Long Wall, Elland : It's The Trees

I took delivery of this old picture postcard of Elland on Saturday, and, by complete coincidence, I found myself walking along the road featured in the photograph yesterday. There are, of course, all the changes you would expect given the one hundred years that separate the photograph from my Sunday walk. The tramlines are long gone and the mills are long abandoned. The biggest change, however, is the one that is always noticeable when you compare old photographs to modern landscapes in these parts: it's the trees. You cannot get an overview of the town or the valley from such hills these days because of all the trees that are in the way. After an industrial century of onslaught by soot and smoke, the vegetation has begun to fight back and trees and bushes cover every  acre of unbuilt land