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Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Sat 08 Jul, 2017 11:32 pm
by warringtonrhino
Loiner in Cyprus wrote:The red shale is usually the result of a slag heap, made up of fire clay and other spoil from the pit, catching fire by spontaneous combustion and turning the spoil red ie burnt.
Red shale comes out of the ground red,it is red because it contains impurities such as ferric oxide.

Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Sun 09 Jul, 2017 9:03 am
by blackprince
Thanks for the map buffalo. I'm guessing it's about 1910 judging by what's there and what's missing. I never knew that my first school , Brownhill, was named after a farm. Also the Dog and Gun was there before much of the housing that came later. Lots of the housing above East End park was not built but the future street plans are shown on the map.

The Harehills Feast site which was mentioned earlier was at the top edge of this map about 1/3rd from the left edge, bounded by the Nowells and the Pit Hills. My granddad's pigeon loft was also on the boundary of the pit hills site and close to the Nowells.

On the red slag heap we used to find coloured lumps we called "marble" - really fused silica, I think, often green with vivid coloured streaks of red , blue and other colours. That makes me think the red slag could have been blast furnace slag from the iron works because it would take a high temperature to produce fused silica.
The tramway linking the Osmandthorpe colliery to the coal depot on York rd raises a couple of questions. Could it have been used to transport the spoil from the pit up to the grey pit hill behind the Shaftsbury or would it have only been used for getting coal to York Rd? Also would the iron works have used coal from the pit or did it need coke from a gasworks?
BP

Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Sun 09 Jul, 2017 3:05 pm
by Loiner in Cyprus
warringtonrhino wrote:
Loiner in Cyprus wrote:The red shale is usually the result of a slag heap, made up of fire clay and other spoil from the pit, catching fire by spontaneous combustion and turning the spoil red ie burnt.
Red shale comes out of the ground red,it is red because it contains impurities such as ferric oxide.
I never saw any red shale when I worked down the pit in the 60s and 70s but saw a number of burning slag heaps so I assumed, obviously wrongly, the red shale was the result of the burning slag heaps. You are never too old to learn!!

Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Mon 10 Jul, 2017 10:36 am
by warringtonrhino
Loiner in Cyprus -You are correct, some stones do turn red when involved in combustion, and shale contains oil, so spontaneous combustion often occurs when it is exposed air. I was not suggesting that all shale is red or that all red stones are shale.
My grandfather was also a collier; he worked at the Blaydon Main Colliery.
His job was to open and close doors to allow the coal wagons to pass; he told me he was a trapper.
He left in 1920 when the pit closed, he was seventeen and moved to Wheat Street in Burmantofts.
He gave me his old work hat, it is black fabric with a peak; similar in shape to the ones John Lennon and Ringo Starr wore in the Hard Days Night film. He also gave me a hand size piece of shale, it is flat and the edges and corners have been rounded. It is very dark grey with a hint of green, and he told me that he used it to wedge the doors in the pit, open or closed. He probably picked it up from the colliery spoil heap? Having , We often wondered how much of what he said was invented, during his childhood and teens when he was alone in the coal mine, but I do have the hat and piece of stone.

Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Mon 10 Jul, 2017 11:05 am
by Loiner in Cyprus
Warringtonrhino. I have heard the words trap and trapping. When I worked at the Middleton Broom Colliery no one was dedicated to opening and closing (the air)) doors but there were still some ponies used for transporting supplies. These ponies were taught to "trap" the air doors ie open them with their heads. (Only in one direction of course, going the other way the pony driver had to open the door). Going back to the days when your grandfather worked down the pit ponies were used for transporting coal, muck, supplies etc so then it no doubt was beneficial to have a "trapper".

Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Fri 17 Jun, 2022 6:01 pm
by MargaretC
I remember the feast on Woodhouse Moor, it was an occasion that we really looked forward to attending. But I do remember how muddy it would get some times! Oh yes and Billy Smarts Circus, that was a real treat, very exciting.

Re: Woodhouse Feast / Armley Feast etc.

Posted: Sat 18 Jun, 2022 6:53 pm
by tilly
Hunslet Feast was my local, outside Hunslet Rugby Ground Parkside we never had any money but you still enjoyed yourself.From a time when materialistic things meant nothing, unless you lived back then you will never grasp what i am talking about we had nothing but were still content with our lot. It made me the person i am and for that i will be forever great full.