East Keswick is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

City of Leeds The City of Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Leeds and the towns of Farsley, Garforth, Guiseley, Horsforth, Morley, Otley, Pudsey, Rothwell, W ...

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 ...

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. It lies four miles south west of

Wetherby Wetherby () is a market town and civil parish in the City of Leeds district, West Yorkshire, England, close to West Yorkshire county's border with North Yorkshire, and lies approximately from Leeds City Centre, from York and from Harrogat ...

. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 1,146.

Etymology

The name of East Keswick is first attested in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086, in the forms ''Chesinc'' and ''Chesing''. This name comes from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

words ''cēse'' ('cheese') and ''wīc'' ('dwelling, specialised farm'), and thus once meant 'farm specialising in cheese production'. The ''ch-'' spelling in the Domesday Book reflects the usual Old English pronunciation (also found in modern English ''cheese''). Subsequent attestations, however, reflect the modern pronunciation the earliest being ''Keswic'' and ''Keswich''. This reflects the influence of

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

pronunciation on the local language.Harry Parkin, ''Your City's Place-Names: Leeds'', English Place-Name Society City-Names Series, 3 (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 2017). The additional element ''East'' is first attested in twelfth-century forms such as ''Estkeswyck''. It seems to have been added to distinguish the villages from other places called Keswick, such as the nearby

Dunkeswick Dunkeswick is a hamlet in Harrogate District, North Yorkshire, just north of the River Wharfe, off the A61, around a kilometre north of Harewood and two kilometres south of Kirkby Overblow. Etymology The name of Dunkeswick comes from the Old ...

Amenities

The village has two churches (one Methodist, one Anglican), a butcher, village hall, and two pubs: the Old Star, which is Grade II listed, and the Duke of Wellington. A third pub, the Travellers' Rest, situated just outside the village, closed in the 2000s. After lying derelict for several years, the Traveller's Rest is now a children's nursery. The village had a school, but this closed in 1990, leaving the nearest school in Bardsey. The village's Post Office closed in the mid-2010s.

Conservation

The village is a conservation area surrounded by farmland. Its history has been chronicled in a Millennium Book and unusually it enjoys its own Wildlife Trust which manages large tracts of local land.

Transport

The village is situated close to the A58 road between

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

and

. The

Transdev Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport. It has operations in 17 countries and territories as of November 2020. History The group was formed by the merger of V ...

X99 route serves the village connecting it with Leeds, Wetherby and surrounding villages. There are no rail links close by.

Notes

Bibliography

* (East Keswick Village Design Group)

External links

East Keswick village Website
* * * East Keswick was in this parish
East Keswick Wildlife Trust Website
Places in Leeds Villages in West Yorkshire Civil parishes in West Yorkshire {{WestYorkshire-geo-stub