Make, Bake & Grow - Armley, Leeds

In the photo above you can see the ladies from Briggate Morris dancing at Make, Bake and Grow, Armley.

Chatting with Katie who has the Leeds Grub blog last week when we both attended a Leeds blogger meet she told me about an event to be held in Armley, Leeds on Sunday. I am pleased to have travelled over to Armley to the Make, Bake & Grow event.

Make, Bake & Grow remimded me a bit of those long ago village fetes that I attended as a boy growing up in Oxfordshire. It had a very home made feel and even though I only knew Katie and one other blogger who was there, I really enjoyed being there.

Armley is a district in the west of Leeds here in yorkshire and is I guess most famous in England for being home to HM prison Leeds, formerly Armley Gaol, more on that later.

Like many other areas of Leeds Armley grew during the industrial revolution and was home to several mills, one of which is now the Armley Mills Industrial Museum, Leeds.

Make, Bake and Grow 2009 was held in a small park in Armley, this small triangular park is now known as Charlie Cake Park. The story is that back in the 19th century a pedlar called Charlie used to rest his pony and trap in Whingate Park. Charlie used to sell a spicy shortbread to the residents of Armley and eventually the land became known as Charlie Park or Charlie Cake Park.

I had been to Armley before but not for quite a few years and had never heard of Charlie Cake Park, but Katie had given me good directions so I found myself in a small urban park. I knew I had come to the right place because there was a small entrance fee (£1) and there were some temporary huts placed around the park.



You can see another picture of the ladies of Briggate Morris dancing to the music provided by their musicians.

During Make, Bake and Grow the ladies of Briggate Morris not only danced but also did a Morris dance workshop with the mostly younger volunteers from the crowd watching. "Gotta catch them young" said Katie later when we chatted about this particular group of Morris ladies. Apparently because it is late in the season there were only a few of the regulars available for this Armley gig.

Earlier on my Leeds daily photo blog I post about the Haworth Village Morris Men.