Aberford

Aberford is a village on the outskirts of Leeds in West Yorkshire. It lies in the ancient Kingdom of Elmet, the name now given to the local parliamentary constituency. The name 'Aberford' is of Anglo-Saxon origin, approximately translating as 'the crossing over the river' and speaks to the once strategic importance of the settlement. Aberford is supposed to have once had a reputation for making pins.

Aberford was held to be the midway point when commuting between London and Edinburgh, being around 320km (200miles) distant from each city, lying as it does on the the Great North Road (labelled the A1 in more recent times). Until the construction of the A1 bypass starting at Hook Moor the village was part of the major North/South commuter route. Aberford's population growth has historically been around the road, and so the village has developed a linear, rather than nucleated, profile. Since the early 1990s much new housing has been constructed in the village, as increasing affluence allows people to move away from city centres to rural and suburban areas.

Some of the historic features of Aberford are:

• the White Swan Hotel, historically a staging post used by those travelling the Great North Road
• the Arabian Horse inn
• the buried remains of a Roman Fort beneath Aberford House
• the intersection between the Great North Road and the disused railway line known as the Fly Line (previously an old Roman road which joined Ermine Street near York), popular with ramblers
• bisecting the village a stream known as Cock Beck (previously Cock River) famous from the Battle of Towton.
• proximity to Hazlewood Castle
• proximity to Becca Hall, Lotherton Hall and the Parlington Estates

The Parlington Estate holds a monument to the independence of the United States, built by a member of the Gascoigne family. The estate was used as a tank proving ground during the Second World War. The Parlington estate holds many artefacts and constructions of interest, in particular the 'Dark Arch', a short tunnel along Parlington Lane reputed to be haunted.

The village also contains a number of functional buildings, such as Aberford C of E Primary School, affiliated with the St. Ricarius Parish Church of England adjacent to it. The school was originally a tithe barn. Towards the southern boundary of the village lie the Aberford Almshouses, originally built as a folly, later used as an asylum, and occupied more recently by a variety of business interests. At the northern boundary lies the A64 road from Leeds to York and Scarborough.

Geologically Aberford lies slightly east of the narrow Basal Sandstone boundary between central Leeds' soft Coal Measures and much harder Magnesium Limestone deposits, and sits in an area shaped heavily by subsidence of the underlying Coal Measures.

External Links

• A somewhat out-of-date Aberford 'homepage'
• Leeds's geology
• Aberford C of E School
• Roman Roads in Britain (large map, recommmended that this is opened in a separate window)
• Details on the Great North Road