West Ella is a small village in the civil parish of

Kirk Ella Kirk Ella is a village and civil parish on the western outskirts of Kingston upon Hull, approximately west of the city centre, situated in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The parish includes West Ella. Kirk Ella has been a village sinc ...

west of Kirk Ella settlement, within the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

, England, on the eastern edge of the

Yorkshire Wolds The Yorkshire Wolds are low hills in the counties of the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Yorkshire in north-eastern England. The name also applies to the district in which the hills lie. On the western edge, the Wolds rise to an escarpment wh ...

, approximately west of the city of

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-ea ...

. The village lies on West Ella Road, between Kirk Ella and

Swanland Swanland is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire in England. The village is about to the west of Kingston upon Hull city centre and north of the Humber Estuary in the foothills of the Yorkshire Wolds on the B1231 road. ...

– it was beautified by the owners the Sykes family in the 19th century, and as a consequence much of the area is now a conservation area, with many

listed buildings In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. In the two decades after the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the village expanded, more than doubling the housing stock, mainly high quality detached dwellings, with much of the new housing along an additional road, Elveley Drive, running north. West Ella is considered to be one of the most exclusive and desirable villages to live in the

Geography

The small village of West Ella is around roughly west of the traditional village centre of

; much of the village's housing is located on the east-west West Ella Road from Kirk Ella to Swanland, there is also housing north towards Riplingham Road along Elveley Drive. The village lies in the eastern foothills of the

and is at between above sea level, rising westward.Ordance Survey Sheet 293 1:25000 2006 Most of the village along West Ella Road is a conservation area, due to the picturesque nature of the village; the area is richly treed, and hedged with associated wildlife. The village is separated from its neighbours on all side by open land, coppices and the golf course of Hull Golf Club. Directly west of the village is the route of the modern A164. Together with the adjacent village of

, West Ella forms 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Kirk Ella; and is within the Parliamentary constituency of

Haltemprice and Howden Haltemprice and Howden is a constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by David Davis, a Conservative who was also Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union until h ...

. West Ella, with Cottingham, Willerby, Kirk Ella,

Anlaby Anlaby is a village forming part of the western suburbs of Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the civil parish of Anlaby with Anlaby Common. History Anlaby is recorded in the ''Domesday Book'' as "U ...

, and

Anlaby Common Anlaby Common is former common land, now an outer suburb of Kingston upon Hull. The area includes the residential areas which are located on the western urban fringe of Hull; the B1231 road (Hull Road/Springfield Way) passes through all of Anla ...

and the town of Hessle was once part of a district of

Haltemprice Haltemprice is an area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, directly to the west of Hull. Originally an extra-parochial area, it became a civil parish in 1858, in 1935 it was expanded by the combination of the urban districts of Cottingham, ...

History

The name has been interpreted to mean "Aelf(a)'s Western Woodland Clearing", and be

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 ...

in origin; there is evidence of human activity in the area from the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

period, and later during the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

and

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered was ...

periods. Of four references to "Ella" 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 ...

it is thought that one refers to West Ella, either as a village of 20 or 5 persons. Writers in the 19th century speculated that the names of nearby features, ''Kerry Pits'' (south-east of the village) and ''The Lunds'' (north-east, now a golf course) were etymological evidence of druidic activities in the area; "Kerry" being postulated to derive from "cyric" (place of worship); "lund" meaning grove, a reference to a (druidic) grove. The fields around Kirk Ella, West Ella and Willerby were

enclosed Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

in by acts of 1796 and 1824. Unlike its eastern neighbour

no movement of Hull merchants to, or pattern of construction of large houses took place in West Ella during the 18th and 19th century – in 1801 the villages population of 79; in 1851 the population was 1851. The only large house in the village was, and is West Ella Hall, built ; the house became the property of Joseph Sykes (see Sykes family of Sledmere) in 1756 who improved the place, enclosing the grounds. The original two storey four bay house was extended on each side in the 1770s, with further extensions in 1800, early 1800s and 1884. The village of West Ella was 'Gothicised' by its owners the Sykes family in the 19th century – with houses receiving both Tudor and Gothic details – the majority or buildings date from the early or mid 19th century; the remainder from the mid or late 18th century; the ''Ancient Manor House'', has a datestone of 1753. As a result of the beautification many of the 19th century village buildings are now

and/or listed on the National Record of the Historic Environment as of heritage interest. One, ''Jasmine Cottage'', was altered with the loss of much of the original Gothicisation in the 1970s. West Ella Methodist Church

In 1850 the village consisted of a single street, with West Ella Hall and its large grounds at the east end on the south side; the Manor House off a short track to the south; and less than twenty other buildings. A Weslyan Methodist church was built 1895, in other respects development of the village was unchanged at the beginning of the 20th century. During the first half of the 20th century there was little building growth in the village. By the end of the 1930s the urban spread of Kirk Ella had begun to expand westwards along West Ella Road. By the end of the 1940s this growth had reached West Ella, with substantial garden houses all along the south side of West Ella Road between the two villages; new housing had been developed in West Ella at the west and east ends, also of a substantial nature of detached houses with large gardens. By the 1960s a new road and housing estate had been built north of the original village : ''Elveley Drive'' and ''The Fairway'', in the area of plantation known as Long Drive Wood; by the beginning of the 1970s this had been extended connecting northwards to Riplingham Road. This extent of development remained mostly unchanged to the present (2006).

Notable people

* Eddie Healey, billionaire businessman, lived at West Ella Hall.

References

Sources

* * * * *

External links

{{authority control Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire