Place:Alwoodley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

Alwoodley (#2 on the map) is now a civil parish on the northern edge of Leeds Metropolitan Borough. Between 1894 and 1937 it was part of the Wharfedale Rural District. It was transferred to the County Borough of Leeds in 1937 along with its neighbouring parish of Adel cum Eccup (#1). The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portmouth Department of Geography). "ALWOODLEY, a township in Harewood parish, [West Riding of] Yorkshire; 4½ miles N of Leeds. Acres: 1,511. Population: 140. Houses: 28. The parish was originally a township in the ancient parish of Harewood which was over the border in Wetherby Rural District (not on map). Alwoodley is reputed to be one of the most affluent communities within Leeds. In the UK census of 2011 it had a population of 8,818.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Alwoodley. GENUKI indexes only the ancient parishes. Townships that later became civil parishes are listed on a "supplementary page" following the page for the main parish. The articles only deal with events up until 1820.
• The FamilySearch wiki for Yorkshire (all three ridings) has articles on all parishes--not just ancient parishes.
• A Vision of Britain through Time provides links to maps of the West Riding, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. The location of individual settlements within the parishes is also shown. These maps all expand to a very large scale.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey West Riding North 1900 and Ordnance Survey West Riding South 1900. The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. NOTE: In 2022 the map of the southern section is not available through the Vision of Britain website. It is unknown if this omission is accidental or if the copy used by the university has been damaged in some way.
• Yorkshire West Riding South and Yorkshire West Riding North revised_1944. These two maps illustrate the urban and rural districts of the whole of the West Riding after the revisions of 1935.
• A further useful map on A Vision of Britain through Time is a boundary map dated 1917. This shows all the boundaries of villages, townships and parishes in the Holmfirth area.