Linton 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 ...

of Collingham, in the

City of Leeds Leeds, also known as the City of Leeds, is a metropolitan borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in West Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Leeds and the towns of Farsley, Gar ...

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

, in

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. It is south-west of Wetherby on the north bank of the

River Wharfe The River Wharfe ( ) is a river in Yorkshire, England originating within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. For much of its middle course it is the county boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. Its valley is known as Wharfedale. ...

, Collingham is on the opposite bank.

History

Little is known of the early history of the village, but archaeologists have dated more than 8,000 local flints to between 10,000 and 2000 BC, and crop marks round the village point to ditched enclosures and field systems in the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

period (800 BC – 410 AD). Roman artefacts have been found and in 1936 a Roman burial site was identified to the north of the village. 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 ...

, where it is given a higher value than Wetherby. The Anglo-Saxon place name means "flax farm". There was a now-vanished medieval chapel in the village, possibly founded by the Percy family, once the landowners. ''A Topographical Dictionary of England'' (ed. Samuel Lewis 1848) calls it "a township, in the parish of Spofforth, Upper division of the wapentake of Claro, W. riding of York, 1¾ mile (W. by S.) from Wetherby; containing 169 inhabitants. The township comprises by computation 1030 acres. The village is situated on the north side of the vale of the Wharfe. A rent-charge of £257. 10. has been awarded as a commutation for the tithes. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans." A correspondent writing in the ''Leeds Mercury'' on 8 September 1874 notes, "On the opposite side of the Wharfe rom Collingham perched on the hillside, is the picturesque village of Linton, the most conspicuous object being a neat Wesleyan chapel." According to ''Kelly's Directory'' of 1893, Linton had four farms, a school (founded about 1859, later a church and now a dwelling house), a manor house ( but much altered), and a public house, the ''Windmill Inn''. The population of Linton in the 1920s was a mere 130. The golf course on Linton Ings opened in 1910. The architect William Alban Jones was responsible for several houses built in the

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

style round the old village centre in the 1920s, and also for the Memorial Hall (1947). In 1931 the parish population was 393. The Grade II listed Linton Bridge was built over the River Wharfe in the early to mid-19th century. It was closed in December 2015 after being damaged by flood water in the aftermath of Storm Eva, but reopened in September 2017.

Governance

Linton was a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in the ecclesiastical parish of Spofforth. In 1866 Linton became a

until 1 April 1937 when it was abolished and merged with Collingham and Wetherby.

Facilities

Road sign with Grid Reference - geograph

The ''Windmill Inn'' in Main Street includes a restaurant. There is no shop or school. Wetherby Golf Club is situated in Linton. The historic Wood Hall Hotel and Spa ( Hand Picked Hotels) lies on the outskirts; it has function rooms and health-club facilities. The Memorial Hall has a car park and tennis courts.

Worship

The village no longer has a place of worship. It is part of the

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

ecclesiastical parish of Wetherby with Linton, served by St James's Church in Wetherby. A community of

Carmelite The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

nuns occupy a modern house near Wood Hall.

Notable people

In birth order *

Owen Lattimore Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of '' Pac ...

(1900–1989), an American scholar of

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, lived here in the 1960s while the first Professor of Chinese at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. * Geoffrey Appleyard (1916–1943), an army officer of commandos decorated in World War II, was brought up in Linton.Gordon Brown (2008), ''Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Courage by Ordinary People in World War Two''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. . * Ian Appleyard (1923–1998), brother of Geoffrey, was a rally driver and ornithologist.

References

External links

* *Linton Village Society, a preservation group, has a website
Retrieved 22 September 2012.
*The Design Statement contains several photographs
Retrieved 22 September 2012.
{{authority control City of Leeds Villages in West Yorkshire Areas of Wetherby Former civil parishes in West Yorkshire Wharfedale