Asket Hill / Asket Hall

Guiseppe · Post by **Guiseppe** » Wed 02 Jul, 2008 6:42 pm

Yeah, it's scary how quickly nature reclaims everything isn't it? I'm pretty confident that I took the photo of the Asket Hall gardens from the right spot, completely unrecognisable!Something in that area that I didn't take a photo of is an old metal fence (it seems the path beside the beck once had metal fences running on both sides). There's a tree which is slowly consuming the metal fence - it looks like the metal is growing out of the tree, as entire section of fence runs right through the middle of the tree!

sundowner · Post by **sundowner** » Wed 02 Jul, 2008 7:57 pm

Guiseppe wrote: Yeah, it's scary how quickly nature reclaims everything isn't it? I'm pretty confident that I took the photo of the Asket Hall gardens from the right spot, completely unrecognisable!Something in that area that I didn't take a photo of is an old metal fence (it seems the path beside the beck once had metal fences running on both sides). There's a tree which is slowly consuming the metal fence - it looks like the metal is growing out of the tree, as entire section of fence runs right through the middle of the tree! Hi Guiseppe i know what you mean about the tree there was a avenue of dutch elm trees going down from Fulneck School to Sisters Wood most of them now gone dutch elm decease.On a couple that are left they have had a cast iron guard put around them in the distant past it may havebeen to stop cattle chewing the barkoff. The trees have grown over the guard in parts so you can no longer see it.

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Thu 03 Jul, 2008 11:45 pm

Guiseppe wrote: Yeah, it's scary how quickly nature reclaims everything isn't it? I'm pretty confident that I took the photo of the Asket Hall gardens from the right spot, completely unrecognisable! I'm pleased you enjoyed the excursion - I did - thank you for the wonderful photos. I urge anyone to look at Asket Hall's grand gardens as was on Leodis and look at the site today - amazing.

strawman · Post by **strawman** » Thu 07 Jan, 2010 8:59 pm

Guiseppe wrote: Next, the stables. Leodis.net incorrectly says that this building has been knocked down! Which presumably comes as some surprise to the people currently living there... Dragging up an old thread, sorry. Anyway, this picture is my house at the moment (my gf's old car is the Focus). Didn't know we had trespassers The house was the old coach house for the Hall. It was converted in 1974 iirc from the 2 houses it used to be to the 3 houses it is today. Sometime in the 80's, I think, all the other houses were built behind it in Ladywood Grange.

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Thu 07 Jan, 2010 9:47 pm

strawman wrote: Guiseppe wrote: Next, the stables. Leodis.net incorrectly says that this building has been knocked down! Which presumably comes as some surprise to the people currently living there... Dragging up an old thread, sorry. Anyway, this picture is my house at the moment (my gf's old car is the Focus). Didn't know we had trespassers The house was the old coach house for the Hall. It was converted in 1974 iirc from the 2 houses it used to be to the 3 houses it is today. Sometime in the 80's, I think, all the other houses were built behind it in Ladywood Grange. The house on Leodis and the site today are so incredibly different.But I think that the terracing of the house was created by fine dressed stone retaining walls and the removal/reclamation of these walls left the ground to easily revert to what is was - a muddy overgrown stream bank.

Tomel · Post by **Tomel** » Sat 09 Jan, 2010 3:52 pm

Hi I am new to this forum so not had a good look around as yet.I used to hang around the Asket Hill North Lane Rounday area in the early 50s. The mansion in its own grounds between North Lane and Asket Hill was a no go area in our day as it was still occupied. We were told it belonged to and was lived in by the Schofield Family who owned Schofields Store on the Headrow/Lands Lane. Where Easterly Road and Dib Lane meet is where two becks converged. There was an overflow from Waterloo Lake near the park gates on Wetherby Road which went under the baths and also the overflow from the waterfall which was off the lake looking down onto the baths. The waters from the lake flowed through this (Schofield) land before they eventually converged with Wikebeck which came down Wellington Hill. Wikebeck flowed between Asket Hill and Easterly road and then went right through (Killingbeck) to Halton effectively dividing the Gipton from Seacroft. At the park end of Asket Hill if you cross over Wetherby Road and take the lane up towards Cobble Hall Golf Course, just before the golf course there is /was a large derelict mansion. This, we were told belonged to one of the partners Sam Elam who owned Roundhay park. He went bankrupt and fell out with his partner Thomas Nicholson. It may be that the property was bought by the partner and just left to rot. The feud was very bitter and Elam died young in mysterious circumstances put down as suicide I think.So I think that somewhere in this thread someone has mixed up the two mansions which were about a mile apart.

Post by **chameleon** » Sat 09 Jan, 2010 5:36 pm

PARKY OLD BOY....opinionSo I think that somewhere in this thread someone has mixed up the two mansions which were about a mile apart.

Tomel · Post by **Tomel** » Sat 09 Jan, 2010 6:18 pm

chameleon wrote: PARKY OLD BOY....opinionSo I think that somewhere in this thread someone has mixed up the two mansions which were about a mile apart. Not sure what you mean on this??? Are you asking for an opinion from ParksiderI think I clicked on a link from another thread to get to here and so may have posted about an observation on that link. Sorry. Not used to how it all works yet.

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 09 Jan, 2010 6:57 pm

chameleon wrote: PARKY OLD BOY....opinionSo I think that somewhere in this thread someone has mixed up the two mansions which were about a mile apart. Hi Tomel,The stream that runs along the foot of the (former) terrace gardens of Asket Hall is Wyke beck, the principle beck that before the advent of Roundhay Park and it's overflows was also the Beck in Great Heads Wood above the lakes.It is a larger beck and is marked as Wyke Beck on maps. The beck from Wellington Hill comes down from Roundhay Grange and I have never known it have a name. Where the two becks converge is also the part of asket Hill where Asket Hall was and the stables, Lodge and the bridge over the wyke all still stand.The second hall you refer to is Elmet Hall half way up Elmet Lane towards Cobble Hall. It may be my turn to be corrected here but I recall that the Hall and further developmments in the grounds were a school for the deaf for many years.That small stream has many memories for me. It ran on the other side of wetherby road to Low Wood which had an old house and garden called Ash Bank House on it's northern edge. The old house had the council house kids making up spoooky stories about it. I knew nothing of that house and wish today I did, or could find a picture of it.In Low Wood there was a quarry we kids played in. It's not there now and I just wonder what is done to landscape and remove quarries?? Maybe the legend that is Grumpytramp will come and tell us?Lower down the stream a bridge still carries the footpath from the old police station up Boggart Hill when that too was just a footpath. Lower down again just before asket hill was a second bridge over that small stream. It was a simple stone arch with banking up either side and a sandy earth track on top. No sides. There was no real track to it or away from it and when I was a kid in the sixties it was fun to carefully balance on and cross, but to this day I have not a clue why on earth it was ever built, and what it was built for. Remember this??

Tomel · Post by **Tomel** » Sat 09 Jan, 2010 7:36 pm

Yes I do remember that bridge. The bank of the stream was very sandy and steep and I remember a large tree with a rope suspended from it which we used to swing over the stream on. I do remember a childrens school of some sorts on the lane up to Cobble Hall but the mansion I am on about was further up and very close to Cobble Hall GC.It had one of those blue/green domes and could be seen from the present mansion over the trees at the far side of the big lake. It was never occupied and we used to pass it virtually every weekend in the very early fifties on our way to look for golfballs which we sold to an old chap who had a bric-a-brac come antiques shop at the top of Calverley Street. We frequented that Asket Hill area a lot and I remember the mushroom field at the bottom of Boggart Hill below the big flats where Ronnie Hilton lived. We would always walk that field and the rookery next door to it before crossing the road and walking up to the quarry opposite the Wellington Pub. We occasionally found mushrooms too which we hid to collect on our return. I remember too that there was a mansion on the corner of Dib Lane and Fearnville something but it was occupied. I remember a murder of a woman in Quarry Hill Flats and the police were looking for a Polish man. He walked in to "Browns" off licence at the corner of Dib Lane and Oakwood Lane and the proprietor recognised him and followed him to the hollow at the back of the shops opposite the Oakwood Pub. He had been sleeping rough there in that hollow just at the top of Lawrence Gardens. I remember the Hollin Hill estate being built and the field at the end of Hollin Hill Drive where they put the school. We made a cricket pitch in there In the autumn I used to go through a hedge in that field and get into a pear orchard, fill my newspaper round bag with pears then sell them at school.What with the paper round, golf balls, conkers, greengages and pears. It broke me when I had to go to work and collect my measly £3 pounds 14 shillings and 6 pence.