Armley is a district in the west of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It starts less than 1 mile (1.6 km) from Leeds city centre. Like much of Leeds, Armley grew in the industrial revolution and had several mills, one of which is now the Armley Mills museum. Armley is predominantly and historically a largely working class area of the city, still retains many smaller industrial businesses, and has many rows of back-to-back terrace houses.

Armley is located between the M621 motorway and the River Aire, stretching from roughly the New Wortley roundabout (the Armley Gyratory) to the start of the Stanningley By-pass and Cockshott Lane where it merges into Bramley.

History

Armley is mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book reference to: "Ristone, Ermelai". At the time there were eight villagers in Ristone (now east Armley) and Ermelai (now west Armley).[2] The actual population is indeterminable as this only accounts for the 'head of household'.[3]

Armley Mills, now the Armley Mills Industrial Museum, was the world's largest woollen mill when it was built in 1788. In the 18th and 19th centuries Armley was, through its mills, a major contributor to the economy of the city of Leeds. Many of the buildings standing in and around Armley were built in the 1800s, including many of the churches, schools, shops and houses. Ledgard Way is named after the entrepreneur, Samuel Ledgard. Armley also has picturesque views over the rest of Leeds from certain vantage points. William Tetley started his business of malters in Armley in 1700, from this Joshua Tetley formed the Tetley's brewery in 1822.[citation needed]

From the 1870s until 1956, Armley was home to the J W Roberts asbestos mattress and boiler lining factory. This facility exposed local residents to asbestos fibres and resulted in a mesothelioma cancer cluster which persists to this day. ...

The parish church, St Bartholomew's, is home to one of the finest pipe organs in the UK,[according to whom?] built by the German organbuilder, Edmund Schulze. Originally built for Meanwood Towers in 1866-9, it was opened by S.S. Wesley. It was moved to St Bartholomew's in 1879. Schulze's work, and this organ in particular, had enormous influence on the development of British organ building in the 19th century. Both church and organ have been restored.[citation needed]

Legend has it that a pedlar called Charlie used to rest and water his pony and trap in Whingate Park in the 19th century. He apparently sold spicy shortbread to the citizens of Upper Armley for 1d a piece. Today the triangular-shaped park is known as Charlie or Charley Cake Park. According to Armley Through the Camera, written in 1901, the park was "within memory of many present residents of Armley, a patch of wasteland. Some of them regularly played cricket on its turf"[6] There were two railway stations in Armley. Armley Moor station, closed 1966, and Armley Canal Road station, closed 1965.

Notable people

• Alfred Atkinson VC – born at Armley in 1874[7]
• Alan Bennett – playwright[8]
• Barbara Taylor Bradford – novelist
• William Boynton Butler VC, Croix de Guerre[disambiguation needed] – born at Armley in 1894
• Chumbawamba – band; lived at Armley for some time
• Benjamin Gott – mill owner at Armley
• Lily Elsie – actress born at Armley in 1886

Wikipedia

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Armley like this:

ARMLEY, a township-chapelry in Leeds parish, W. R. Yorkshire; on the Leeds and Bradford railway, the Leeds and Liverpool canal, and the river Aire, 1¾ mile W of Leeds. It has a station on the railway, and a post office† under Leeds. Acres, 907. Real property, £16,744. Pop., 6,734. Houses, 1,491. A number of factories, in various departments of the woollen-trade, are on the banks of the river. Armley Park, the seat of the Gott family, and Leeds borough gaol, are near the railway station. A Danish camp, called Giants' Hill, was an object of much antiquarian interest; but was cut through at the forming of the canal, and has been nearly effaced. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Ripon. Value, £204.* Patron. the Vicar of Leeds. The church is a plain edifice; and there are four dissenting chapels.

Armley Local History

Read up on a brief early history of Armley. 

Early and Medieval Armley

Saxon Armley 
No one knows for certain when people first settled in the area which is now known as Armley. The name suggests settlement in the Anglo-Saxon period: it's derived from two Old English words meaning 'Earm(a)'s clearing'. Who this Earm or Earma was we have no real idea. His name is not recorded elsewhere. Presumably he was one of the many Anglo-Saxons who settled in the Aire Valley in the 7th century. Many of them had to clear away scrub and woodland to establish their homesteads. This is reflected in the number of settlements along the valley such as Headingley or Burley that have the place-name element ley meaning 'clearing'. 

The effects of the Norman Conquest 
The first record of Armley as a settlement occurs in the Domesday Survey compiled for William the Conqueror in 1086. From this we learn that there were 8 villagers in Armley and Reestones (the locality now known as Wortley). It is difficult to know how many people this represents and Domesday only takes account of heads of families. If we assume a multiplier of four or five, this would give us a total population of in the region of 32 - 40 people for the two communities together. Before the Norman Conquest Armley and Reestones were held by two Saxon noblemen. After the Conquest William gave the villages to Ilbert de Lacy as part of a vast estate centred on Pontefract Castle. Ilbert in turn granted control of the manor to a man called Ligulfr. This is a rare example of a Saxon maintaining a position of relative power in the region after the Norman Conquest. Perhaps Ilbert was not giving much away. 

Before the Conquest Armley and Freestones were worth 20s: in 1086 they were only worth 10s. 

The monks of Kirkstall 
The next dramatic change in the life of the villagers came in 1152 with the establishment of the new Cistercian abbey at Kirkstall. Visitors to the Abbey ruins today often think that the precinct around the buildings was the only land which the monks owned. This is not so. Pious landholders such as Henry de Lacy, who founded Kirkstall, gave grants of money and land to help support the monks and their work. Some of these parcels of land were than amalgamated together to make a single economic unit. In Armley Kirkstall had two such Granges, as these outlying farms were called. One of these, Wether Grange, was situated near what is now the junction of Armley Ridge Road and Cockshott Lane and is still remembered in local street names such as Wyther Park Road. The other, Redcote, probably lay somewhere in the valley bottom though its exact location is uncertain. Neither of these properties was worked by the monks themselves. Labour was provided by local villagers as was the case with estates held by secular landlords. 

The medieval chapel 
No church in Armley is mentioned in Domesday, but one does appear in another revenue document the Valor Ecclesiasticus which was compiled for Henry VIII in 1535 after his break with Rome. The Valor was intended to establish the worth of all religious establishments in the country for taxation purposes. This included a small medieval chapel at Armley which was dedicated to St Bartholomew. This was rebuilt in 1672 and a burial ground consecrated in 1674 by which time we must assume the chapel had gained full church status. It was rebuilt again in 1834-5, but in 1872 the present St Bartholomew's church was built on a new site to the south of the old church. 

Giant's Hill: an archaeological mystery 
On the southern bank of the River Aire to the east of where it is crossed by the modern Viaduct Road lay Giant's Hill, a massive earthwork but no-one seems to be sure what it was. Ralph Thoresby, writing in the 1690s, describes the earthwork as having two parts. One was a circle 20 perches round (100 metres). The other was a square earthwork, each side being 30 perches (150 metres) in length. Thoresby thought that this was a Danish fortification, but later historians think that Giant's Hill was probably a motte and bailey castle built by one of the Norman overlords of Armley. This view is supported by a document of 1300 which refers to a place called Castelarmley, which suggests that there was a Castle there at the time. 

The name Giant's Hill comes from a local tradition that the earthwork was inadvertently made by a giant who was throwing a rock across the river. To balance his weight, he stepped backwards and put his foot down heavily in the mud and earth. The footprint which he left behind was known from that time as the Giant's Hill and the stone he threw landed in Burley on the opposite side of the river where it was know as the Greystone. 

Sadly the Giant's Hill was destroyed by the building of the canal in the 1770s and by subsequent factories built on the site. With it went one of the few remaining traces of medieval Armley. The only thing to mark its passing is the romantic tale of the Armley Giant. 

There's lot more information about local places on the WYAAS website at: www.archaeology.wyjs.org.uk

from http://www2.leedstoday.net/yourcommunity/armley/History.html

(this is a fascinating site so far)

Active in campaigning for the new charter was John Harrison, a Leeds woollen merchant. He was to become one of the greatest benefactors of the town. In 1624 he replaced the old grammar school which had been founded in 1552, and in 1634 he built St John's Church at the top of Briggate. 

 However, the gradual economic prosperity of the town was halted as first war and then pestilence swept the land. With England riven by civil war, Leeds found itself in the hands of the Royalists. Then in January 1643, Sir Thomas Fairfax and his Parliamentarians launched a two pronged attack on its defences. Whilst the main body attacked the town from Woodhouse Moor a smaller body advanced on Leeds Bridge from the south. The action was centred around Briggate and lasted for about two hours. Fairfax was successful. Some 500 prisoners were taken but, in his words, ‘There were not above forty slain.' 

 Two years later an even worse disaster struck the town. Bubonic plague, which had made repeated appearances in Leeds through the centuries, struck in Vicar Lane. It spread quickly through Leeds and on to the out townships. Between March and December that year some 1,325 people perished. (drawing courtesy Thoresby Society)

 Fortunately the town recovered fairly quickly from its setbacks and by 1720 when Daniel Defoe visited it he was able to remark of its cloth market that it was ‘a prodigy of its kind and not to be equalled in the world.' Knowledge of the period is considerably aided by the fact that the Leeds antiquarian, Ralph Thoresby kept a diary of the times and published, among other works, his famous Ducatus Leodiensis, the first history of the town. Not surprisingly, the premier historical society of Leeds, formed in 1889, was named after him. 

 The eighteenth century saw Leeds growing in strength both industrially and economically as well as culturally. The textile trade was flourishing. The numerous coal mines in the area provided fuel for the increasing population and for the textile factories which were beginning to emerge as the Industrial Revolution began to develop. Predominant among the local entrepreneurs who led the way were Benjamin Gott and John Marhshall. The woollen cloth manufacturer Gott became one of Europe's largest employers. His Bean Ing mill, sited where the present Yorkshire Post building now stands, was the first to concentrate all the processes of manufacture under one roof. His smaller mill at Armley is now the Leeds Industrial Museum. John Marshall's flax mills in Holbeck can still be seen on Marshall Street. His most famous and original is a full scale replica of the Ancient Egyptian temple at Edfu which Marshall opened 1838. 

 Several important buildings were erected at this time time. Cloth halls were built for the sale of the cloth; the Coloured Cloth Hall, where dyed cloth was sold, was sited on present City Square whilst part of the one-time magnificent White Cloth Hall can still be seen behind the present Corn Exchange. Leeds General Infirmary was opened on Infirmary Street to meet the medical needs of the growing population. To cater for cultural pursuits the Assembly Rooms were built next to the White Cloth Hall; on Hunslet Lane the Theatre Royal opened as did music halls in Albion Street and Vicar Lane. The longest lasting of these cultural contributions is the Leeds Library which opened in 1768. It eventually moved to its present home in Commercial Street and is today the oldest surviving example of a subscription library left in England.  (map courtesy Thoressby Society)

 Throughout the eighteenth century transport was a national major issue. It was no less so in Leeds. However, by the end of that century the town was developing into a major coaching centre. The Leeds-Liverpool Canal and the Aire and Calder Navigation were both opened, linking the heartland of the industrial West Riding with both west and east coasts. Meanwhile, the building of a waggonway in 1758 to transport coal from Middleton Colliery to Leeds heralded the beginning of the railway age. 

 The nineteenth century saw the population of Leeds soar from 53,162 in 1801 to 428,572 in 1901. By the Victorian Age Britain had emerged as a major industrial nation and could claim to be the ‘workshop of the world'. Leeds was part of that success as it saw new industries begin to make their impact upon the town. The woollen and flax industries were still active until the 1870s and 1880s but as the century developed old industries like engineering expanded and new industries such as ready-made clothing emerged. But Leeds was fortunate in having a diversified industrial base and other dominant industries included leather, printing and brewing. 

 During the nineteenth century the increasing population, recurring economic crises, widespread poverty, appalling working and living conditions and political agitation posed problems the town had difficulty in coping with. Luddite riots broke out in Leeds in 1812 and in 1842 military intervention was required to support the newly formed Leeds Police force in suppressing a Chartist insurrection. Meanwhile, mass demonstrations on Holbeck Moor were the Leeds' response to the government's refusal to introduce some form of Parliamentary Reform. In 1832 when the Reform Bill was eventually passed Leeds was finally granted two MPs. 

 Diseases; cholera in 1832 and 1848 and typhus in 1847 took a heavy toll in the poorer areas. Robert Baker, the Leeds town surgeon, produced a series of reports which graphically identified the problem and which in turn became recognised as being of national importance whilst Leeds-born Richard Oastler, the ‘Factory King', launched his national campaign for factory reform in the Leeds press. 

 Many of those affected by the squalor and poverty were Irish immigrants, fleeing their homeland following the Potato Famine of the 1840s. In the 1880s a new wave of immigrants, this time Jews, escaping the pogroms of eastern Europe, arrived in the town. Most of these newcomers settled down to work in the ready-made clothing industry. 

 Over the years the council, re-formed in 1835, only slowly began to come to grips with the problems of the town. However, it felt confident enough to build a Town Hall as an example of its civic strength which Queen Victoria opened in 1858. Then, over the years, it gradually provided an adequate water supply, an education service and a public transport tramway system. Transport developed over the century as roads were improved and new ones constructed. From the port of Leeds vessels sailed regularly to London and other places on the east coast and from 1834 the building of several railways running from the town was undertaken. 

 If most of its workers lived in back-to-backs, Leeds could nevertheless boast some fine architecture. The New Infirmary opened in 1868, the Grand Theatre ten years later and in 1874 the Yorkshire College of Science which eventually become the University of Leeds in 1904. 

In 1893 Leeds became a city, boasting an effective tramcar service, libraries, parks, schools and one of the finest shopping centres in the North, famed particularly for its arcades. By now the village by the Aire had spread itself across the hillsides of the valley, absorbing the local townships. It had become as the 'Yorkshire Factory Times' described it 'A vast business place ... a miniature London.' (Back to back houses courtesy Thoresby Society. )

 The twentieth century saw that development continue. The biggest industrial change was the decline of the traditional textile industry and by 1926 tailoring, distributive trades, and engineering dominated the eighty-odd other trades being carried out in the city. By then Montague Burton's bespoke tailoring factory on Hudson road, employing 16,000, become the largest and most popular clothing company in Europe. It was the diversity of its industries which has proved to be Leeds' greatest strength and enabled it to survive the turbulent years of economic crisis and political conflict in the first half of the century. 

 It was a century which again saw the city mirror the historical events of the rest of the country. Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes met on Woodhouse Moor in 1908. There were Labour disputes like the corporation workers' strike of 1913 to 1914 which resulted in paralysing the city for a while. The appalling events of the First World War were brought home to the local population in July 1916, when virtually every street in Leeds lost a man in the bloody Battle of Somme. As a prelude to the Second World War, Fascists and Communists clashed on Holbeck Moor. 

 Leeds also had a major housing problem to address as considerable numbers of its back-to-backs were classed as unfit for human habitation. Thus, between the wars, the development of large corporation estates and areas of new private housing was undertaken. The most imaginative of these schemes was the building of Quarry Hill Flats between 1935 and 1941. This was a dramatic move to provide over 3,000 people with homes on a single site. 

from http://www.thoresby.org.uk/history.htm

Thoresny Image XCatalog CHECK FURTHER

http://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English%20sites/1736.html

reported to be haunted!

Brief History

Armley Mills in Leeds, West Yorkshire, is an eerie looking building that was first built back in the 16th Century. It wasn’t until 1788 that the building became what was then, the world’s largest woollen mill. In 1805 the mill was almost completely destroyed by fire. However, the owner Benjamin Gott ordered the rebuild of the mill using mainly fireproof materials such as brick and iron wherever possible. It’s Gott’s mill that you see to this day.

During the cotton boom in England many mills employed young cheap labour, in some instances children as young as six, Armley was no different. Conditions were really poor to say the least, and young children were often the worse treated, working very long hours in horrible conditions, resulted in many deaths from exhaustion and machine accidents.

In 1969 the mill closed it’s doors to the cotton trade, due to the world’s shift over to a lot of man-made fibres. Due to the building’s historic importance, the site was purchased by Leeds Council who then re-opened the building in 1982, as what is now the Leeds Industrial Museum.

http://www.hauntedrooms.co.uk/armley-mills-leeds

Armley is located between the M621 motorway and Kirkstall Road and is situated just under a mile away from the vibrant Leeds centre.

The location is a diamond of a commute to Leeds city centre, being just a 5-10 minute bus ride away which is why it is such a hot spot for student accommodation leeds, attracting so many eager home-hunting students looking for places to rent, as well as professionals wanting to be as near as possible to the buzzing heart of Leeds.

The town centre is rife with estate agents and Leeds letting agents listing properties in the area to satisfy the hungry renters and buyers market.

Because of its predominantly working class community and history, it has a reputation for being a little 'rough round the edges' but it is by all accounts a great place to live and very much true to itself in a way that other gentrified areas are not.

There's a real sense of community spirit, and if the workings of the tongue-in-cheek Armley Tourist Board is anything to go by, the community clearly has a sense of humour. Amusingly, for such an industrialised area, Armley is actually surprisingly green. Armley Park is a well kept area of grassland featuring lots of hills, grassland and a play park. Armley Moor is slap bang in the middle of town and is a wide and vast space for local residents to walk dogs and take their children.

Other features of Armley include the Armley Mills Leeds Industrial Museum, the Gott's Park Golf Club, several former cinemas and churches, most notable of the former churches is the old Methodist chapel which is now owned by Mike's Carpets, and is a familiar landmark in Armley right at the bottom of Stanningley Road.

Armley is also home to HM Prison Leeds. The prison was constructed in 1847, built from local stone, and constructed in a Victorian architectural style. Historically, the prison was a site of execution by hanging up until 1961.

Armley expanded during the industrial revolution, due to the location of several Mills. It is still mainly a working class area of the city and retains a historical feel with lines of back to back red brick houses. The area still preserves many industrial businesses such as Tile outlets and printing businesses.

Armley has a rich history, first mentioned in the Doomsday book back in 1086 and only recorded 8 villagers. Since that time, Armley grew from strength to strength, and the Mills, a huge part of the growth and success of the area still stands as testament of the influence of the industrialisation of the Area.

The Armley Mills Industrial Museum was built in 1788 and was the world's largest woollen mill. It was without doubt an important provider to the economy of Leeds during the 18th century, providing mass employment for the residents of Armley. Many of the buildings still standing today were built in the 1800s, including many of the churches, schools, shops and houses.

How Leeds Changed the World is a new book by Armley's Mick McCann

Chronicling the story of a city is never easy - but this encyclopaedia of Leeds and its achievements is as good as it gets for this type of book.

Mick McCann is an Armley lad who lives, breathes and eats Leeds and his enthusiasm for the city is evident in the compendium of facts that isHow Leeds Changed the World.

Many Leeds guide books are essentially generic reproductions of each other, but what makes this book unique is its very 'Leedsness', if there is such a word. Mick writes as a Leeds lad in an authentic 'Loiner' voice, and this lends a lot of credibility to it.

The easiest way for me to describe this book is to quote the product description on Amazon:

"Guess which British city spawned the current three most successful high street chains in the UK?

"The world's first functioning locomotive, when you erase pencil with a rubber, the mapping of your DNA, the world's first disco, Britain's first flying plane and kidney dialysis, lads mags, Chick Lit, the clinical thermometer, every time you have a can of pop, the telescopic sight, the world's most prolific stuntman, the world's first iron framed building - the 'grandfather of skyscrapers', Occupational Medicine, our ability to calculate the size and distance of planets, all are rooted in Leeds.

"Many people know that adopted son of Leeds Louis Le Prince filmed the world's first moving pictures in Leeds, but what about the Leeds lad who created the world's second film using mill technology? If money-men hadn't thought he was crazy and his ideas of films 'wild and ridiculous' he could have been the first by some way.

"I know it's part of our Leedsness to keep our feet on the ground, not show off, get ideas above our station or blow our own trumpet but I'm blowing our trumpet hard here. I'm blowing it loud and proud."

There's a veritable feast of little-known information contained in the book. A wealth of stuff on things like the history of Leeds' cinemas - I had no idea that Leeds can lay claim to around 50 cinemas during the past century. Many I never knew existed and will now look at the buildings in a different light.

The usual historical suspects such as Matthew Murray and more modern entries such as Key Mellor all make an appearance - and there are literally hundreds of other Leeds people included, many of whom are real revelations.

It's great to see things like the Middleton Railway being celebrated. Did you know it was the oldest working railway in Britain? We really don't make enough of the fact that these hidden gems are on our doorstep - the powers that be are too busy prattling on about the Victoria Quarter and Leeds Loves Shopping, while this gem of 'proper' Leeds goes virtually unmentioned.

Alright, some of the entries are a bit tenuous - TV sitcom Rising Damp is included because at was produced by Leeds-based YTV, that said, I didn't know Rigsby was a Leeds United fan! But this is a very minor criticism indeed.

I'm not usually one for encyclopaedias, but this is indispensible is you love Leeds as much as I do.

Guest blogger Linda Pantry lives in North Leeds and is a book fanatic. She has had some of her work published.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leeds/2010/dec/17/book-review-how-leeds-changed-the-world

File:Charlie Cake Park, Armley (3rd July 2010).jpg

Almost directly across the park from William's Alameda Villa.

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Summary

Description

English: Charlie Cake Park and the former West Leeds Boys' High School, Armley (1906 by William Broadbent), now Old School Lofts. (For information on the unusual name for a park see [1]). Taken on Saturday the 3rd of July 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Leeds_High_School

Grammar school

The West Leeds High School opened on 7 September 1907 to improve standards in the city. The school was effectively two schools in one as both Girls and Boys were kept completely separate from each other.

http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-465752-west-leeds-high-school-

http://ilovearmley.blogspot.com/

http://www.secretleeds.com/forum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=415

http://armleynews.blogspot.com/

charley cake park

http://ilovearmley.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-charlie-cake-park.html

Alameda Villa