One of my neighbours rang me this morning to tell me she’s concerned that the council’s scheme to sink 60cm x 90cm x 60cm concrete blocks 60cm into the ground will interfere with the Moor’s drainage system, installed in Victorian times. She told me that there are springs beneath the Moor. These springs used to cause the Moor to be really marshy. Streams would form from the water that gathered on the Moor and these streams would run across what is now Hyde Park Road and Moorland Road and down the hillsides. The streets known as the Rillbanks at the bottom of Woodsley Road got their name from the fact that “rill” is another word for stream. Sometime after the Town Council bought the Moor in 1857, they drained it. This probably means that they installed beneath the surface, a system of perforated clay drainage pipes. The lady who rang me told me that in the Autumn, if you go onto the Moor and listen carefully, you can hear water running beneath the grass. This must be the sound the water makes as it passes through the drainage pipes. If Leeds City Council goes ahead with its scheme to sink 40 concrete blocks 60cm into the ground, the chances are that they’ll destroy this Victorian drainage system. This would very likely turn the Moor back into a marsh. And then wouldn’t that be a good excuse for the council to send in bulldozers and workmen to level and drain the Moor so that the part not used for barbeque areas, could be turned into playing fields or whatever else the council wants.

(photo courtesy of mahalie)