Allerton is a village within the

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan districts within metropolitan ...

of the

City of Bradford The City of Bradford () is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England, with the status of a city and metropolitan borough. It is named after its largest settlement, Bradford, but covers a large area which includes the towns and v ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, now increasingly part of the Bradford

conurbation A conurbation is a region comprising a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ca ...

. With a population of around 12,000, the village is situated 3 miles west-north-west of Bradford. Allerton was recorded in the Domesday Book as Wilsden-cum-Allerton. The local residents of the suburb pronounce it as ''Ollerton'', 'Ol' rather than 'Al'.

Geography and history

Allerton derives from Old English, and means an alder tree at a farm or settlement. Allerton is mentioned as a settlement worth 2 pounds, 10 shillings to the Lord, Ilbert of Lacy, in 1066. It is also known that the settlement was waste in the 11th century, probably due to the

Harrying of the North The Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate northern England, where the presence of the last House of Wessex, Wessex claimant, Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged An ...

that was led by William the Conqueror as a retaliation to Viking-influenced rebellions in the North of England at the time. Chellow Dene is a local beauty spot at the north of Allerton. It is a wooded valley with two Victorian reservoirs, and is a haven for local wildlife. A significant amount of the village, mostly towards the south, was built in the decades following the Second World War as

council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...

and thus it contains over half of the population of the Thornton and Allerton ward, towards the west of

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

. In 1825, on the eastern fringes of the village with Bradford, the Bradford Public Dispensary opened at Darley Street, moved to Westgate as the Bradford Infirmary in 1843. The hospital became the Bradford Royal Infirmary (known as BRI to locals) in commemoration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. This joined the National Health Service in 1948. Seabrook Potato Crisps was founded in 1945 in Bradford and the company opened its first factory in Allerton in 1956 when Charles and Colin Brook converted the old Allerton liberal club into their factory. The company's Allerton factory closed in 2004 and was finally demolished in 2015 following a fire, in 2016 an Aldi store was built on the site, production then moved to the company's Princeville site, also in Bradford. A new housing development on the immediate western edge of the village - known as Heron's Reach - consisting of nearly 300 houses, began construction at the end of 2016. The development had previously been cancelled following opposition from local ward councillors and residents, and remains controversial, due to its situation on a green belt site.

Governance

Allerton has been within the boundaries of the

since 1974 as part of the Thornton and Allerton electoral ward. It falls within the parliamentary constituency of

Bradford West Bradford West is a List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies, constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament since 2015 United Kingdom gene ...

, a Labour

safe seat A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combinat ...

. Allerton currently has three Labour councillors, who preside over the entire of the Thornton and Allerton wards, whose population primarily are within the village.

Notable people

* Dean Cavanagh (born 1966), writer for screen, film and theatre * Nicky Evans (born 1979), actor appearing as Roy Glover in ''Emmerdale'' and Shane Maguire in ''Shameless'' * Kimberley Walsh (born 1981), singer from

all-female band An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While ...

Girls Aloud

References

External links

* * Areas of Bradford {{WestYorkshire-geo-stub

Geography and history

Governance

Notable people

See also

References

External links