SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Evening all,
I am hunting for any photographs or information about Adel Towers.
I remember them as a child and remember them being demolished in 1966/7.
/Ian

THe Leodis website has one photograph with comments by the owners grandson, the gardeners family and someone who knew the building before it was demolished. I have attached a map c1900

warringtonrhino wrote: ↑

Thu 02 May, 2019 8:56 am

THe Leodis website has one photograph with comments by the owners grandson, the gardeners family and someone who knew the building before it was demolished. I have attached a map c1900

Your a gem.

As chairman and only member of the world famous Leeds brick collectors club I thought I knew all the claypits and there we have another one opposite Adel Towers!!

Oddly though AFAIK brick was not used to construct housing in Adel?

Have you seen the Screen 3 Productions facebook page- it's lots of bricks, I can get more details for you, from Andy if you wish.

warringtonrhino wrote: ↑

Thu 02 May, 2019 8:56 am

THe Leodis website has one photograph with comments by the owners grandson, the gardeners family and someone who knew the building before it was demolished. I have attached a map c1900

Tile house and tile lane may be a clue clay tiles were produced at the clay pit?

I don't know what the conduit from Eccup to Headingley waterworks was lined with nor what the second aqueduct (just by where the ring road is now)following the stone aqueduct that remains in Adel woods was built of but it could have included brick from this clay pit?

Fascinating

warringtonrhino wrote: ↑

Tue 04 Jun, 2019 10:34 pm

Have you seen the Screen 3 Productions facebook page- it's lots of bricks, I can get more details for you, from Andy if you wish.

Do you have a link?

The map is dated and in turn refers to the clay pit as "old" so this fascinates me.

I refer to "Penmorfa" for their super illustrated catalogue of Brick producers!

Andy is a professional filmmaker, he made a series of films about people with odd hobbies, one was about a man in Barnsley who hunts for bricks.
He is going to send me some good photographs and the film, if you want to message me your details I will post them to you.

The c1893 map is similar, though the smaller scale c1851 map shows no adel towers,and just a tile works . the map may not be large enough scale to record the clay pit.

Back in the 1960s, the field below Tile Lane was generally known as "Seven Ponds".

It was the best place to find newts. At the right time of year it was full of clouds of butterflies.
The area was also a dumping ground for soot. There was a huge black mountain of the stuff near where the building is on the 1851 map. The building was just the remains of low walls by then.

In the mid 1970s, the whole area was cleared for the current housing.

Hi if you look on the Leodis a photographic archive of Leeds and search for Adel Towers there’s a couple of comments from people about this and one from a relative of the man who owned Adel Towers