Woodhouse Ridge is a much prized and largely wooded public park in north west Leeds, UK with a distinctly wild feel to it. It is quite long for an urban park (2.5km) and thin in parts (<50m), lying on the eastern flank of Headingley Hill and stretching between Headingley and Meanwood at its north end and Buslingthorpe and Woodhouse at its southern end. It forms a link in a larger network of open spaces and is linked by a footpath known as the Meanwood Valley Trail. Woodhouse Ridge Action Group (WRAG) is a voluntary conservation group, established in 1995 to turn around what at that time was an un-managed, under-resourced and apparently unloved and somewhat dodgy place - and now it's a really lovely place (mostly). And remarkably enough we're still at it as a volunteer group.
We hold open-access general meetings monthly at the Chemic Tavern to plan and review our monthly Action Days, discuss local news and initiatives in the Valley and plan small improvement projects. At our monthly Action Days, we carry out practical woodland management tasks, vegetation management and path maintenance and inevitably.... litter picking. This is attended by a core of 10-18 local residents and is supplemented in term time by up to 20 student members of Leeds University Union Conservation Volunteers. In addition we welcome and work with corporate groups
The history of Woodhouse Ridge and its changing face as a public park over the past 150 years exerts a fascination for us and we like to delve into historic archives to explore and uncover text and images.