Traditionally a farming area with the fertile soil from the two rivers.  The land at Methley was  worked by tenant farmers rented from the Earl of Mexborough during the greater part of the 20th century.  Farms were mostly arable but some farms included animal husbandry.
Before the second world war there were as many 20 small farms in this village.
The area was successful at growing and marketing peas and potatoes etc. crops which were labour intensive, however with the  introduction of mechanisation in the farming industry these crops can now be grown in the more rural areas of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. 
One other local speciality was the production of forced rhubarb with the rows of low sheds, although only isolated ones remain as store sheds. This crop required copious watering, during  this operation inside the dark shed you could hear the rhubarb growing.
The major landowner, Methley Estates has progressively rationalised farming operations away  from the tenancy system and now concentrate on cereal crops. The company have also released some farm houses and buildings on to the housing market mirroring the farming industry generally.     

Manure Heap

You couldn’t miss it if you travelled down Lower Mickletown on to Green Lane.  Indeed if you were blind you would find it hard to miss it.  This was Huddlestones manure heap on Coney  Moor.  The heap was made of the usual tipped farmyard waste but supplemented with a twice weekly delivery of offal and animal waste from the abbatoir at Bradford.
What a stench,especially when it had been accumulting for some months, however it did answer some of the questions from when we were pea pulling as to how an animal skull and other bones were in the soil.
It was in this background that during a school holiday I was encouraged by Michael Shillito and Derek Masterman to join them on muck spreading operations. I fell for that one.
Hanging on to the tractor wheel guard flying through the cess puddles to drive the bucket fork into the steaming pile was almost enough.  Then the bucket lifted to reveal rats, and all manner of  detritus including intestines that stretched up to 10/15 yards then snapped with resulting splatters over those in the firing line.
So there we were, driving into the pile, turning and loading onto the muckspreading trailer and then driving the trailer up and down the field with the load being thrownout by a spinning  shaft geared to the wheels (the faster you went, the better the distribution).  Messrs Shillito and Masterman excelled at this.
Dont ask me what we did at snap (lunch) time,  and after an all day shift dont try to imagine what we looked and smelled like. I just did it for one day!
Who on earth made the decision to revert back  from chemical fertilizers to organic farming methods?    They cant have spent much time on the  ‘piles’.                                        

Casual Labour