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IN THE ROOFTOP CAR PARK of the Ridings Centre, Wakefield, a Carrion Crow investigates a crisp packet. From here you see over the city roofs to a panorama of the Calder valley. The motte of Sandal Castle, two miles to the south, dominates the skyline, as it has done for almost a millenium.
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The castle stands on, and was built using stone from, an outcrop of coal measures sandstone, the Oaks Rock. Wakefield stands on a ridge of Woolley Edge Rock, another bed of sandstone. When the Ridings Centre was built in the early 1980s the initial excavations turned up a medieval quarry on the site. There was talk of preserving it as an unusual feature in the basement, but it was back-filled.
As we wait in traffic a Cormorant flies down the valley.