Ilkley: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Ilkley is a town in the metropolitan borough of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, built on the south bank and valley of the River Wharfe in Wharfedale.

Geography and Location

Aerial map

Overview

Ilkley is a prosperous town with a resident population of 13,828, as measured by Census 2001. It lies in a wide valley and is surrounded by arable farmland and moorland.

The town has a thriving town centre, much of the architecture of which is of Victorian design from a time when Ilkley was promoted as a spa town; consequently it is aesthetically pleasing, emphasised by the width of the main streets (Brook Street, and The Grove) which - especially in the latter case - appear purpose designed to enable visitors to promenade.

It has little else by way of industry or commerce, though it is the UK home of The Woolmark Company and its development laboratory.

The moors above and to the south of the town are the location for a famous folk song, On Ilkley Moor baht 'at ("On Ilkley Moor without a hat").

The southern skyline is dominated by the millstone grit outcrops known as the Cow and Calf Rocks, which offer a number of rock climbing routes of up to about 25 metres height.

The town is 700 feet above sea level, with the river and pastoral farmland to the north, and Rombald's Moor (also known as Ilkley Moor), a bracken and heather moorland with rocky outcrops, to the south.

The River Wharfe runs through the north extent of the town from west to east, and is crossed by four bridges, in order: a 16th century three-arched stone bridge, now closed to road traffic; a nineteenth century single span wrought iron bridge, a suspension bridge for foot traffic only (a set of concrete stepping stones) and a prefabricated steel arched box girder bridge. The river is prone to flooding the sports fields (and a few houses) that now occupy watermeadows.

Nearby villages are Denton, Burley in Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey, Middleton, Addingham, and Addingham Moorside.

The town is within the travel-to-work radius of Leeds and Bradford, each about 16 miles away and with a railway connection offering about 35 trains to each destination per day. The railway, before the Beeching axe, also connectioned to Addingham, Bolton Abbey, and Skipton to the west, and to Otley, Pool-in-Wharfedale, meeting the main Leeds to Harrogate line at Arthington.

The area around Ilkley has been continuously settled since at least the early Bronze Age, around 1800 BC; cup and ring markings, and swastika carvings dating to the period have been found on rock outcrops, and archeological remains of dwellings are found on the moor. The Romans built a fort named Olicana on a site now near the centre of the town, but with the exception of some few sections of wall, now covered by a centuries old manor house.

Three Anglo-Saxon crosses formerly in the churchyard of All Saints, but now removed into the church to prevent further erosion, date to the 13th century.

Although relatively inaccessible in the 17th and 18th century, the town gained a minor reputation for the efficacy of its water. In the nineteenth century it became established as one of the more fashionable spa towns, with the construction a mile to the east of the town of the vast Ben Rhydding Hydro or Hydropathic Establishment in 1840. The eastern part of the town is now called Ben Rhydding, after the Hydro, despite it having been demolished many years ago; the area was formerly known as Wheatley.

Development based on the Hydro movement, and upon the establishment of a number of convelescent homes and hospitals was accelerated by the establishment of a railway connections from Leeds and Bradford in 1865. In the twentieth century Ilkley has become a relatively wealthy dormitory town for the two nearby cities.