Horsforth, Springfield Hospital 1901

In 1973 to 1977

I was 7yrs old when I visited this place with my mum and sister which was (1973) and I was told this was going to be my home for a while because mum was too ill to look after me...it was called Springfield boarding school and although I hated it at first because I got homesick I settled in and I loved it so much.  I remember crying loads, some good memories lay there, and I'm trying to find as much information as possible about the place and people I met whilst there.
from Mandy Smith (was Pedersen back then).

Anticipating a Memory of Kirkstall Abbey

In among my family genealogical records is a note that an ancestor of mine named Richard de Berecrofte gave lands to Kirkstall Abbey in the 12th century.  I am SO looking forward to visiting the Abbey next year and taking my own pictures of it!
It is my understanding that my ancestors left the Cliviger area about 1650 for Boston, MA.

I am retiring next year and have lived most of my life in Pennsylvania, USA.  My daughter, Mary, is in the Air Force at Lakenheath AFB, and I will be staying with her. I would be happy to answer any questions.

Happy Day!

Cookridge - Once fields and Farms

I moved from Holbeck in 1948 into one of the first estates to be built in North West Leeds, Ireland Wood (Raynels). In 1950 I went to Cookridge School, then a wooden hut right slap bang opposite where Cookridge fire station is now. The old locked school gates leading nowhere are still there.. behind them is the grassy bank of the reservoir for the water tower which, in those days was only half the size it is now, around 1965 it expanded onto what was our old school playground. In those days travelling out of Leeds there were no buildings WHATSOVER right from the row of house houses next to Holy name church past Raynel Way (St Paul's Church was not even built then) right to Pickles Farm at Bramhope except for Cookridge Hall Lodge, next to Holt Lane, that lodge is still there. (The Hall was then an Epileptic Home, it's now a golf course and sports complex.) EVERYTHING to the right side was then just fields, Holt Park was all farm fields, and just two farm familes, the Perkins brothers lived in the whole of Holt Park. Where the Eryie pub now stands was Horse Shoe Wood, presumably planted years ago by the Cookridge Hall Family, it stretched from the junction of Holt Lane in a 30-yard-wide strip up along Otley Old Road almost to the water tower, swung 100 yards to the left then back down to Holt Lane again, a perfect 30 yards wide 'horseshoe' with a large field in the middle. The wood was always full of rooks, sometimes we used to get paid to cull them with airguns, 3d a bird.
The only two actual buildings on what is now Holt Park were two farms, High Farm, off Farrar Lane, run by Richard Perkins, (now a pub) and Low Farm, on Holt Lane (now a big house at the end of the golf course), run by his brother, Stanley Perkins. I worked for them both as a kid. Both were tenant farmers of the old Cookridge Hall estate. Stan's huge longhorn Highland Cattle grazed on what is now the golf course, right down to Paul's Pond Wood. I handled dairy Friesians quite well but the Highland Cattle frightened me to death, they chased you. I climbed many a tree to avoid those horns, much to the amusement of the two Perkins brothers.
In 1950 the nearest shops to the Raynels were Holmfield Cafe, down on new Adel lane, (it had static caravan dwellers on a field which is now part of Lawnswood cemetery,) or else a walk up to Cookridge Post office, just past Holt Lane. The shops on Raynel Way were not there, they were built a little later, as was the Ireland Wood School there, we were moved to it down from the wooden hut next to the water tower around 1951.  
The shops first opened about the same time, in what are now the old garages, (behind the existing shops.) There were three opened up there, the grocer was 'Merrymans' and the sweet shop Mrs Wholehouse. I remember sweet rationing coming off and being able to actualy buy six pennorth of sweets... luxury. The other shop was a butchers, Mr Bennet. He was the famous Alan Bennet's father. It's mentioned in his memoirs.
Green Lane at Cookridge veered off Otley Old Road down to Pounds Farm, it dead-ended at  Mosely Wood, which was huge in those days, covering all of what is now the huge Cookridge Mosely wood estates, then a huge forest. The 'Fox and Hounds' end of Green Lane did not exist. It petered out not far from Cookridge Post Office on Otley Old Road. That is where the first bus (33  Cookrige) turned around by reversing into Green Lane. Later they introduced a 2nd service (36 Tinshill) which turned down Tinshill Lane but in those days there was nothing down Tinshilll Lane to go to.
From the Fox and Hounds onward there was next to nothing beween Tinshill Road and the railway track except woods, then across the lines right up again to Scotland Lane except fields. Strange to think that if you lived on Scotland Lane, Horsforth in those days your nearest neighbour over the back garden fence lived miles away, down across the railway and right up into Tinshill Road Cookridge. Nothing in between, now there must be thousands of homes there in Cookridge, then there were at the most a few hundred. The Raynels and early Iveson estate practically trebled the wartime population of the area. Now it is perhaps a thousand times more again, all in that same three square miles of fields.
If you walked on the right hand side of the road from opposite the Wise Owl pub (not built then) to Bramhope you would only pass two buildings, Cookridge Hall Lodge at the end of Holt Lane and Pickles farm below Bramhope Cemetary. No radio mast opposite the water tower, nothing whatsover just fields and woods.
How it has all changed in 60 years. In those days if you walked up to school from Raynel Way you knew the name of every single person you met on the way. The estate after Hopital Lane was then the playing fields for Leeds Grammar School, nothing at Tinshill, very little at Cookridge, perhaps a dozen or so private houses at the bottom. Now? perhaps a thousand? Holt Park School alone has 1,500 pupils and there is a huge supermarket, a shopping complex, swimming baths and a library in the old North Dairy pasture. A pub called the Eyrie stands where we once shot the rooks in Horseshoe Wood and on top of that Richards Farm is now the High Farm pub and his pig barn and cow sheds are now their restaurant. The only thing left is the orchard (still growing the pears for Mrs Perkins' pear wine.)
I wonder what Stanley and Richard Perkins would have made of all this?  

Bramley Memories and Me

I lived next door to Mr Dales newsagents on Highfield Road in Bramley. Opposite were rows of terraces in those days with a shop on the end of each terrace. A chip shop on the end of the first row and a newsagents and general store on the end of another - Bowers? I seem to remember. The Barley Mow pub was opposite our house along with the rugby ground and club. I could be wrong but I'm sure I have a memory of trams still running?
In those days the Rossfields and Snowdens were all fields and woods.
I can still remember walking the lenghth of Bramley Town Street with my mum and trying to walk on the raised curbs of the old pavements before the tarmac replaced them! Boy they were high!
Being served in the shops before the supermarkets came.
I remember a piece of land at the far end of Highfield Road - we kids called it the Potato Shed, I loved playing on there and having bonfires!
Raynville Primary School was run by Mr Sargent, he was so lovely.
I used to play in Bramley Fall Woods through the summer - in fact it's where I received my first kiss as a ten year old, thanks to Philip Morley!
We sledged down the hill to the bottom of the Raynvilles in those days as not too many cars and it is a steep hill, bogies in the summer!
Kick can and hop, it was a favourite game of mine along with British Bulldogs!
Bramley Carnival was in its heyday and from our house we got a brill view of all the floats, my cousin being on a float as a carnival queen runner up one year!
The main Carnival though was held on the fields at Bramley Park. A fantastic day on all the rides and shows.
There used to be a Pram Push once a year through Bramley Town Street too, well attended and crazy costumes, I loved this event even more than the carnival floats! Charities benefitted greatly from this event, it's sadly died out now.
Bramley Baths was a great place to meet your pals and the jammie dodgers for a penny were wolfed down in a second!

I was heart-broken when the lovely old shops and houses were pulled down to make way for a supermarket and shopping centre in the mid seventies, oh how they did not appreciate the travisty of it! The shopping revolution came and nothing would stop its progress. Unfortunately for Bramley it never felt the same again. The new houses built to accomodate the Quarry Hill Flats residents were ugly and boring to look at. They still are today. Bramley was a beautiful village back then. Shame.