The Hollies in the Past
North of Headingley, Meanwood Beck runs through a deep wooded ravine. Here, quarries were dug, which in the nineteenth century, provided stone for the villas and terraces of the expanding suburb of Headingley. A mill stream was built, alongside the Beck, to supply Weetwood Mill (now demolished, though the millpond remains). In 1858, the right (west) bank was bought by William Brown, who built The Hollies about 1860 and developed its gardens there. His son George presented these to the City of Leeds in 1921 in memory of his own son, Major Harold Brown DSO, who was killed in the Great War. The grounds became a public park and the house was used as a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis. Later it became a home for older people, and is now private flats.
Photographs by kind permission of Leeds Library and Information Service and Helen Pickering. The photographs are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced without the owner's permission.
There is also information on The Hollies in David Hall, Far Headingley, Weetwood and West Park Far Headingley Village Society, 2001
See also, The Hollies and History of Headingley and the Brown family, in People in Headingley.
For historic photos of other parks, go to Parks in the Past.
