Knostrop was a magical place for us kids in the 1940s early fifties, we were well blessed with so many places to play, we had our farm yard, fields, woods and all sorts of walks to do but our favourite place when we were young was the pond field. The pond attracted kids from all over the district but we the Knostrop kids, were lucky it was on our doorstep, you accessed the field from Knostrop Lane but to get to the edge of the pond itself you had to cross the feeder stream this was a Wellington boot job but you still invariable managed to get a boot full of water and a telling off from mam when you got home. We went armed with jam jars at the ready there were sticklebacks in the pond but we were after frog spawn we would put it into a jar, take it home, put it onto a shelf and watch the frog spawn turn first into tadpoles then lose their tales and finally turn into little frogs then if they hadn’t jumped out of the jar themselves we would let them go anyway.
We were told that in early days accomplished skaters would use to pond to air their skating abilities but when there was ice on the pond we would just, gingerly walk across, not sure how deep it was in the middle?
Susan, one of our contributors, has a tale to tell about a calamitous visit to the pond: It was Whitsuntide and Auntie Bertha Beanland who lived in one of the Knostrop Hall cottages had as usual had made a brand new set of clothes for Dianna, my cousin and me her granddaughter. We thought it would be a good idea to explore so we set off dressed in our new clothes in the direction of the pond, Dianna would be about eight and me five, when we got to the pond we decided to swop clothes – we were of course different sizes, then disaster I fell into the pond wearing her new clothes and she waded in wearing mine and tried to drag me out. She then proceeded to dry me off using dock leaves thereby staining her clothes green. We squelched back to Aunt Bertha’s cottage where she made us cocoa and dried our ruined clothes and new shoes by the fire. It must have been heart-breaking for her to see all her beautifully made clothes spoiled. No health a safety warnings in those days either! But we did live to tell the tale.
Incidentally Auntie Beanland and her husband lived ina cottage adjacent to Knostrop Old Hall – a beautiful Jacobean building – Atkinson Grimshaw, the painter famous moonscape painter lived in the Hall im the 19th century and he used to use the cottage to dry off his paintings and by chance there happened to be still one of his paintings in there when they took possession of the cottage – they lived with it for a while than they thought it dowdy and threw it away. Now Grimshaw’s paintings fetch telephone number prices. How much had they thrown away?
As we got a bit older football and cricket became our games, we could play cricket where we lived in jaw Bone Yard but only with a tennis ball there were too many windows for ‘corky‘ balls and full size footballs so once again we would take to the pond field there was there was a nice flat bit near the top where we could play football or pitch the wickets. To reach that bit of the field for cricket and football we would come by way of the Old Hall Yard passed the Beanlsand’s cottage as just mentioned and by Knostrop Old Hall itself.
My mother and her family actually lived in the Old Hall before she was married but now it was the home of the Benn Family who were OK about us playing in their extensive wooded grounds they would allow us to harvest conkers and they would give us the feathers from their birds when they killed them for Christmas and we would make them into Red Indian chiefs head dresses The Benn’s had a great woolly Alsatian dog called Jack, who loved to play with us the Benn family said as soon as he heard the sound of a ball he would prick his ears up and would be out to join us . If it were winter and we were playing football he would be the goalie he could jump to prestigious heights and save the ball with his nose I never saw a human goalie as good as him. If it were cricket he would be wicket keeper and he would catch the hard ball in his mouth we shouldn’t have let him because it sometimes made his mouth bleed – but try stopping him. On the leg side there was barbed wire fence and a corn field if someone hit the ball into the corn field it was hard for us to find but it was no problem for Jack he would dive into the field smell the ball out bring it back and drop it at the bowler’s end and stand there looking at us as if to say come on lads let’s get on with the game, he did catch his stomach on the barbed wire on one occasion and had to go to the vets but he happily survived to continue his playing days
I do remember on one occasion Brian one of the lads getting hit on the forehead with a ‘bumper ball’ he disappeared home and returned with a huge pat of butter on the bump that must have been the way to cure bumps in those days. Around teatime the farmer would return to the field with his shire work horses and let them into the field they were so pleased to be free they would frolic about and roll over and over, they were very big and a bit frightening so that was our signal to pick up the stumps so as not to get trampled, anyway it was the turn of the horses to enjoy the magic of the pond field.
The two shafts in the sketch are indications that coal had been produced in the area in the past and once again this time open cast coaling ravaged the area and demolished all the great Halls, don’t know where the water from the pond went? And now the magic pond field is overtaken yet again this time by the Cross Green Industrial Estate, it shows us that a piece of land can change its usage many times over the years it’s called synthesis but I bet if it could make a choice itself it would be to hear children laughing by the pond and the sound of a cricket ball on willow. Happily we were there to enjoy that period too.
East Leeds Memories 