Headingley | |
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The centre of Headingley |
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Headingley shown within West Yorkshire | |
OS grid reference | SE278362 |
Metropolitan borough | |
Metropolitan county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | LEEDS |
Postcode district | LS6 |
Dialling code | 0113 |
Police | West Yorkshire |
Fire | West Yorkshire |
Ambulance | Yorkshire |
EU Parliament | Yorkshire and the Humber |
UK Parliament | |
Headingley is a suburb of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. It is approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is notable for being the location of the Beckett Park campus for Leeds Beckett University and Headingley Stadium.
Headingley is first mentioned in the Domesday Book as Hedingelei or Hedingeleia in 1086 where it is recorded that Ilbert de Lacy held 7 carucates (about 840 acres) of land. The name is thought to derive from Old English Head(d)inga 'of the descendants of Head(d)a' + lēah 'open ground', thus meaning "the clearing of Hedda's people". Headda has sometimes been identified with Saint Hædde. However, a stone coffin found near Beckett Park in 1995 suggests there may have been an earlier settlement in late Roman or post-Roman times.
From Viking times, Headingley was the centre of the wapentake of Skyrack, or Siaraches, the "Shire oak". The name may refer to an oak tree that was used as a meeting place for settling legal disputes and raising armies. An ancient oak, said to be the Shire Oak, stood to the north of St Michael's Church until 1941, and gives its name to two pubs, the Original Oak and the Skyrack.
During the 13th century William de Poiteven gave land in Headingley to Kirkstall Abbey, and in 1341 the remainder of the township of Headingley-cum-Burley was given to the monastery by the then owner, John de Calverley.
A map of 1711 shows Headingley as having a chapel, cottages and farmsteads scattered around a triangle of land formed by the merging of routes from north, west and south. Enclosed fields were situated around the settlement with a large tract of common land, Headingley Moor, to the north. In an 1801 census, Headingley's population is given as 300.