Looking back on Hothfield School's impressive commitment to wildlife and to fruit and veg growing

Hothfield Junior School's frontage was transformed into a showpiece wildlife walk and garden in 2009 thanks to the vision of the then head teacher Mrs Ruth Leech with the immense support of  Crabtree Care Homes.

Mrs Leech, who was acting head of Hothfield for a year before becoming head from 2006 to 2011, is pictured above at the official opening of the wildlife walk with (from left) Neil Whitaker, who was chairman of the governors, Brian Madden, who designed and created the walk and garden, and Bob Thomas, who played a key part in turning Hothfield's School Street site into a fruit and vegetable garden.

Brian Madden's imaginative design (pictured above) gave the garden an attractive mix of perennials and shrubs, a water feature and a seating area for learning and leisure.

Mr Madden was in charge of maintenance for Crabtree Care Homes, which included (and still does) the Raikes in Bradley Road. He was also a talented artist and went on to be based in Glasgow, specialising in nautically-themed paintings.

The wildlife garden (pictured above as it is now) has become overgrown since Hothfield Junior School vacated the site nearly four years ago. Hothfield and Aire View Infants merged in 2017 to become Silsden Primary School, which moved to new premises in Hawber Cote Lane in January 2022. The old schools are to be demolished. Outline plans for 25 houses to be built on the Hothfield site and for 23 homes at Aire View are being considered by Bradford council. The Hothfield building supports a well-established and ecologically significant house-martin colony, which the council's biodiversity team says must be safeguarded.

Pupils dig in to create a fruit and veg garden

While the wildlife walk was being created in Hothfield Street, the School Street side of the site was being transformed into a fruit and veg garden. This was another of head teacher Ruth Leech's inspirational projects to put pupils in touch with nature and to learn where fruit and veg came from and how produce was grown. Pictured above are the pioneering pupils of the school Gardening Club who got the garden under way, supervised by members of Silsden Allotment Association and helped by parents and grandparents.

Carrots were among the first crops grown at the new garden to supply the school kitchen. In the picture above is Mr Bob Thomas, of Silsden Allotment Association, who played a leading part in helping the children establish the garden. Bob was a pupil at the old Silsden Secondary Modern School, which included the schools's own allotments in Hothfield Street and which supplied the kitchen during and after the lean war years.

Pictured above are the Gardening Club's second line-up of members and helpers, who developed the project, bolstered by Morrison's donation of a greenhouse. Several local businesses donated goods and services to help the garden flourish, including Airedale Tree Surgeons, who supplied wood for the raised beds.

A long-term mainstay of the garden was Mr Jim Walker, pictured above, a grandad of one of the pupils. His contribution and knowledge were outstanding and he went on to run the garden for several years. Jim died aged 83 in 2022.

The fruit and veg garden was created from scratch on this unused grassed area. As can be seen from the picture below, the site is now overgrown, although two apple trees planted in the early days of the Gardening Club have continued to fruit each year.

Stand-out tree suffers damage as builders challenge preservation order

Persimmon, which is building 138 homes on farmland between Brown Bank Lane and Hawber Cote, is applying to completely fell the iconic ash tree, pictured above, which is protected by a preservation order. Since Persimmon's September application, the tree, which is thought to be around 150 years old and has escaped the ravages of ash die-back disease, lost a major arm, and half of its splendour, apparently in recent high winds.  

This picture above shows the tree in winter last year; the following picture shows how it is now after leaf-fall and minus a limb.

The ash stood sentinel above two fields where four immensely popular public footpaths converge. The development will destroy all the pastoral charms that have been cherished by generations of local walkers. 

Above: a community walk in May, accompanied by a giant model of a curlew, celebrated the nature of the Hawber fields and lamented all that will be lost. The picture shows walkers and curlew on the footpath towards the ash tree newly in leaf. 

Meanwhile the Persimmon project proceeds apace. The pictures above and below show the site as viewed from the public footpath alongside the Bolton Road allotments. 

Finally, a pictorial reminder of how the site used to be.

 And this is only the start.....

Work is under way in the field alongside Bolton Road near the junctions with North Street and Brown Bank Lane, preparing the way for Persimmon's development of 138 homes on the popularly walked farmland between here and Hawber Cote.

The picture above shows the same field in June 2021.  Hard to believe that Bradford councillors approved the upmarket housing estate without even visiting the fields, most of which are crossed by public footpaths, to see why the area has been treasured by generations of Silsdeners.   The destructive power of earth-shifting machines and the development that is to come will leave only memories of nature that was abundant with wildflowers, trees, songbirds and hedgerows.

Sheep used to graze in the buttercup-rich meadow which will soon be developed. The houses here will abut the Bolton Road allotments. The two pictures below tell their own story.

Not a murmuration but a perturbation of swooping starlings

A vast flock of starlings provided a spectacular aerial display over the fields in the Walton Hole area of Cringles Lane on March 11th.

At times they tumbled in such packed profusion to almost resemble a swarm of giant bees. Just as suddenly they reassembled in a frame-filling airborne dash before swooping low left and then right, barely clearing the stone-wall tops.

Incredible aerial displays, called murmurations, at dusk are one of nature's highlights in the colder months but this flock was restlessly on the wing at midday, maybe a rehearsal or perhaps stirred by the prospect of soil invertebrates to feed on in nearby fields newly spread with farmyard manure.

Discovering Silsden: a new guide to walks with colourful connections that have helped shaped the town's storyDiscovering Silsden 2, a new book of walks, has gone on sale. Pictured above with a copy of the long-awaited publication, featuring 10 new heritage walks, is author Cathy Liddle. Each ramble tells a colourful but often forgotten tale of past times and characters. The guide showcases Silsden's splendours of moorland, wild flowers, hedgerows, trees, becks, bridges, farmhouses, industrial enterprises and ancient settlements. The book features photographs by John Liddle and rural drawings by Silsden artist Alastair Todd. Costing £8.50, the book is on sale at the Post Office newsagents and Kirkgate News. Cathy's first book of walks rapidly sold out after its publication 17 years ago.

Stunning tapestry of Silsden scenes to take centre stage at textile art exhibition

Pictured above is a newly completed tapestry, portraying Silsden life and buildings past and present, which will be on view for the first time at a Textile Art Exhibition at the Town Hall on March 29th and 30th.

The stunning tapestry has been stitched over the last year by 27 Silsden women, including those pictured above. The tapestry demonstrates many stitching skills, from applique and fine embroidery to crochet and felting. The exhibition will show work by 15 local textile artists and textile groups.

"The sharing of techniques and ideas has been an important part of the project," says instigator Alison Tribe (pictured above), who helped organise it all. "We are amazed by what we have produced." The exhibition will include a video about the making of the tapestry and the history of the buildings that have been stitched. A small exhibition about Silsden's textile history will also be on show. Entry will be free.

Silsden couple's new-look cafe bar is an instant success

The new-look Beckside Cafe Bar, in Kirkgate, which opened on January 26th after a four-month facelift, has been busy non-stop, much to the delight of owners Chris Fowler and his partner Lauren Harker, for whom setting up their own cafe has been "a steep learning curve".

Chris, a Cobbydaler born and bred, and Lauren are pictured above with three members of their team, left to right Hannah Wrather, Chelsea Rampling and Sophia Slingsby.

Chris said of the instant success of the Beckside Cafe Bar, which was previously the Old Post Office: "It's been difficult to comprehend but obviously we are delighted." For the last five years Chris had been running the Robin Hood pub a couple of hundred yards along the road in Kirkgate. He is still the licensee but has handed over the running of the pub to his daughter, Jasmin.  Chris's partner Lauren previously was assistant manager of the Silsden primary school kitchen, where she worked for 10 years helping to provide lunchtime meals for the 400 or so pupils. Chris and Lauren are directors of the Beckside business along with Iain Lawson, whose Silsden-based company, Lawsons Playzones and Groundworks Ltd., installs playgrounds nationwide.  

The Fowler family help Chris and Lauren with staffing. Pictured above is Chris's sister Nicky, who works at both the cafe and the pub. After leaving South Craven School, Chris was an apprentice motor mechanic with Walter Briggs at Cowling. Following his apprenticeship, he joined BT (now Open Reach) where he was an engineer for 10 years and then a manager for 12 years.

He took voluntary redundancy from Open Reach and in November 2019 became licensee of the Robin Hood, which had been closed for a while. At the time it was a wet-only establishment but introduced food when the government's Eat Out to Help Out scheme was launched in August 2020 to aid the covid-hit hospitality sector.

Pictured above is daughter Jasmin Fowler, who is now managing the Robin Hood while Chris concentrates on the Beckside venture. Jasmin returned to Silsden in August from Bournemouth where she learnt the licensed trade assisting her mother in the running of multiple pubs in Dorset and Lancashire. Jasmin's brother Nathan Fearnley is one of the Robin Hood's two chefs, the other being Darren Robb.