Ruin in Cliff Ridge Wood

Hidden in the dense undergrowth of Cliff Ridge Woods, this small ruin, with a footprint no bigger than a domestic garage, is inaccessible at the height of the summer. It has two internal “cupboards” and what could be a netty outside. Now it is tempting to assume the ruin is a relic of the whinstone quarrying operations. Indeed it is situated at the intersection of the original incline built and operated by Leeds Corporation between 1869 and 1883 and the later tramway to Slack’s Wood quarry. In 1884 Leeds sold the lease to William Winn and agreed to buy back the stone. An early example of privatisation. The problem is, this building is a double skin cavity wall construction and is rendered inside, both highly unusual for an industrial and for a Victorian building. Two buildings dating from Leeds Corporation’s operations still exist, Cliff Ridge Cottage and an outbuilding. These are now in private occupancy but the outbuilding shows a construction of rough stonewalling. Could the ruin be a lineman’s shelter for Winn’s tramway to his Slack’s Wood quarry? Again it feels just too luxurious for a workers’ hut. My gut feeling is that it dates from the 1940/50s. The brickwork bears a resemblance to the WW2 Home Guard Ammunition Store at Ayton Banks Farm. However, within 50 or so metres of the ruin, a disused drift mine was used as an underground store by an Auxiliary Unit during WW2. This was a top-secret patrol of civilians that would undertake resistance operations should Britain have been invaded. It seems unlikely that the building would have been in use at that time so close to this secret ammunition store. A final possibility is that the building dates from the early 1970s when whinstone was again extracted from the quarry. But by this time the entrance to the quarry would have been at the north west end, some distance from this ruin.