Kirkstall, Bramley Fall & Newlay, Leeds

Sunday 29^th September 2019

Leaders: Rita and Anthony Grainger

Rita and Anthony lead us on a circular walk from Kirstall Forge Railway Station, passing through varied habitats including broad-leaved woodland, meadows, canal towpaths, riverbanks and suburban streets. Several members, including myself, took the opportunity to leave the car at home and arrive by train. Kirstall Forge Railway Station opened in June 2016, and despite being a regular commuter on this line, this was the first time I’d made use of this relatively new station.

The area is currently undergoing huge changes, turning it from an industrial site to a mainly residential area. A little online research revealed that Cistercian Monks, who built the nearby Kirkstall Abbey, began forging metal at this site in the 12^th Century. Since then, there has been a metal forge here more or less continuously until about 2003. There are plans to build over 1,000 homes on the site of the former forge.

Our walk began by exploring a small area of grassland directly behind the station. On a sunny day I expect this would be a great place to find good numbers of bees and butterflies as there were good amounts of buddleia and other late summer flowers (unfortunately including the invasive Himalayan Balsam). However we were not lucky with the weather today with the rain more or less constant, so apart from a single hungry bee seen in flight visiting the Himalayan Balsam, some imagination was required to picture the site at its best. We saw a white flowered form of Red Clover (the hairy leaves meaning it couldn’t be White Clover and a reminder we shouldn’t identify by first glance). Also here was Red Bartsia, Common Toadflax, Scentless Mayweed and Hairy Brome.

We walked through woodland and along the canal as far as Forge Locks. The lock gates looked like vertical gardens with species including Gypsywort and Water Mint. In the canal we saw Arrowhead, Ivy-leaved Duckweed and Greater Duckweed. Nuttall's Waterweed was also identified, found in a small pile of vegetation someone had removed from the canal.

Crossing the canal at Forge Locks, we headed up hill into the parkland of Bramley Fall. In the short turf were good patches of Slender Speedwell (no longer in flower). Lunch was taken, sitting on a fallen log after giving up on the idea of waiting to see if the rain would go off. We then continued though a meadow area of the park. Most of the flowers had gone over but we did see a good number of Perforate St John's-wort still just about in flower. At the edge of the park were planted shrubs, a Tree Cotoneaster (thought to be Cotoneaster frigidus var cornubia) heavily laden with red berries catching our eye.

After passing through pleasant oak woodland, our route took us along streets in Bramley/Whitecote and a small community garden was an interesting find. Plants here included fennel with ripe seed (deliciously strong smell even from a distance), Common Comfrey and much Charlock growing at the edge of the plot. Growing at the pavement edge near by was a rayed form of groundsel. Further on, at the side of a minor road was Druce's Crane's-bill in flower and next to it were found the leaves of Dalmatian Crane's-bill, a new plant for me. We also found a number of hawkweed plants (Hieracium subaudum).

At this point, Rita guided me and 2 others on a quick walk back to the train station at Kirstall Forge, due to the limited Sunday train service. I’m sure I’ll be back to explore the area further, but hopefully in better weather.

Here is an account by Kay of the last section of the trip which I missed out on:

We walked along the River Aire which by this time was very full and we found soft shield fern (Polystichum setiferum) amongst some trees on the riverbank. Up a footpath just near the main road we found one sowbread (Cyclamen hederifolium) in flower. We then spotted the white flowers of Italian toadflax (Cymbalaria pallida) growing out of a garden wall on the pavement side which was close to black spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigrum).

Back at the car park at Kirkstall Forge station we were rewarded by bristly oxtongue (Helminthotheca echioides), wild carrot (Daucus carota agg.), common evening-primrose (Oenothera biennis) and common Micaelmas-daisy (Symphotrichum x salignus) on Michaelmas! It was still raining when we got back to our cars but we’d had an excellent trip.

Text by Susan & Kay

Photographs by Susan