Bullcliffe Woods

Monday, 8th October 2001, West Yorkshire

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IT STILL FEELS wrong to walk through a field with cows or sheep in it, but officially all local footpaths have been open since July, following the foot and mouth precautions.

In Bullcliffe Woods the warmth and wet of recent weeks have brought out a variety of fungi including . . .

Boletus	Russulas	Fly Agaric
Earthballs	Birch Bracket	and tiny parasols

As we walk up from Blacker Beck through the fields to Hollinhirst farm, two Swallows circle around us.

potsherd

This fragment of a brown stoneware jar lies on the earth amongst the emerging brassica seedlings. It probably got out here when nightsoil, the waste from cesspools, was spread on the fields in Victorian times.

There is a Clarkes brewery in Wakefield, perhaps that was where this originated. I hope whoever drank it, perhaps a hundred years ago, enjoyed the contents.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@willowisland.co.uk'

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