river Aire

[les972]

When I lived at Beechcliffe I was told, maybe by Angler, that the pike pond and Roberts pond was the original route of the river Aire and that it's present route was man made. Can anyone let me know if I was having my leg pulled, I've always been gullible, or if that was the truth, and if so roughly the route of the old river and why was it moved.
Les

[vale]

Thwaites formerly stood on the right bank and within a field length of the river Aire, but in some wanton freak of the capricious element an entire new channel was excavated, and the hapless village left at a considerable distance. By the younkers (old word meaning young nobleman) of the neighborhood, Thwaites, Utley, Damems, and Cackleshaw, have been facetiously denominated 'seaports'—this being a regular school-boy's pun.
See A Pennine Community On the Eve of the Industrial Revolution page 55-56. Excavators found the remains of the stone pillars in 1927 of the old bridge.

[Andy Wade]

There's certainly more than one ox-bow lake remnant near to Roberts Pond and I wouldn't be at all surprised if historically this was on the path of the river. Looking at the satellite view on google maps there are parch marks in the fields and traces of the old river course that lead in that general direction.
Whether Roberts Pond was man made or the natural progession of the river's history remains to be seen, although I'd lean towards the latter for some of the ox-bow features that can be seen.

[vale]

I thought I remembered Andy that you had once done some google images about this, but I can not find them, am I wrong and did I dream it?

[angler]

Roberts pond was certaily part of the River Aire I know that for certain. I was told by the late Mr Roberts that as the Dye Works relied on its water when the Oxe Bow was cut out the Section from Roberts to the Aire this was filled in the Council used it as a place where the Town refuse was dumped ,In the old Garden above the Pond Bottle diggers have recovered lots of old Pottery and when the Bye Pas was built there was a Night Watchman on duty as folk went to excavate on the route If you look on the oppersite side of the road the Old River bed still exists althogh it is full of sedermint There is an overflow pipe from the pond into a stream at the side of the road which leads to the old river bed.The dye works no longer use the pond as they bored down and have water tanks at the rear of the Dye house ...Angler

[Andy Wade]

Ah, so Roberts Pond was naturally formed as part of the river and just left intact when the rest of it was filled in, so in that respect what remains as the pond is 'man made'?

[Andy Wade]

Mar 23, 2011 12:44:13 GMT vale said:

I thought I remembered Andy that you had once done some google images about this, but I can not find them, am I wrong and did I dream it?

You had me thinking there, but I can't find anything about it.
I did find something about the allegedly haunted lake that Malcolm Hanson mentioned when he talked at the library last year. Devil's eye or something.

[angler]

Referance Roberts Pond I know that it has 5 natural springs feeding it. The water was used to fill the Mill boiler each day,At night the boiler man had to first see if any one was near the pond before he released the boiler steam and also the exess water. The water for Dyeing came from the Town Water supply, Before the bore holes were put in but it was metered.by YWA To save money the Directors installed 3 big storage tanks the third one was to take the hot water used for cooling the Material this was left out side to cool over night .The colour had to go into the main sewer to Marley So that is now measered and the Dye house has to pay YWA rates for it to be cleaned before it is returned to the River Aire Angler

[susan]

Can anyone tell me why it was named ~Robert's Pond~

[les972]

Hi Susan The reason was because the dye works that used the pond was Herbert Roberts so the pond was and still is known as Roberts pond