FIELD SYSTEMS AND PLACE NAMES
OF OLD KNOTTINGLEY
TERRY SPENCER B.A. (Hons), Ph D.
INTRODUCTION :
BEGINNINGS :
DOMESDAY :
PORT OF KNOTTINGLEY :
MANORIAL RE-ORGANISATION
GAZETTEER OF PLACE NAMES
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YARDS |
GALLOWS HILL
Situated on the periphery of Knottingley township being that part of
the Great Northern Road (A1) between Grove Hall and the Ferrybridge
flyover.
The line of the Wakefield – Goole road (A645) was from medieval times the
principal route connecting the hinterland with the Humber ports. Prior to
the construction of the Ferrybridge roundabout which preceded the present
flyover, a grassy plot marked the crossroads. On this site stood the
public gallows, its grizzly fruit serving as a warning to potential
miscreants. It is claimed on good authority that the decaying elements of
the gibbet were a feature of the scene as late as the end of the
nineteenth century.
GARDEN HOUSE
Built in 1875 at the east corner of Middle Lane by a member of the Beckett
family, the hose was later successfully integrated into a terrace of houses
named Beckett’s Row. The name Garden House was also used at a slightly earlier
period in the nineteenth century to identify a property located at Marsh End.
GARDEN LANE
The name of a lane running between Primrose Hill and Cow Lane. Originally
a field balk running parallel to the Croft, the ridge became a pathway between
the two locations. A three acre parcel of land at the north side was commonly
known as The Garden and during the first half of the twentieth century was an
allotment site. The site was utilised for council house development in the
late 1950s and the footpath adopted as a road although still known as Garden
Lane.
GARDLAND LANE
The name is probably derived from the butts or gores at the edge of an
irregular shaped furlong in one of the three fields. The lane probably
provided access to one of the fields though which is not known.
GARNER (GANDER) HAVEN
The property most recently known as Gander Haven farm was originally a
domestic dwelling. The site, identified merely as an allotment in the Ings in
the Enclosure Award Schedule of 1793, was originally named Gander Haven and
was the site of a clay pit and by the mid nineteenth century was used for the
manufacture of bricks and tiles but later became a farmstead, the name of
which was linguistically transformed to Gander Haven, presumably because of
the farming connection. By the end of the nineteenth century the name had
become further transformed, the site being referred to as the ‘Ganner’. The
last family to farm the land were the Jackson’s. Following archaeological
excavation in 2004 the house was demolished prior to the construction of anti
flood defences.
GASCOIGNE REACH
The name is derived from the Old English ‘gaers-tun’, meaning grassland.
Gascoigne Reach was the bend in the River Aire east of Bank Dole. Following
the reorganisation of the common fields, Gascoigne Reach became the northern
border of the great East Field.
GASWORKS The
In 1844, Thomas Bell, a chemist of Aire Street, introduced the manufacture
of coal gas to the town. By the end of the decade the principal places of
business, and gradually the main thoroughfares of the township, were lit by
gas. The supply was produced by the Knottingley Gas Company, established by
Bell and other wealthy and influential townsmen. The site of manufacture was
Ings Lane which before the end of the century was popularly known as Gas House
Lane.
The mid twentieth century witnessed the demise of the company due to
nationalisation of the industry and the introduction of North Sea gas a few
decades later drastically reduced the demand for town gas so that by the
century’s end, Knottingley gasworks, like the original company, had become
defunct.
GENTLEMENS’ CLUB The
Situated at the top of the Ropewalk, this social club was frequented by
the professional middle class men of the town and neighbourhood. Founded circa
1860 by a local teacher, Thomas Speak, who served as Club Secretary and later
as Secretary of the Liberal Club and also of Knottingley Gas Co., the
institution outlived its founder, finally closing in 1947 at which time it was
known as Knottingley Social Club.
GILLANN STREET
A small estate of terrace houses built by Bagley & Co. in the late
nineteenth century as residences for their workers on the former Pinfold Close
site opposite the factory. The name is a composite of Gill and Ann, the
forenames of wives of William Bagley.
GLASSWORKS
The earliest Knottingley glassworks was that of Bagley, Wild & Co.,
established at the Racca Green end of the Bendles Field in 1871. Three years
later the Round House was built on the site of a former shipyard at Fernley
Green. The latter works had a succession of proprietors between 1875 and 1905
when the site, known by then as the Hope Glassworks, came into the sole
ownership of the Gregg family who retained control of the firm throughout last
century.
The Bagley & Wild partnership was dissolved upon the death of John Wild in
1884 and thereafter the firm traded as Bagley & Co., Ltd.
In 1887 Isaac Burdin founded a glassworks at Quarry Gap, Headlands Lane,
principally manufacturing carboys, and in 1893 Jackson Bros., was established,
initially by a five man partnership, on an adjacent site.
Burdin Bros., were bankrupted in the mid 1930s but Jackson's prospered and
built a modern factory early in the 1950s on a Greenfield site near to their
existing plant, the latter being gradually phased out and ceasing production
in the late twentieth century.
Large scale consolidation within the glass industry from the middle of the
century resulted in the take over of Bagley's by Jackson Bros., in 1962,
followed by both sites being incorporated into the Rockware Glass group a
little later.
In the latter years of the century, Rockware sold the Bagley site to the
Stolzle company and in 1999 the Headlands factory was sold to the Irish
company, Ardagh. The only remaining family firm, Greggs, became part of
Associated British Foods, merging with Lax & Shaw to form Allied Glass
Containers in 1993.
GLEBELANDS The
Lands held by the incumbent vicars of Knottingley, which apart from
parcels within the township were located at Kellingley, Minskip and Haddlesey.
The land situated at Kellingley, lying between Knottingley Common and the
Stocking Lane was known as the Glebelands and the pathway connecting the two
locations was named Glebe Lane.
GLEBE LANE
The lane leading to the land or residence of a clergyman held as part of
his benefice. Glebe Lane led off Weeland Road at Hill Top close to Gaggs
Bridge and provided access to Spawd Bone Lane via Greenhouse Fields.
Following the sale of the Christ Church vicarage to Bagley & Co., Ltd., in the
early twentieth century, the Glebe was the residence of sundry incumbents of
the East Parish until; 1940.
GOOSE ISLAND
An island in the middle of the river Aire opposite Kings Mills, a corner
of which formed one end of the Mill weir. The Island, in excess of 4 acres, is
named as Willow Island on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of the
mid-nineteenth century.
GORDON TERRACE
A row of terrace houses standing to the east side of Womersley Road near
Broomhill. Built in the last decade of the nineteenth century and probably
named after General Charles Gordon, the hero of Sudan, who was slain in 1885.
One of the houses was used as a residence for the commandants of the local
Salvation Army Corps in the middle decades of the last century.
GRANGE The
The name given to the former Mount Pleasant site at the junction of
Ferrybridge Road and Weeland Road at Hill Top following its purchase and
refurbishment by the Knottingley brewer, John Carter, in 1871. Carter’s widow
lived there until her death in 1907 after which Ellis Williamson, proprietor
of the Kings Mills, lived there until November 1908. The property then
belonged to Bagley & Co., until the late twentieth century. Today, the
property is sub-divided into flats.
GREAT WALL CLOSE
The name of a six acre enclosure lying alongside the field boundary
dividing the South and Middle fields near Waterfield Hill at the southern end
on England Lane. The term ‘wall’ may derive from the earthen balk which
separated the two great fields.
GREENHEAD COTTAGES
Believed to date from 1866, this pair of brick-built houses stands on the
south side of Cow Lane bridge opposite the Bendles. One of the houses was
occupied by John Branford, proprietor of the Commercial Shipyard situated at
the opposite side of the road. The name signifies the location of the houses
as the former head of Racca Green.
GREEN HOUSE The
A house situated in Spawd Bone Lane now licensed premises known as the
Green Bottle public house, licensed in 1962. The premises were previously the
domestic base of an urban farmstead known as Greenhouse Farm and briefly, in
the early years of the last century, an Adult School.
GREEN HOUSE FARM
Land adjacent to the Green Bottle Inn in Spawd Bone Lane. For the greater
part of the preceding century the Green House had been the residence of the
occupiers of the adjacent farmstead known as Greenhouse Farm. The farm was
established by the mid-nineteenth century, being offered for sale in 1869 and
again, by a Mr Craven, the owner-occupier, three years later, the rapid change
in occupation reflecting the increasing depressed state of British agriculture
at that time. By 1880 the owner was Mark Stainsby, a partner in the Stainsby &
Lyon Aire Tar Works, situated to the east of the town. In June 1886 Stainsby
was killed, being struck by a locomotive whilst walking along the railway line
between his home and the works, and in 1892 his widow, Mary, left the town,
renting out the property leasehold until her demise in 1905, the tenant at the
turn of the century being John Firth. The farm was occupied as late as the
1930s and was eventually owned by Mr. G.R. Barker. Many of the farm buildings
are still in situ.
Following the establishment of Knottingley Playing Fields in 1931, the name
‘Green House’ was popularly adopted as the unofficial title for the recreation
ground which was located in the Green House Fields.
GREENHOUSE FIELDS
Several closes of land variously known as Greenwood Close situated between
Hill Top and Spawd Bone Lane and forming a portion of the divided manorial
lands of Knottingley in the nineteenth century, were purchased as a result of
public subscription in 1931 to enable the laying out of Knottingley Playing
Fields (commonly referred to as The Greenhouse). The land, together with
Greenwood Close, had previously been excavated for limestone before being
leased as pastureland by the tenant of Greenhouse Farm. Following its
purchase, the land was held in trust by the K.U.D.C. and was inherited by its
successor body, the Wakefield M.D.C., but belongs to the people of Knottingley
and is subject to restrictions which allow no building development and
confines use of the land to recreational purposes. The fields are at present
the subject of a 60 year leasehold agreement between the Local Authority and
the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation at a token rent of £1 per annum.
The lease expires in April 2025 at which time it behoves the citizens of the
town to be vigilant in order to secure their heritage.
GRENLEY STREET
A small street of terrace houses off Racca Green, close to Foundry Lane.
The name is probably a nostalgic evocation of ‘Green Ley’, an echo of the
original appearance of Racca Green and its environs.
GREVILLE HOUSE
A substantial brick-built, nineteenth century house situated at Hill Top
close by the junction with Marine Villa Road and owned by Francis Reynolds, a
lime merchant. In 1910 the property was converted into the Hill Top
Workingmens’ Club (Top Club) and was used as such until the 1960s when the
house was demolished and new club premises were built on the site. By the mid
1980s the club had closed and the premises were acquired by the Five Towns’
Christian Fellowship. In 2004 the premises were demolished to enable the space
to be used for the construction of Morrisons new supermarket.
GROVE The
A large detached building standing at the south end of Marine Villa Road.
Now a private nursing home, the house was the periodic residence of several
prominent Knottingley families for almost two hundred years before late last
century.
GROVE HOUSE
Situated at the junction of Marsh End and Ings Lane, this property was
long associated with John Howard who owned the adjacent ropewalk. However,
Grove House may have previously belonged to Howard’s father, Thomas, a
mariner, and may have been acquired from the Standage family following the
death of Robert Standage, ropemaker, in March 1841.
Terry Spencer
INDEX |
A-B |
C-D |
E-F | G |
H |
I-J |
K-L |
M-N |
O |
P |
Q-R |
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T-U |
V-W |
YARDS |
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