Otley
Otley is a market town and civil parish at a bridging point on the River Wharfe, in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the population was 13,668 at the 2011 census. It is in two parts: south of the river is the historic town of Otley and to the north is Newall, which was formerly a separate township. The town is in lower Wharfedale on the A660 road which connects it to Leeds.
The town is in the Otley and Yeadon ward of Leeds City Council and the Leeds North West parliamentary constituency.
History
Toponymy
Otley's name is derived from Otto, Otho, Othe, or Otta, a Saxon personal name and leah, a woodland clearing in Old English. It was recorded as Ottanlege in 972 and Otelai or Othelia in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name Chevin has close parallels to the early Brythonic Welsh term Cefn meaning ridge and may be a survival of the ancient Cumbric language.Early history
There are pre-historic settlement finds alongside both sides of the River Wharfe and it is believed the valley has been settled at this site since the Bronze Age. There are Bronze Age carvings on rocks situated on top of The Chevin: one such example is the Knotties Stone. West Yorkshire Geology Trust has reference to Otley Chevin and Caley Crags having a rich history of human settlement stretching back into Palaeolithic times. Flint tools, Bronze Age rock carvings and Iron Age earthworks have been found. In medieval times the forest park was used as common pasture land, as a source of wood and sandstones for buildings and walls.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 Æthelstan 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 Manor House. Otley is close to Leeds and may have formed part of the kingdom of Elmet. Remains of the Archbishop's Palace were found during the construction of St Joseph's Primary School.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 of the manor house by the bridge and the church. An important reason for the town's location was a water supply, the Calhead Beck which ran down from Otley Chevin over Whitley Croft, a little East of the church and then to the river near the bridge.
The town grew in the first half of the 13th century when the archbishops laid out burgage plots to attract merchants and tradespeople. The burgage plots were on Boroughgate, Walkergate and Kirkgate. This began to create the layout of today, based on a triangle of these plots forming the streets. Bondgate was for the workers: bondsmen and tenants. 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, used to make a soap which therefore supported a community carrying out fulling, the cleansing and finishing of woollen cloth on Watergate. The Chevin provided stone for building 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 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, with a connection 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
During the First World War, Farnley Camp at Otley housed the Northern Command Gas and Grenade School, which taught military personnel about explosives.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 Newall on the North 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 in 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.
Wharfemeadows park provided leisure space for residents and the River Wharfe a place to swim with public open air swimming baths opening on the site in 1924. By the 1960s the outdoor pool was a popular leisure destination and was in use until 1993 when a fault with the pumping system precipitated its closure. In February 2016, in response to a Leeds City Council invitation for ‘Expressions of Interest' for the site of 'the former Otley Lido', a group of local residents launched an ongoing campaign to regenerate the site as a modern open air swimming pool and community centre.
Otley Museum
Until 2010 Otley Museum was based in the Civic Centre when it was displaced by major redevelopment of the building. In January 2010, its collections, reflecting the town's story from prehistory to the present day, were packed for storage while new premises were sought. A proposal by the Town Council to develop a National Printing Museum based on the printers' engineers collection was criticised by trustees on the basis that printing was just one aspect of the town's history and that demand for such a museum had not been demonstrated. In 2024, while still without a permanent physical home, the museum publicised its new website which will serve as a showcase for photographs of some of the approximately 1900 artefacts that have been curated by volunteers. Visitors can view items from the collection by prior arrangement at its temporary location at Otley Cycle Club.Governance
Historically Otley was a market-town and the centre of a large ecclesiastical parish in the wapentakes of Skyrack and Claro in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The various chapelries and townships in the ancient parish became separate civil parishes in 1866. The local authority was the lord of the manor until 1864 when Otley Board was formed and many public buildings date from then on. From 1894 Otley formed an Urban District, and in 1897 and 1903 expanded north of the River Wharfe to include Newall. Since local government reorganisation in 1974 Otley has been a civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, in the county of West Yorkshire. The parish council has exercised its option to declare itself a town council. The town council and the Otley Museum were both based at Otley Civic Centre until the building closed in 2010.Otley lies in the Leeds North West constituency of the UK Parliament and is represented by MP Katie White of the Labour Party. It is part of the Otley & Yeadon ward on Leeds City Council and is represented by three Liberal Democrat Councillors Ryk Downes, Colin Campbell & Sandy Lay. It is twinned with the French town of Montereau-Fault-Yonne, south of Paris.
Otley and Wharfedale ward has a population of 24,000, and Otley itself has a population of 14,348, according to the Census 2001.
Geography
Otley lies south-west of York, north-west of Leeds, north-east of Bradford, and from London. The town lies in lower Wharfedale, at a bridging point over the River Wharfe where there is a seven-arched medieval bridge, and is surrounded by arable farmland. The historic town developed on the south bank of the Wharfe, but in the 20th century Otley expanded north of the river, to include new developments at Newall and the Weston Estate.The south side of the valley is dominated by a gritstone escarpment overlooking Otley called the Chevin and to the north is Newall Carr. In 1944, Major Le G.G.W. Horton Fawkes of Farnley Hall donated of land on the Chevin to the people of Otley. This has been expanded to and constitutes Chevin Forest Park. It was from a quarry on the Chevin that the foundation stones for the Houses of Parliament were hewn.
To the east and west of Otley are flooded gravel pits, where sand and gravel have been extracted in the 20th century. The gravel pits to the east at Knotford Nook are a noted birdwatching site. Those to the west are devoted to angling and sailing.
To the west are the villages of Burley in Wharfedale and Menston. To the east is Pool-in-Wharfedale. To the south is the towns of Guiseley, and Yeadon.
Transport
bypassed Otley, South of the Chevin and North of Timble, so most of roads in the area were little better than tracks until the 18th century when efforts were made to facilitate trade. By 1820 there was a regular post coach to Leeds on 4 days a week and 9 carriers delivering as far as Manchester. In 1840 and 1841 new roads to Leeds and Bradford were opened. From 1900 the first motor vehicles appeared in Otley, and in 1912 a motor haulage business started with a vehicle with interchangeable bodies so that it could work as either as lorry or charabanc. By 1930 there were bus companies operating and in 1939 Otley bus station opened. Trolleybuses operated by Leeds Corporation Tramways arrived in 1915, but ceased in 1928.The Otley and Ilkley Joint Railway opened Otley railway station in 1865 and closed in March 1965; the town bypass follows the part of the line of the old railway. The trackbed between Burley in Wharfedale, Otley and Pool is to become a cycleway, footpath and equestrian route known as the Wharfedale Greenway, with possible extensions onward to Ilkley alongside the extant railway. Planning permission for the first phase of the greenway was granted in July 2020.
The main roads through the town are the A660 to the south east, which connects Otley to Bramhope, Adel and Leeds city centre, and the A65 to the west, which goes to Ilkley and Skipton. The A6038 heads to Guiseley, Shipley and Bradford, connecting with the A65. To Harrogate, the A659 heads east to the A658, which is the main Bradford–Harrogate road.
Otley bus station is run by West Yorkshire Metro and services are operated by First West Yorkshire, Harrogate Bus Company, Keighley Bus Company, and Connexionsbuses. There are local services connecting the town and outlying areas.