Hunger Hills. Horsforth. Neither of us had been here before. No Lee had not been on one of his days out when bunking off school about thirty years ago......And he did not even know it was all here either!
Hunger Hills. This area was heavily mined. By the 18th century the whole area was decimated. In 1786 Walter Spencer Stanhope paid to have it replanted. He paid £4.00 for 3,000 saplings to create this wood.
In 1947 the Stanhope family donated the wood to the people of Horsforth and in 1974 Leeds city council took over ownership. In 2001 the area became common land to replace Rawdon common which became part of Leeds Bradford airport.
The mines in Horsforth were coal mines and the method used to extract the coal was "bell pit method" This was a vertical shaft 25ft deep or until the coal was found and then widened at the bottom until the limit of safety was reached. coal mining took place here in 26 bell pits. this as you could imagine made a real mess of the area. Hunger hills comes from the Norse word Hangara meaning barren slope.
We parked over by the Japanese gardens and walked over to this path and notice board. The path weaves it's way past houses up hill.....
There are lots of well sign posted paths to the top of the hill....
Autumn is just beginning to change it's colours and some leaves are already down.
A warm sunny day as we tripped along. By the time we got up to the top we were both hot.
A very beautiful old woodland. We passed a lot of lucky dogs out for their afternoon walks....
Then at the top we came to the view over Leeds....so here are the photos and I will let them speak for themselves.......
There are benches posted in all the best places....
There is also a massive viewing board with lots of information about what and where you are looking.....
It was quiet except the singing of birds and we saw lots of squirrels too....all of which were far too quick for me to get a good photo....
We went back down the same way as Lee did not know the area well enough to know where the other ways came out....Yes I know. This is unusual! Lee does not know this bit of Horsforth at all.
We had already been around the junk shops in the town main street and the local supermarket. We were late out today as we had to wait for Father to appear. He phoned up after two months to come over to see us. We had not heard from Father since my birthday. Father did used to come over about once a week....if you have been reading this blog you will already know all about that.
We were just setting off to take Monza dog out for his walk. The phone rang and it was Father.
" A'm goin'fer the twenty past bus,,,an ah 'ave te go te supermarket fer some Wheatabix...ah fergot yistday.....shall I call when i'm on't bus?"
We were walking Monza when he called. We worked out that it would be at least another hour yet...so walked Monza a bit more and then came home to put on the kettle and move some dolls from the sofa so that father did not sit on them.
On his arrival I made him a cup of coffee and we all sat down on the sofa. Monza ran to father and started to lick him. Monza knows this is how to get more biscuits.
Father has been ill He has had a bug . " sue said there was a bug goin' round at the university. Ah must a got it from 'er. Ah thought I were meetin' me maker it were that bad.....have ah fixed the garage door? well I woulda but I got this bug yer see.....an I were gettin a new window in't garage like.......Yer been Where? oh not 'erd o' that...White wells yer say? ilkley? there wasn't an Ainsley's there so I don't know..........yer bin te Saltaire 'n all? didn't there used te be a mill there? must be closed be now......"
Then they both went outside to look at the Fenix car and debate the art of mechanical engineering. Lee explained how he had labelled up the engine parts in preparation for taking out the engine on a massive hoist and swapping engine parts over to make it all work again.
I bought it for his birthday in February this year.
It is now 13th February 2019 . Valentines day tomorrow in fact. The 23rd is Lee's birthday again. The Fenix car sits outside the house in pretty much the state that it is still in these pictures.
February 21st 2019 father has a hospital appointment. I could get no clear answer as to what this apointment is. So I will go with treatment beginning for lung cancer and a blood clot found on both lungs about two weeks ago. The "bugs" father kept getting "from t'university" or there is a bug goin' round.....all that turned out to be lung cancer.
click on this link for a complete update. This is a blog I wrote last week after we went to visit father.
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