Place:Otley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia. The History section has been condensed. Otley is a market town and civil parish at a bridging point on the River Wharfe. It is now within the boundaries of City of Leeds metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Prior to 1974 it was situated in the West Riding of Yorkshire where it was an urban district. It is in two portions – south of the river is the historic town of Otley and to the north is Newall (#21), which was formerly a separate township. The town is in lower Wharfedale on the A660 road which connects it to Leeds. The population of Otley (including Newall) was 13,668 at the 2011 UK census. The small civil parish of Lindley (near Otley) (#16) was also a township of the ancient parish of Otley. [edit] History [edit] Saxon and Medieval The majority of the early development of the town dates from Saxon times and was part of an extensive manor granted by King Athelstan to the See of York. The Archbishops of York had a residence and were lords of the manor. Their palace was located on the site occupied by the present-day Manor House. As in other areas of the north, the Norman conquest largely laid waste this area. The Saxon church was replaced by a Norman one, but this contains much Saxon sculpture. Thus in the 11th and 12th century Otley would have been a loose congregation of buildings around the two focal points: the manor house by the bridge and the church. The town grew in the first half of the 13th century when the archbishops laid out burgage (freehold) plots to attract merchants and tradespeople. The burgage plots were on Boroughgate, Walkergate and Kirkgate, creating the triangular layout of Otley today. A leper hospital was founded on the road to Harewood beyond Cross Green.

As well as farming and use of woodland, important local activities were quarrying stone, and the manufacture of potash from bracken. This was used to make a soap which therefore supported a community carrying out fulling, the cleansing and finishing of woollen cloth on Watergate. The Chevin (a hill or outcrop to the east of the town) provided stone for building (and millstones) as well as bracken, wood and common grazing, while the river provided reeds for thatching houses.

Industrial Revolution

The woollen industry developed as a cottage industry but during the Industrial Revolution and the mechanisation of the textile industry, mills were built first using water, then steam power. A cotton mill and weaving shed for calicoes were built by the river in the late 18th century. Later woolcombing and worsted spinning were introduced. By the mid 19th century 500 inhabitants were employed in two worsted-mills, a paper-mill, and other mills. A tannery was established in the 19th century. At this time the opening of the new Leeds Road and Bradford Road greatly increased access for trade. Many houses were built from the middle of the 19th century onwards, including the first row of terraces by the newly formed Otley Building Society from 1847. Otley railway station opened in 1865 connecting goods and people to Leeds, and also to Bradford in 1875. At its peak it had 50 trains a day, but it was closed in 1965 under the Beeching cuts. Kirkgate was the first street to be paved in 1866, followed by sewers in 1869.

The Wharfedale Printing Machine was developed in Otley by William Dawson and David Payne. An early example can be seen in Otley Museum. By 1900 the printing machinery trade, with over 2,000 people employed in seven machine shops, was Otley's most important industry.

20th century onwards

After the First World War there was a general shortage of housing in Britain, and much of it was crowded slums. Otley Council prepared one of the first subsidized housing schemes, commencing with relatively open land in Newell on the north side of the river in 1920. The 1920s also saw the beginnings of the conversion of properties to a sewer drainage system, and electric lighting instead of gas on the streets. Further estates followed and by 1955 there were more than 1,000 council houses. Private housing was also expanded during this time, but was greatly reduced with the Second World War. House building revived in the 1960s to 1980s, but industry declined, with many factories closing, including the printing machine works in 1981.

end of Wikipedia contribution

Governance

Otley was an ancient parish in the Claro Wapentake. It had a number of townships: Bramhope (#6 on map), Burley in Wharfedale (an urban district between Otley and Ilkley), Denton (#9), Menston (#18), Newall with Clifton (#21), Weeton (not on map) and Weston (#25). The eventual destinations of all the townships are covered in thier own articles. Otley itself became an urban district in 1894.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Otley. 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 on Otley.
• 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.