The following studies by Terry Spencer are now available on the Knottingley website:

KNOTTINGLEY CARNIVAL
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century the August Bank Holiday period at Knottingley abounded in fun and frolic with the Feast as the hub of the festivities. The fair was supplemented by community sports and of the sporting element within the town none was more prominent than Knottingley Town Cricket Club.

KNOTTLA FLATTS:
Situated on the southern bank of the River Aire, to the north side of Aire Street, lies Knottingley Flatts. Today, the Flatts occupy only a small portion of the original layout which comprised the greater part of Knottingley Ings.

KNOTTLA FEAST:
The modern image of the fair is one of outdoor entertainment for pleasure seeking people but such a concept is one which has developed over the last two centuries being born as a result of the Industrial Revolution.

HOSPITAL SUNDAYS:
Prior to the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 local people relied for health care in the event of sickness or serious injury upon charitable institutions such as Pontefract Dispensary and Leeds Infirmary.

KNOTTINGLEY COAT-OF-ARMS:
The application by Knottingley Urban District Council for a grant of arms was made to the College of Arms, London, in mid 1942.

FERRYBRIDGE GLASSWORKS:
That there was a glassworks at Ferrybridge is indisputable for it was both documented and photographed. That it was situated on the north bank of the River Aire "..where the Parish of Brotherton merges into the Parish of Ferrybridge" is confirmed by map reference. The doubt lies not in the existence or location of the furnace but with its origin.

NINETEENTH CENTURY KNOTTINGLEY:
The township of Knottingley, situated three miles north-east of Pontefract in the Wapentake of Osgoldcross, developed from a 6th century Saxon settlement in a forest clearing on the south bank of the river Aire. By the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066 the settlement had acquired the status of a manorial vill

KNOTTINGLEY PLAYING FIELDS:
As the process of industrialisation and urban development gained pace in the second half of the nineteenth century the provision of public spaces such as municipal gardens and parks for the purpose of public recreation and amenity became increasingly desirable.

CAPTAIN PERCY BENTLEY:
Percy Bentley, scion of a prominent Knottingley family, was born in that town on the 18th January 1891, the son of James William and Helena Bentley, and was baptised in the parish church of St. Botolph on the 11th February.

KNOTTINGLEY WAR MEMORIAL:
On Wednesday, 25th September 1918, a committee previously sanctioned by Knottingley Urban District Council in meeting assembled, met in the Council Chamber at Knottingley Town Hall to consider the form of memorial to the men who had fallen during the Great War.

FERRYBRIDGE WAR MEMORIAL:
No less than the citizens of its larger neighbour, the inhabitants of the village of Ferrybridge decided to honour those drawn from the community and slain in the Great War.

THE 'K' SISTERS:
For approximately a decade from the mid 1940's the 'K' Sisters, Marjorie and Pamela Kellett, were prominent throughout the town and district of Knottingley as all-round entertainers who harnessed their talent to providing public enjoyment and in so doing raised large amounts of money for local charities.

THE PALACE CINEMA:
The new cinema, one of the earliest purpose-built picture houses in the country, was situated on an oblique strip of land some 560 square yards in extent, adjacent to Ship Lane at the junction with lower Aire Street. The hall was designed to seat 600 people: 500 in the area and 100 in the balcony.

KNOTTINGLEY PUBLIC HOUSES & BREWERIES:
In 1752, eighteen residents of the township of Knottingley in company with John Mitchell, the Parish Constable, agreed to be bound over in the sum of £10 each to observe the legal and moral obligations attendant upon being granted a licence as an innkeeper.

KNOTTINGLEY TOWN HALL CLOCK:
In the Spring of 1994, the recently deceased and much lamented Edwin Beckett arranged for the installation of a clock at the top of the Town Hall turret. The event was celebrated in verse by Mrs Joyce Bell who concluded her eulogy by stating that her mother, Dolly Lightowler, had always wished to see a clock set in the "bare face" of the Town Hall - a wish which had now come true.

STATUE OF THE BLACK PRINCE:
Awareness of a link between my native Knottingley and the Prince's statue came quite recently when Mrs Shirley Bedford of Knottingley informed me that her great grandfather was the master of a barge which had transported the statue from Hull to Leeds in 1903.

KNOTTLA NICKNAMES:
It was in the course of a recent conversation with Roger Ellis that the subject of nicknames arose, following which, in an idle half-hour, I casually began to compile a list of those I recalled. My list quickly exceeded fifty in number and I was seized by a natural desire to list as many more as I could obtain.

KNOTTINGLEY SILVER BAND:
The origin of Knottingley Band is obscure. In 1980 the Band celebrated its conjectured centenary year, the date being taken from an old letterhead of 1880.  However, a subsequent documentary source has been located which indicates that the genesis of the Band may lie much further in the past.

KNOTTINGLEY TOWN HALL:
The burgeoning spirit of civic pride found practical expression on 29th October 1864, when a group of prominent citizens of the town formed the Knottingley Town Hall & Mechanics’ Institute Company Limited.

FIELD SYSTEMS AND PLACE NAMES OF OLD KNOTTINGLEY:
The purpose of this study is to consider the topography of modern day Knottingley and formulate a theoretical model concerning the development of the settlement during the medieval and post medieval eras as reflected in the field systems adopted.

GAZETTEER OF KNOTTINGLEY PLACE NAMES:
An A-Z listing of Knottingley field and place names.

WAR SAVINGS WEEKS:
Conflict is fuelled by finance so it is unsurprising that following the outbreak of war in 1939, local savings committees were established to encourage people to curb personal expenditure and invest surplus cash in the National War Savings Scheme in order to assist the cost of the war.

SELECT VESTRY RIOTS 1874:
The township of Knottingley became a semi-autonomous parish in 1789 following the ecclesiastical reorganisation of that period but remaining under the patronage of the Vicar of Pontefract until it became an independent parish in 1846

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

INDEX | A-B | C-D | E-F | G | H | I-J | K-L | M-N | O | P | Q-R | S | T-U | V-W | YARDS |

YARDS
The demographic expansion of the township during the nineteenth century created a demand for housing which was met by private finance as local individuals of varying degrees of wealth sought to capitalise on the opportunity to obtain income from rented property by erecting dwellings in the spaces behind the existing buildings which lined the town’s thoroughfares, access usually being by footpaths and passage ways.
As the principal location, Aire Street was the main area of development but Hill Top, Cow Lane, Racca Green and Fernley Green and their environs, were increasingly utilised as sites of housing development.
While the term ‘Yard’ was a common appellation, variations such as ‘Cottages’, and ‘Houses’ were often used to identify such sites while names such as ‘Square’, ‘Place’, ‘Court, and ‘Grove’ were more elegant designations denoting what were often merely groups of houses in yards. Additional forms of housing stock identified by names such as ‘Buildings’, ‘Row’ , Terrace’ and ‘Parade’ are also listed here, for although some were linear developments, others were situated in the yards occupying the space to the rear of frontage properties.
The following list of dwellings and their locations gives dates by which the sites are known to have existed and not the date when they were founded.

PRE 1840: Anchor Yard, Baker Square, Beck Houses, Bells Yard, Brewers Houses, Bridge Court, Buck (Inn) Yard, Carpenter Yard, Darnbrooks Yard, Farnills Yard, Gaggas Yard, Hardys Yard, Island Court, Laidmans Yard, Millers Houses, Moorhouse Terrace, Pigeon Cote Houses, Rotherys Yard, Seatons Yard, Taylors Yard, Union Terrace / Row, Victoria Terrace.

1850: Absons Yard, Bone Mill Houses, Darnbrook Fold, East Parade, Gaol (Jail) Yard, Grove Terrace, Harkers Yard, Hills Yard, Hopwood Terrace, Kershaw Houses, Millers New Houses, Pottery Houses, Prospect Terrace, Providence Place / Row, Spring Terrace, Spurrs Yard, Spurriers Houses, Watch Houses, Windmill Houses.

1860: Albert Terrace, Bentleys Houses, Brick Yard Cottages, Carpenters Yard, Cliffs Yard, Fells Houses, Fewsters Yard, Horrocks Yard, Lees Houses, Lightowlers Yard, Longwoods Yard, Mariners Place, Moorhouse Buildings, Ocean Terrace, Pickhill Square, Ropery Walk, Sebastopol, Shepherds Bridge, South Parade / Square, Station Yard, Stillings Yard, Taskers Row, Tupmans Yard / Square, Woods Houses, Woodhalls Terrace.

1870: Aimwell Place, Barton Cottages, Cowards Yard, Green Head Cottages, Hepworths Yard, Johnsons Yard, Leander Buildings, Metcalfes Cottages, Morrills Yard / Square, Sauls Yard, Shaws Yard, Sunny Bank Yard, Tithe Barn Yard, Waggon & Horses (inn) Yard, Whitley Square, Wilcocks Yard, Woodhalls Square.

1880: Garden Cottages, Harkers Cottages, Moons Yard, Nantes Cottages, Plymouth Grove, Smiths Yard, Teazer Terrace.

1890: Armitages Yard, Adams Buildings, Bedford Place, Belle Vue Place, Beulah Place, Bridge Houses, Calder Cottages, Carters Square, Cawthornes Yard, Commercial (Inn) Yard, Cramptons Yard, Cromptons Buildings, Dickensons Yard, Dukes Buildings, East View, Elm Villas, Finneys Yard, Garlicks Cottages, Haikings Yard, Heys Row, Hopewell House, Howcroft Buildings, Manor Yard, Oak Cottages, Police Yard, Prospect Terrace, Ramsgate Place, Rising Sun (Inn) Yard, Robshaws Yard, Roydes Yard, Shays Yard, Steads Yard, Staffords Yard, Swales Yard, Thorpes Yard, Trees Yard, Union Place, Vale Head Cottages, Washend Yard, Wesley Terrace.

Terry Spencer

INDEX | A-B | C-D | E-F | G | H | I-J | K-L | M-N | O | P | Q-R | S | T-U | V-W | YARDS |

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