Micklethwaite is a village in the

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Bingley Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is sited on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The town had a population of 18,040 at the United Kingdom ...

, in the

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

district, in the county of

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England. The village is separated from Bingley end of

Crossflatts Crossflatts is a ribbon development in Airedale along the old route of the A650 road between Bingley and Keighley, in the Metropolitan Borough of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The opening of the Aire Valley Trunk road in 2004 has see ...

by the

Leeds and Liverpool Canal The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool. Over a distance of , crossing the Pennines, and including 91 locks on the main line. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal has several small branc ...

. It is part of

ward, and population statistics are accounted for in the ward censuses.

History

Micklethwaite is north of Bingley, and east of Keighley. The village is mentioned 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

as being part of Bingley, among many other smaller settlements, and having six ploughlands and woodland. The village was recorded in the Domesday Book as ''Muceltu(o)it'', and derives from two

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

words of ''Mikill'' and ''þveit'', meaning ''Great Clearing''. Historically in the

wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

of Skyrack, the village was linked as part of Bingley, with the township being known as ''Bingley-with-Micklethwaite''. The village developed as an agricultural hamlet, but during the 19th century, worsted mills were opened up on the south side of the village adjoining the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The canal was opened in the late 1770s, but the current single-lane steel swing bridge dates from 1985. The bridge at Micklethwaite, known to the canal as bridge 199, is built on ancient road connect Bingley with Ilkley over Hawksworth Moor. The bridge was also an embarkation/disembarkation point for canal services to and from Skipton and the west, before the railway arrived in the valley. In 1875, the Methodist chapel was built to replace an earlier structure. Since 1974, the village has been located in West Yorkshire. Proposals for a new town council for Bingley in 2000, left Crossflatts and Micklethwaite out as the railway bridge in Crossflatts was the boundary between Bingley ward and Rombalds Ward, with Micklethwaite being tied to Ilkley. In April 2016, the new Bingley Town Council was created, with Micklethwaite coming under the remit of the new town council. The village is part of Bingley Ward, whose population at the 2011 census was 18,294. Part of the village was designated as a conservation area in 2005, which listed an accurate population of 270 people in Micklethwaite in 1996.

References

Sources

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External links

{{commons category, Micklethwaite, Bradford Villages in West Yorkshire Geography of the City of Bradford Bingley