Place:Ilkley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ilkley is now a spa town and civil parish in West Yorkshire. From 1894 until 1974 it was an urban district in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Ilkley civil parish is a ward within the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council. It includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding, which has always been a part of the parish, and Middleton (by Ilkley), Burley in Wharfedale, and Menston which were absorbed into Ilkley in 1937. Nesfield with Langbar was originally a township in Ilkley ancient and civil parish, but in 1974 it was transferred to the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire.

Approximately 12 miles (19 km) north of Bradford and 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Leeds, the town lies mainly on the south bank of the River Wharfe in Wharfedale, one of the Yorkshire Dales. In the UK census of 2011 it had a population of 14,809.

Ilkley's spa town heritage and surrounding countryside make tourism an important local industry. The town centre is characterised by Victorian architecture, wide streets and floral displays. Ilkley Moor, to the south of the town, is the subject of a folk song, often described as the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire, "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at". The song's words are written in Yorkshire dialect, its title translated as "On Ilkley Moor without a hat."

History

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ilkley-History.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Ilkley. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Ilkley provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Ilkley.
• 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.