moth traps and bat detectors, to Paul Morris for bringing moths for us to see, to Tony at Old Leo’s for letting us plug into Old Leo’s power supply, to Judith for protecting the moth trap, and to all who attended and made the evening a great success.

As a post script, Michael, one of our longstanding Friends, went home and found an exciting caterpillar in his garden.  Here is his email and photographs.

Feel free to pass on to Steve. Got home and went down the garden to find this beauty on the rosebay willowherb on my overgrown veg plot. I think it might have to stay overgrown from now on. Won’t be pulling it up this year. To think I nearly cleared it last week!! My first ever hawk moth caterpillar. Elephant Hawk moth I think. Humongous caterpillar. Thank you both for organising tonight.

A fine day and a good turn out.  Two of us went off litter picking, while the rest of us went off to Adel Moor to bash and pull bracken.

The committee decided that we would make a determined effort to get on top of the bracken on the moor and this was our third outing this Summer.

The first thing we found, was that an area which we cleared of bracken earlier this year had sprouted lots of new growth – as shown in this photograph.

This demonstrated just how persistent bracken is.  Undaunted, the Friends quickly set to work and removed all this new growth.

Equally positively, it is possible to make a big inroad into the bracken in the space of two hours.

Here are before and after pictures of the same spot taken about an hour and a half apart – and this is only a small part of the total achievement of the morning.

It was gratifying to find that under the bracken, there is still – at the moment – quite a lot of healthy looking heather.

The weather was fine until a few minutes before 12 noon when – out of nowhere – a torrential rain shower soaked us all.

Still this is what we are striving to achieve – the preservation of a wonderful heath with associated flora and fauna.

Another beautiful day.

A small but enthusiastic group met in Buckstone Road and separated into the litter pickers and the bracken bashers.  The litter pickers set off into the woods.  The bracken bashers set off to Adel Moor where we bashed or pulled bracken, and pulled up tree saplings.

We are successfully restoring Adel Moor as a small but viable piece of heathland with a resident population of lizards.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see any today.

The problem with bracken is that it suppresses other plants which we want to have on Adel Moor – like heather.  The good news is that in certain areas of the bracken, there is still a healthy growth of heather beneath the bracken – as shown in the picture above.

Four of the Adel Woods Bracken Bashers

A big thank you to Alan and Diane Yarker who welcomed Friends of Adel Woods onto their smallholding for the third year running to mark National Meadows Day.

We were blessed with wonderful weather, and Alan gave a very interesting and informative talk about the local environment and looking after a meadow.  He and Steve Joul then took us for a walk around the meadow, pointing out the many plants of interest.

Where were you when you dropped your contact lens?

Another  morning with Steve Joul, bracken bashing a pulling, and pulling up saplings.

Taking a well earned breather!

Man against Nature!

After a strenuous morning on Adel Moor, we went to have a look at the refurbished Slabbering Baby – now a wonderful place to sit and enjoy a sandwich!

Then to have a look at the wild flowers and orchids in the orchid meadow.

Here is a video I have published on youtube showing the refurbished Slabbering Baby in action!

The Slabbering Baby is a drinking fountain in Adel Woods.  Have a look at our blog entry for 24 May 2017 for information about its history and location.  In recent years, it has fallen into disrepair, and the stream of water reduced to a feeble trickle,  and many have dreamed that it can be restored.  This picture shows the Slabbering Baby in its heyday – and the lady in the picture is believed to be Francis Verity of Verity’s Tea Rooms.

In November 2016, Councillors Barry Anderson and Caroline Anderson provided £200 to enable the Slabbering Baby to be refurbished.

The work has now been completed.  It included:

• excavating behind the structure to ascertain where the water came from
• unblocking the pipes and replacing damaged ones
• removing the damaged bowl and creating a new one
• building a new wall on each side of the Slabbering Baby

The work has been co-ordinated by Douglas Louis of Leeds City Council and has been done by LCC Restorations Ltd, Remaking Leeds, Heritage Construction Skills and Skill Mill (Leeds Youth Offending Service).

The new bowl has been carved by Teresa Dybisz, an apprentice stone mason with York Minster, and she has done a super job.

The wall on each side of the new structure has also been built and it provides a wonderful place for weary travellers on the Meanwood Valley Trail to sit and enjoy a sandwich or take in the peaceful atmosphere of the woods.  The craftsmen who have built the wall have done an excellent job.

The Refurbished Slabbering Baby water fountain, 26 May 2017

The Slabbering Baby is situated near Adel Pond – sitting on the wall, follow the path to the right down to the stream, and then climb the steps up to the pond.

Adel Pond, the evening of Friday 26 May 2017

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.

Heath Spotted Orchid, Adel Bog, 29 July 2012

Adel Bog is a lovely, peaceful place within Adel Woods.  Secluded and off the beaten track, it is a calming place to do some conservation work.  It is what is left of what was once a much larger boggy area.  It is home to a population of Heath Spotted Orchids.

In 2011, The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, funded by Leeds City Council and Alwoodley Parish Council, cleared a lot of Purple Moor Grass from the bog, as it was taking over the area and turning it into dry land.  Since then, Friends of Adel Woods have   carried out further work, clearing back the trees which surround the bog, and pulling up saplings and brambles.

Our work is clearly having an effect.  The bog is not as wet as we would like it to be, but it is still wet, and the vegetation is changing in nature:  there are many rushes, and other moisture loving plants.

It was a fine morning, and fourteen volunteers met up today – including two new volunteers – to pick up litter and help Steve Joul work on the bog.  Four people went off to pick up litter, while the rest of us made our way to the bog.

Disappointingly, on our way to the bog, we found that someone had dumped about seven bags of charity bags – for Children with Cancer and Candlelighters – in the middle of some holly bushes.  Clearly, whoever put them there, wanted them not to be found because they were not flytipped on the outskirts of the woods: it clearly took a lot of effort to get them to where they were dumped.  Needless to say, FOAW removed them and disposed of them.

Moving on to more uplifting things, the bog looks different every time we visit it.  Today, it was quite dry, particularly at the northern end.  Over the years, we have removed thousands of saplings from the bog. Today, there seemed to be hundreds of new tree seedlings, and we removed very many of them.  Fortunately, the pulled up very easily.

There is still lots more to do:  in an ideal world, we would have a FOAB group – a Friends of Adel Bog group!  But our volunteers have so many areas of the woods to work on. Fortunately Steve can bring other teams of volunteers to work on the bog.

Thank you to everyone who helped today.