Do you know the moors around Baildon? Well on this clip you get a birds eye view or should that be a glider cameras eye view.
The aerial video shot was taken with a cheap spycam (£7.70 from Amazon) taped to the front of a model glider.

From Dobrudden farm and the surrounding area you get a rapidly changing picture of path ways, slopes, bracken and clouds as the glider selects where it is going next.

Baildon Facts

Trench Meadows near Shipley Glen is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Denso Marston Nature reserve is near Baildon bottom Charlestown.
Bracken Hall countryside centre is worth a visit with the kids. It is on Shipley Glen and can be reached via the glen tramway.
Baildon has a population of 15,500
Baildon has been inhabited for eons as the cup and ring stones on the moor testify but was first recorded in AD 835 in a letter from the King to the Archbishop of York.
Hall Cliffe Community Garden is near the Ian Clough Hall.
Baildon railway station has only one platform and a single track on the section from Shipley to Ilkley.
A commuter zone for Leeds and Bradford of which it is part.

Areas that are part of Baildon

Otley Road
Tong Park
Charlestown
Woodbottom
Ferniehirst
Shipley Glen
Baildon Moor
Milner Field

Read Views and Walks over Baildon and see Trig points

Slack is approximately 2 miles from the centre of Hebden Bridge. From the Halifax direction there is no right turn up the hill at the Slack traffic lights so you need to use the Heptonstall turning circle.

History

Romans established a small military fort and named it Camulodunum after the ancient Celtic War-God, Camulos at the top of the hill we now call Slack Top. There didn’t seem to be much evidence of the old fort and it was probably abandoned in by the middle of the second century. (British Kingdoms)

Slack Bottom stone ‘itself is very nicely eroded and seems of good age, as well as being a good near-six-foot tall specimen of a standing stone, just above the tree-line south of Hebden Dale. The stone gets its name from the fact that it’s at the bottom end of Slack village (which is actually called ‘Slack Bottom’ – with a house-sign there above the door to prove it!). It may be part of what was originally some original Iron Age walling instead of an authentic standing stone.’ Megalithix

From 1902, a railway ran from Slack to the construction site of the Walshaw Dean reservoirs, carrying men and materials. A shanty town, nicknamed Dawson City, sprang up at Slack.

Slack Top

Situated at a height of 900ft in the Pennines Slack boasts a plant nursery where tough plants flourish “If it’ll grow up here, it’ll grow anywhere”. It is a small nursery, but one of the UK’s top ten suppliers of Alpines. They offer and gave me expert advice on plants for my rockery and claim to have plants for ‘all garden situations – from damp shade to full sun and all things inbetween!’ Attached to the nursery is a naturalistic garden, begun in 1980 and spanning approximately a quarter acre. It is in a beautiful setting overlooking moors and woodland and a deep valley. Slack Top Nursery. The Persicaria plant picture was taken in the garden by the pond.

Slack is good walking country on the opposite side of the valley over Hebden Water to Hardcastle Crags. The National Trust has Four circular walks, ranging from three to seven miles; downloadable walks on the website. Gibson Mill is a national trust property and visitors centre using sustainable energy.

Slack Top Christian hostel was rebuilt in 1878, and is situated in the hamlet of Slack, surrounded by beautiful, wild, unspoilt countryside. ‘ Slack Top is for everyone; it is for the whole family, your church group, fellowship, friends to share; but mainly for you.’

Slack Bottom! by le chanoine, on Flickr under creative commons license

Aldborough is a pretty village 15 miles northwest of York and just to the south-east of Boroughbridge. It has a village green and Maypole but is famous for having being built on the site of a major Roman town, Isurium Brigantum, which marked the crossing of Dere Street over the River Ure.

What did the Romans Ever do for Aldborough

• Aldborough was originally called Isurium Brigantum and was probably the base of the Ninth Legion.
• It was the ‘capital’  for the Romanised Brigantes, the largest tribe in Britain.
• Romans left enough remains to create a  museum now run by English Heritage. It contains a number of relics of the Roman town, including some colourful and special mosaic pavements.
• One corner of the defences is laid out amid a Victorian arboretum where  two mosaic pavements can be viewed in their original positions.
• The site museum has an outstanding collection of Roman finds and objects, pottery, ornaments, coins, etc and other ‘hands-on’ aids for children and families.

More Modern Facts

• A plaque near the village green commemorates the RAF crew who lost their lives but avoided crashing into the village.
• The stocks in front of this plaque were removed from the square in Boroughbridge, when the medieval church in the square was demolished in 1851.
• The local hostelry is called The Ship Inn, Aldborough
• In the 18th century Aldborough was a pocket borough returning 2 MP’s when big cities had no representation at the houses of parliament. Pitt the Elder was one such Aldborough MP. (perhaps the Romans taught us this form of government)

St Andrew’s Church

• St Andrew`s Church was partially destroyed by Scots raiders in 1318.
• The present building is the third church to occupy what is thought to be the site of a Roman Temple of Mercury.
• The north wall dates from around 1330, and carries a brass of William de Aldeburgh dating from around 1360.
• The  battle cross commemorating the Battle of Boroughbridge 1322 was moved to Aldborough from the medieval church in Boroughbridge.

Unusual And Interesting Facts

• Not to be confused with the village of Aldbrough which is situated in the vale of Holderness, on the east coast of Yorkshire. Nor Aldbrough St John, Richmond, North Yorkshire
• Aldborough is in the West Riding for ecclesiastical purposes but the North Riding for postal issues.
• Prince William and Kate Middleton visited North Yorkshire to attend Harry Aubrey-Fletcher and Louise Stourton’s wedding ceremony in Aldborough Parish Church in January 2011.
• ‘Aldborough May Day is an event that occurs each May in the village of Aldborough, North Yorkshire.’ ( ‘Wow’ from Aldborough’s May Day website )  At least they do have a Maypole and a May Queen Kate take note!

Links

Old Maps UK

Roman Treacle Mines

Solar panels beat wind farms aesthetically and energy production to cost on the village green.

Dewsbury Markets

Wednesday and Saturday General Markets in Dewsbury are still the largest and most renowned  market in Yorkshire.

The open market boasts over 300 stalls and the permanent Victorian Market hall has a further 36. Amongst these permanent stalls is the famous ‘Tripe Shop’ shown above.

On Fridays there is a Second-Hand Market with an array of goods and around 100 stalls each week, a bargain hunter’s paradise.

‘If you love browsing and hunting out valuables then what better way to spend your Sunday morning than at the Car ‘Bootless’ Sale, 7.30am to 12.30pm? For sellers stall prices are £12.30 each and you can set-up at 7am on any available stall

Minsters In Yorkshire

Dewsbury is one of 4 minsters in Yorkshire. We all know York Minster and probably Beverley but Howden and Dewsbury Minsters were unknown to me.
Dewsbury Minster dates back to Anglo-Saxon times.The Christian Community has met to worship on the site of the minster since AD 627.
Now the Minster includes or is largely a heritage centre for the presentation of Anglo-Saxon sculpture and notable crosses.
There is a newly created pilgrimage chapel to St Paulinus.
Minsters differ from Cathedrals in that they are basically a monastery church or local collegiate church.
The minster houses “Black Tom”, a bell which is rung each Christmas Eve. There is one toll for each year since Christ’s birth, and this is known locally as the “Devil’s Knell”.

History of Dewsbury.

The population of Dewsbury in the Heavy Woolen District of Yorkshire is around 55,000.
Dewsbury has been an important trading area for centuries. The river Calder, canal links and the railway all helped.
There was a cloth market in Dewsbury from the 14th century. During the industrial revolution wool, cloth and textile engineering were  major industries.
Large immigration took place from the Indian Sub-continent when people arrived to work in the textile industry. Their influence is now very significant in the area. Aishah Azmi a local school teaching assistant gained notoriety in 2006 by refusing to remove her full-face veil in the classroom.
Dewsbury Museum is located within the mansion house in Crow Nest Park.
Fourteen buses are stored in a small building in Ravensthorpe, near Dewsbury as part of Dewsbury Bus Museum’s collection.
Tradition records that Robin Hood is burried in the 12 century Cistertian convent that is now part of Kirklees Park.
Bed manufacture is the main industry as textiles have dramatically reduced.

Crime Shouldn’t Pay

• Karen Matthews shocked the country when she came up with the plot to use one of her children in a fake kidnapping to claim reward money.With Paul Drake, aka Michael Donovan, she was found guilty on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice and both were given eight-year prison sentences.
• Mohammad Sidique Khan lived in Lees Holm Dewsbury and became a suicide bomber when in July 2005 with 3 others he detonated bombs on three London Underground trains and one bus killing 55 people and injuring over 700.
• Several children aged 12- 15 were arrested in 2008 on suspicion of the murder of Amar Aslam. Amar was beaten so savagely that his body was initially unidentifiable.
• On 2 January 1981 Peter Sutcliffe, then calling himself Peter Williams was arrested before being transferring to Dewsbury. A knife was discovered in the toilets at the police station and eventually Sutcliffe confessed he was ‘The Ripper’.


Related
Victims of the Yorkshire Ripper
Times online
Bus Museum

Skelmanthorpe Male Voice Choir singing Ilkla Moor
The Skelmanthorpe Band is one of the oldest brass bands in the country founded in 1843. They came first in the 2011 Holme Valley contest and are up for the Grand Shield on 14th May 2011.

Skelmanthorpe History.

• Skelmanthorpe is in the Kirklees area near Denby Dale and has a population of less than 5000.
• Originally Skelmanthorpe was believed to be called Shalman after a Hebrew word meaning peaceable.
• It was established in the 8th century by displaced Jews from Holland.
• The Skelmanthorpe Feast was a very popular event in the 18th century.
• Turning from agriculture to weaving the area became more prosperous.

Kirklees Light Railway

• Steam along behind Hawk, Owl, Fox or Badger, the four friendly steam engines from Clayton West via Skelmanthorpe and Cuckoos Nest to Shelly.
• The 15″ narrow-gauge rail runs through superb scenery on the course of the track laid for the old original Skelmanthorpe line. This line was first opened in 1879 and closed in 1986.
• New this summer at Shelley Station is a picnic area with sturdy benches and a train-themed play area with the addition of a sandpit!

Skelmanthorpe Worship

• The Anglican church of St Aidan has an ikon of St Mary Sumner, hanging in the Lady Chapel. Mary Sumner founded the Mothers Union, an international organization of the Church of England, towards the end of the 19th Century.
  George Frederick Bodley designed this and other churches in the English Decorated Gothic style. He was a friend of several Pre-Raphaelite artists and William Morris.
  Bodley’s parish church designs became influential and include various parish churches plus Queen’s College Chapel, Cambridge, secular buildings for King’s College and Magdalen College, Oxford. Bodley was the also the architect for the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, Washington DC; St David’s Cathedral, Hobart, Tasmania; and All Saints Cathedral, Nagpur, India.

• There is a Wesleyan church on Gibb Lane in Skelmanthorpe, a Methodist Church, the Trinity Evangelical Church and Saville Road Hall non-denominational.

Futurology for Skelmanthorpe

• You can see the up-coming fixtures for Skelmanthorpe Cricket club on their web site. There are two crown green bowls clubs based at the Windmill Pub and in the centre of the village.

• Skelmanthorpe along with the neighbouring villages of Scissett, Clayton West and Denby Dale have all been targeted for substantial housing development by Kirklees Council.

• Skelmanthorpe Community Action Group continue to fight for a school crossing, to help protect our children, for improvements to road junctions, to improve safety and for repairs to our failing road system. They also keep an archive

• The next big brass band competition will be The Yorkshire Brass Band Championships 3-4 March 2012 at St. George’s Hall, Bradford

• Jobs or commuterland will be an issue in the area for at least the rest of this decade. Who can say what will happen.

Brid or Bridlington to give it it’s Sunday name is a popular seaside resort with sandy beaches and an interesting harbour. The Groynes are wooden defences that run out to sea and protect the sandy beaches from adverse weather.
The harbour is very tidal as the pictures below show.

As a family resort there are many amusements, rides and arcades.
To feed the kids there are more ‘chippy’s’ than you can shake a cod or haddock at.

Bridlington Market day at King Street is Wednesday but it is usually open Friday-Sunday in the season.

Night life for the adults includes the ‘Shades’ night club below as well as pubs and the Victoria Sailors and Working Men’s C& I Union affiliated club. Don’t sailors work then or are Victoria sailors different?

Sundry Facts

• When the Domesday book was written Bridlington was named Bretlinton in the Howton Hundred. In Yorkshire we were more accustomed to use the Norse ‘wapentake’ to replaced several Anglo-Saxon hundreds.
• A small fishing port grew up near the coast known as Bridlington Quay.
• After the discovery of a chalybeate spring, the Quay developed in the 19th century to become a seaside resort.
• The railway station opened on 6 October 1846 between the Quay and the historic town.
• Victorian tourists visiting Bridlington needed entertainment and in 1896 the New Spa and Gardens were opened. The theater still holds audiences of 1000 and the Royal Hall 3000.
• Leisure World boasts 3 pools, including a fun pool with waves, slides, rain storm effect and water features, a 25m training pool and a learner pool.
• Neighbouring resorts include Flamborough, Hornsea and Withernsea with the RSPB bird watching site at Bempton Cliff just to the north.
• The Bridlington “land train” goes all the way out to Sewerby and the gardens and Hall.

Bridlington Humour

If it’s the tourist season why can’t we shoot them?

The Hair of the Widow of Bridlington lampoons the widow of brid words by Jake Thackery

Q. Why do only ten per cent of Bridlington men go to heaven?
A. Any more and it would be hell.

Read more Yorkshire Facts for the interesting and unusual.

Colours of the Seaside at Bridlington

Quarryhill flats will remain in the memory of many Leeds folk as will their unseemly demise. Leeds had it’s share of squalor and slum housing after the World War in the 1920′s.

Rev Charles Jenkinson a friend of the ‘Red Vicar’ Conrad Noel stood as a labour candidate for Leeds Council. After election he produce a paper on slum clearance that ultimately led to the building of the Quarry Hill Flats. The Director of Housing R A Livett and Rev Jenkinson visited France and Vienna in 1934 to inspect municipal tenement complexes (workers flats)  including the massive Karl Marx Hof. Then building at Quarry Hill commenced based on a plan for 5000 flats.

They were built on a quick,  structural system of pre-cast ferro-concrete cladding, mounted on steel frames. They needed less skilled labour and post war this was seen as a positive aspect of the development.  By 1941 the flats provided accommodation for 3,280 people.

Social Dimension

• The development housed shops, apartments, laundries and a range of communal facilities.
• Only 40% of the area was built on the balance was for roads and communal space.
• Old communities from those displaced by demolition were not all keen to live in the new ‘tenements’
• Lifts and and a chute based waste disposal system were included although the later was a bit of a failure.
• Many flats were filled with none local residents including overseas visitors.
• Oral history in Leeds has a series of commentaries and personal histories that are evocative of the era. link

1. ‘……York Road to get the bus into town and, of course, everywhere you walked, the flats were just there on the skyline; massive, often looking a bit austere. I always remember them as being off white and grey, and our parents telling us that… that inside the flats was full of nasty people…’

Quarryhill Childhood Steve Farley 1 by The Oral History CompanyThe Oral History Company

Quarry Hill Problems

• The second World War interrupted the development.
• Public policy was not clearly implemented or failed. Support for tenants was poor or none existant
• The new build techniques were very expensive to maintain and repair.
• Rusting below ground was a serious threat and the buildings life expectancy had been dramatically over estimated.
• Black spots, vandalism and intimidation developed within the estate. The site was ghettoised.
• The lifts worked but the revolutionary waste disposal system was an expensive failure.
• Despite the working class public spirit and demands for action the council failed to tackle and solve the issues.

What Happened Next

• In 1972 four options were put to council none included full renovation and retention.
• The flats were demolished between 1975 and 1978. see picture above
• Karl Marx Hof has been refurbished and maintained. It is still the longest residential building at 0.68 of a mile long.

This is how Quarry Hill should look like today!

Sources
1. Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, Yorkshire (Dr Neil Clifton) / CC BY-SA 2.0

2. Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds during demolition. (Alan Longbottom) / CC BY-SA 2.0

3. Oral History of Quarry Hill

4. ‘Memento Mori – The Flats at Quarry Hill Leeds’ by Peter Mitchell

5. Housing Market.org