
Cottingley is an urban area in the south-west of
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
,
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
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
.
Cottingley falls within
Beeston and Holbeck ward of the
Leeds City Council
Leeds City Council is the local authority of the City of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. Leeds has had a council since 1626, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1974 it has been a metropolitan borough council. It provides the ...
, and is classed as an area of Beeston. The area includes Cottingley Hall Cemetery and Crematorium, run by the Council.
Etymology
The etymology of ''Cottingley'' is uncertain, because the name may be an ancient one, deriving from
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
, or a more recent one.
The name is reliably recorded as a Leeds place-name only from 1538. If the name was given only in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, it was probably named after someone with the surname ''Cottingley'' (which in this case would originally have referred to
Cottingley, Bradford
Cottingley is a suburban village within the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England between Shipley and Bingley. It is known for the Cottingley Fairies, which appeared in a series of photographs taken there during the early 20th ce ...
, which is already 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
of 1086).
However, there is a record of a place called ''Cottingle'' from 1226 which may refer to the Leeds Cottingley rather than the Bradford one. If the Leeds name is indeed this old, it probably does derive independently from the same Old English words as its Bradford counterpart. If so, the first element is the
personal name
A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek ''prósōpon'' – person, and ''onoma'' –name) is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that on ...
''Cotta'' (the origin of which is unknown), and the second the suffix ''-ingas'' denoting a group of associated people. Thus the ''Cottingas'' were a group descended from or otherwise associated with someone called Cotta. This group name was then compounded with the Old English word ''lēah'' ('open land in a wood'). Thus the name once meant 'the clearing of the descendants of Cola'.
[Harry Parkin, ''Your City's Place-Names: Leeds'', English Place-Name Society City-Names Series, 3 (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 2017), 39.]
Cottingley Hall Estate
Most of Cottingley is a
council estate
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as 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 social housing. D ...
.
The Cottingley Hall estate was built in the 1970s, replacing an estate of temporary
prefabricated housing that had previously been on the site.
The estate was built on 'New Town Principles' (similar to
Bransholme in
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually shortened to Hull, is a historic maritime city and unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Est ...
), the estate is set around a series of ''cul de sacs'', segregating large volumes of traffic from housing and pedestrians. This method of building has often been criticised as creating a 'rabbit warren', impractical for the local police. Although on larger estates of similar style this causes a problem, the effects on Cottingley have been minimal.
The two tower blocks (
Cottingley Towers and Cottingley Heights) situated on a hill at the centre of the estate were at the time Leeds's tallest flats. They were built in 1972 and refurbished in 1989.
Amenities
Cottingley railway station serves the area. It is situated on the
Leeds to Huddersfield line and was opened in 1988. The Church in Cottingley is a Methodist one, part of a building which is also a community centre.
The local school is Cottingley Primary Academy.
Adjacent to the cemetery is Junction 1 Retail Park which includes a B&Q warehouse, a Burger King, a B&M store, The Food Warehouse and A Paw Prints pet shop which all three opened in 2019. The Aldi supermarket and Maplins closed down in June 2018. There is a small precinct on the estate, this did have a pub, the Cottingley Arms but this has been closed a number of years. There are a small number of shops in the precinct. The
White Rose Shopping Centre
The White Rose Centre is a shopping centre in the Beeston area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It spans two floors and is near the M621 motorway. It takes its name from the White Rose of York, the traditional symbol of Yorkshire. Mos ...
is a short walk away.
Gallery
File:Cottingley Cemetery Chapel 17 Nov 2017.jpg, The Chapel in Cottingley Hall Cemetery
File:Dulverton Gardens Cottingley 17 Nov 2017.jpg, Houses in Cottingley Hall Estate
References
{{Reflist
External links
Cottingley Primary School website
Places in Leeds
Twin towers