Early variants of the place name 'Ilkley' include Hillicleg (c.972) and Illiclei (Domesday Book). These possibly denote a ‘woodland clearing of a man called Yllica or Illica’ (Old English person's name + lēah).[1]
Prehistory
The earliest evidence of habitation in the Ilkley area is flint arrowheads or microliths, dating to the Mesolithic period, from about 11,000BC onwards.[2] A selection of arrowheads and information about prehistoric Ilkley can be seen in the Heritage Room at Ilkley Manor House. The area around Ilkley has been continuously settled since at least the early Bronze Age, around 1800BC; more than 250 cup and ring marks, and curved a swastika carving dating to the period have been found on rock outcrops,[3] and archaeological remains of dwellings are found on Ilkley Moor. A druidicalstone circle, the Twelve Apostles Stone Circle, was constructed 2,000 years ago.[2] Serious interest in the rock art of Ilkley began after the publication in 1879, by John Romilly Allen, of "The Prehistoric Rock Sculptures of Ilkley" in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association.[3]
Robert Collyer notes that Ilkley was at the centre of the territory of the Brigantes, and states that it was one of ten strongholds of this tribe. He notes that the town was on a pre-Roman track-way running from the north through Catterick to Chester and Holyhead.[4]
Roman period
Remains of a Roman wall located to the south of the Manor House, Ilkley
Ilkley had traditionally been identified with the Olicana of Ptolemy's Geography,[5] but an inscription on the 'Verbeia Stone' puts this into question (see below). The same inscription now lends Roman Ilkley the name by which it is generally referred: 'Verbeia'.[6][7] 'Olicana' is now generally identified with Olenacvm (Elslack, near Skipton, North Yorkshire).[7]
The remains of a Roman fort exist on a site now near the centre of the town. The fort went through several stages of construction, destruction, and re-construction, as attested by various dedication inscriptions.[10][11] The first fort was timber-built in c.80AD, and then abandoned c.100AD. It was reoccupied in 169AD, burnt down c.196–7AD, and rebuilt in stone before the end of January 198AD. A final rebuilding and reorganisation of the fort occurred c.300AD.[7]
The fort is small (roughly 2.75 acres), and occupies a steep bank above the River Wharfe, with the river on the north side. Its east and west sides are bounded by two brooks, which flow north to the Wharfe. The foundations of the fort on the bank are very conspicuous, and remains of Roman brick, glass, and earthenware have been found on the edges of the brow. The Medieval Ilkley Manor House and All Saints Parish Church stand within the precincts of the fort.[12]
A number of Roman altars, inscriptions, and monuments have been discovered in Ilkley. Perhaps the most notable is the 'Verbeia Stone', an inscribed gritstone altar, the translation of which reads: "Sacred to Verbeia: Clodius Fronto, prefect of the Second Cohort of Lingonians (set this up)".[13]Verbeia was the Romano-British goddess of the River Wharfe;[14] her name potentially being etymologically related to that of the river.[15] A statue found near the altar may have represented her; the figure, with stylised features and an over-large head, wears a pleated robe and holds a snake in each hand.[14] It is possible that Verbeia is the same deity as Boand, a pre-Christian Irish goddess of the Boyne River.[16] A 1608 replica of the Verbeia Stone, commissioned by William Middleton of Myddelton Lodge,[17] is kept alongside the original altar in the Heritage Room of Ilkley Manor House.[18]
An early second or late first century sandstone tombstone is Ilkley's only known Roman epigraph to make reference to civilian life. The tombstone bears the relief of a woman wearing a tunic, sitting in a rounded chair. Her hair is in long plats, which she holds in her hands. The fragmentary inscription reads: "To the spirits of the departed: Ved[.]ic[..], daughter of …, aged 30, a tribeswoman of the Cornovii, lies here".[19] The tombstone is also kept in Ilkley Manor House.[20]
Anglo-Saxon period
Collyer notes that there is not one sure word about Ilkley in the 800 years after the improvement of the fort by Virius Lupus; but that by the Norman period the area had an Anglo-Saxon name, derived from the Roman and Old British names; was a parish with church and priest; and contained four centres of life and industry, namely Ilkley, Nessfield, Middleton and Stubham. He conjectures that Ilkley's place on the track and road system of the time would have ensured that it was affected by the waves of invasions of Britain which took place throughout the Dark Ages, with Angles, Saxons and Danes settling and bequeathing names to the locality, whilst at the same time perhaps squeezing out the indigenous and Roman descent population.[21]
Ilkley's Anglo-Saxon church is taken by Collyer to date to a 627 consecration, and most probably arising out of preaching by Paulinus[22] Three Anglo-Saxon crosses formerly in the churchyard of All Saints, but now removed into the church to prevent erosion, date to the 8th century.
Norman period and the Middleton family
The Manor House, Ilkley
Ilkley formed part of the Wapentake of Skyrack; its lands to the north of the river fell into the wapentake of Claro.[23] In Domesday Book, dating to 1086, Ilkley (Ilecliue/Illecliue/Illiclei/Illicleia) is listed as being in the possession of William de Percy1st Baron Percy.[24] By 1242 the land had passed to the Kyme family, of whose number Philip de Kyme appointed the first rector of the parish church on 11 December.[23] The land was acquired by the Middelton family of Myddelton Lodge, from about a century after the time of William the Conqueror. The family lost possession through a series of land sales and mortgage repossessions throughout a period of about a hundred years from the early nineteenth century.[25] The agents of William Middelton (1815–1885) were responsible for the design of the new town of Ilkley to replace the village which had stood there before.[26]
Spa town and the railway
The Grove, Ilkley's principal shopping street, designed with wide pavements for promenading
In the 17th and 18th centuries the town gained a reputation for the efficacy of its water. The Middleton family constructed and for many years maintained White Wells, an early example of a spa building containing dressing rooms and a bath fed from a spring, in the eighteenth century.[27] The Middletons encouraged visitors by permitting shooting on the manor and fishing in the river.[28] Prior to the spa boom, however, Ilkley was "a little, old and ragged village" of single storey thatched cottages.[29]
In the 19th century the town became established as a fashionable spa town, with the construction a mile to the east of the town, at Wheatley, of the vast Ben Rhydding Hydro or Hydropathic Establishment between 1843 and 1844. Tourists flocked here to 'take the waters' and bathe in the cold water spring. Wheatley today is called Ben Rhydding after the Hydro (since demolished).
Ilkley Stepping Stones (period 1850–98) by Francis Frith
Development based on the Hydro movement, and upon the establishment of a number of convalescent homes and hospitals, was accelerated by the establishment of a railway connection from Leeds and Bradford in 1865. Charles Darwin underwent hydropathic treatment at Wells House when his book On the Origin of Species was published on 24 November 1859, staying with his family at the nearby North View House (now Hillside Court). Other Victorian visitors to the town include Madame Tussaud. Today, the only remaining Hydro is the white cottage known as White Wells House, which can be seen and visited on the edge of the moor overlooking the town.
T. S. Eliot in 1916 delivered six extension lectures in Ilkley, on the theme of modern French literature. He considered Wensleydale to be the 'Mozart of cheeses'.
Between the 5 and 17 August 1923, philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner delivered a series of fourteen lectures at Ilkley which were published as A Modern Art of Education.[32] They provided a comprehensive overview of Waldorf education.[33] In his report of the event, which embodies the language of his distinctive philosophical approach, he commented on the town's archaeological heritage:
in the remains of dolmens and old Druidic altars lying around everywhere, [Ilkley] has traces of something that reminds one of the ancient spirituality that has, however, no successors. It is most moving to have on the one hand the impression [of the industrialism] I just described and then, on the other, to climb a hill in this region so filled with the effects of those impressions and then find in those very characteristic places the remains of ancient sacrificial altars marked with appropriate signs.[34]
In 1967 Jimi Hendrix played at the Troutbeck Hotel, now a nursing home, although the show was cut short by the police.[35] The local newspaper headline read "Pop Fans Ran Amok in Hotel" after audience members allegedly ripped off doors, pulled out electrical fittings and smashed furniture after a police sergeant stepped on stage and stopped Hendrix midway through a number.[36]
1973 saw the start of the annual Ilkley Literature Festival, the largest in Northern England. W. H. Auden gave his last English reading there that same year.[37]
There was an alleged UFO incident on Ilkley Moor on 1 December 1987.[38] A retired police officer claimed that he was abducted by aliens while on a morning walk and briefly held on their craft before being returned to the moor.[39] The man took a photograph of the moor which he said shows one of the aliens that abducted him.[39]
↑ Who were the Middletons?, containing excerpts from The Lords of Ilkley Manor – The Road to Ruin: The Middelton Family of Stockeld Park (1763–1947) by David Carpenter.
In ancient Celtic polytheism, Verbeia was a goddess worshipped in Roman Britain. She is known from a single altar-stone dedicated to her at Ilkley. She is considered to have been a deification of the River Wharfe.
Bolton Abbey Estate in Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, England, takes its name from a 12th-century Augustinian monastery of canons regular, now known as Bolton Priory. The priory, which was closed in the 1539 Dissolution of the Monasteries ordered by King Henry VIII, is in the Yorkshire Dales, which lies next to the village of Bolton Abbey.
The River Wharfe is a river in Yorkshire, England originating within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. For much of its middle course it is the county boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. Its valley is known as Wharfedale.
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.
Ilkley is a spa town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, in Northern England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Ilkley civil parish includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding and is a ward within the City of Bradford. Approximately 12 miles (19 km) north of Bradford and 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Leeds, the town lies mainly on the south bank of the River Wharfe in Wharfedale, one of the Yorkshire Dales.
Ilkley Roman Fort is a Roman fort on the south bank of the River Wharfe, at the centre of the modern town of Ilkley, a Victorian spa town in West Yorkshire, England.
The Dales Way is an 78.5-mile (126.3 km) long-distance footpath in Northern England, from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, to Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria. This walk was initially devised by the West Riding Ramblers' Association with the 'leading lights' being Colin Speakman and Tom Wilcock. The route was announced to the public in 1968 and the first recorded crossing was by a group of Bradford Grammar School Venture Scouts in 1969.
Grassington is a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 1,126. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and now in the lieutenancy area of North Yorkshire, the village is situated in Wharfedale, about 8 miles (10 km) north-west from Bolton Abbey, and is surrounded by limestone scenery. Nearby villages include Linton, Threshfield, Hebden, Conistone and Kilnsey.
Adel is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. To its immediate south is Weetwood, to the west are Cookridge and Holt Park, to the east are Alwoodley and Moortown, and to the north are Bramhope, Arthington and Eccup.
Ben Rhydding railway station serves the Ben Rhydding area of Ilkley, West Yorkshire; it is situated about a mile east of the town centre. It is on the Wharfedale Line, between Ilkley and Leeds/Bradford Forster Square, it is served by Class 331 and Class 333 electric multiple units (EMUs) run by Northern Trains, who also manage the station. It is 15.5 miles (24.9 km) north-west of Leeds, and 1-mile (1.6 km) east of Ilkley railway station.
Burley in Wharfedale is a village and civil parish in West Yorkshire, England, in the Wharfedale valley. In 2011, it had a population of 7,041.
Appletreewick is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England, 6.5 miles (10.5 km) north-east of Skipton, 7 miles (11 km) from Skipton railway station and 16 miles (25.7 km) from Leeds Bradford International Airport.
Barden is a civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. It consists of the hamlet of Drebley and a few scattered houses in Wharfedale in the Yorkshire Dales. The parish also includes two areas of moorland, Barden Fell to the east of the River Wharfe and Barden Moor to the west of the river. Both moorlands are access land, and are popular with walkers. Barden Fell rises to the prominent peak of Simon's Seat, and Barden Moor includes two scenic 19th century reservoirs. Much of the parish is on the Bolton Abbey estate.
Aballava or Aballaba was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, between Petriana (Stanwix) to the east and Coggabata (Drumburgh) to the west. It is about one and a half miles south of the Solway Firth, and its purpose was to guard the south end of two important Solway fords, the Peat Wath and the Sandwath, which were also to become favourite routes for medieval border raiders.
Burley Woodhead is a hamlet in the City of Bradford, in West Yorkshire, England. The hamlet is 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south-west of Burley in Wharfedale and is approximately 3 miles (5 km) from the spa town of Ilkley. Burley Woodhead comprises chiefly of a small cluster of farms and homes along the road from Ilkley to Guiseley at the foot of Burley Moor, though the village is at 560 feet (170 m) above sea level, with the moor being some 1,300 feet (400 m) above sea level. The local public house is The Hermit.
Ilkley Manor House, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, is a local heritage museum, art gallery, and live venue, and was established in the present building in 1961 to preserve local archaeological artefacts after the spa town expanded and much Roman material was lost. It was managed by Bradford Council Museums and Galleries department but had to be closed in 2013 owing to lack of funds. In order to keep the building open to the public, the Ilkley Manor House Trust was formed, and in April 2018, Bradford Council transferred the Manor House and three adjacent cottages to the Trust as a community asset transfer.
Wells House is a large former hydropathic establishment and hotel in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, now used as private apartments. It was built in 1854–56 to a design by the architect Cuthbert Brodrick and is a Grade II listed building. It is located above the town on Wells Road at the edge of Ilkley Moor, giving it an unobstructed view across Wharfedale from its north front. It was originally set in grounds by the landscaper Joshua Major though these gardens have mostly been built on since.
Upper Barden Reservoir is an upland fresh water reservoir, one of two reservoirs that collect water from Barden Moor, and dam Barden Beck, a tributary of the River Wharfe in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, England. The reservoir was opened in 1882 and also supplies fresh water to the Nidd Aqueduct, which transports it to Bradford. Upper Barden Reservoir was the second of the reservoirs to be built,.
Nesfield is a small village, 2 miles (3.2 km) north-west of Ilkley on the north bank of the River Wharfe, in the civil parish of Nesfield with Langbar, in the Harrogate district, in the county of North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the village sits at the southern edge of the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Ben Rhydding Hydro, opened as the Wharfedale Hydropathic Establishment and Ben Rhydding Hotel and later rebranded as the Ben Rhydding Golf Hotel was a hotel in Ben Rhydding near Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, opened in 1844 and demolished in 1955.
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