AGUIA COTTAGE
Built in 1862, this house, situated in Primrose Vale, was the residence of Knottingley sea captain, John Martin, formerly of Tupmans Square, Racca Green, as identified by a cache of documents discovered at Aguia Cottage in 1981. The name of the house was also that of a 57 ton sloop built in 1884 of which Martin may have been the master.

AIMWELL PLACE
A long demolished terrace of houses which stood next to the shipbuilding yard of William Worfolk at Skew Bridge. The row of buildings were named after the 57 ton sloop built by Worfolk for William Moorhouse in 1838.

AIRE STREET
The oldest and principal thoroughfare in Knottingley, running parallel to the river from which it takes its name. Both residential and commercial, the Street was the hub of activity within the town until the mid twentieth century when a combination od social and economic change resulted in its decline. An ill conceived and disastrous redevelopment scheme in the mid 1960s resulted in the wholesale demolition of the Street so that today nothing remains to indicate its former importance and prestige.

AMPITHEATRE The
Situated on land belonging to British Waterways lying between Jacksons Bridge and Gaggs Bridge adjacent to the canal at the south side of Hill Top, the amphitheatre was designed as the result of a collaboration between British Waterways and the pupils of Knottingley High School. The structure was built by the Wakefield division of the Groundwork organization at a cost of £60,000 and opened for public use in 1998. Thereafter the site provided a venue for a diverse public activities but in Spring 2004 the structure was extensively vandalized as a result of which it was closed to the public on safety grounds. At the time of writing, the future of the amphitheatre is uncertain.

ARCADE The
A group of shops and offices standing at the south side of Hill Top east of the junction of Weeland Road and Headlands Lane. The property was built by the local firm of McLauchlan & Co., in the early 1960s and part of the complex occupies the site of the former workhouse.

ASH GROVE
The site in Cow Lane has been a doctors’ surgery fro about 200 years. It was also the site of the Cow Lane brewery during the period c1830-56 when the medical practitioner, William Bywater, was resident there. The name Ash Grove was not introduced until the last quarter of the nineteenth century when Dr. Percival moved tp Knottingley from Leeds and named the site after his former residence there.

ASHES CLOSE
This location does not feature in the Enclosure Award Schedule of 1793 but is recorded in the ratebooks of the township in 1857 and 1859. By that time, however, the town had been surveyed anew and a new map of the town drawn for rate valuation purposes. Unfortunately, the map subsequently disappeared and the name itself became defunct. Consequently, it is not possible to identify the location of Ashes Close, the name of which presumably derives from its nearness to a group of ash trees.

ASHLEY HOUSE
The residence of the Cliffe family, shipbuiders, at Low Green, approaching Skew Bridge. The shipyard and house were later owned by John Garlick, a former apprentice of Cliffe. The house was ultimately incorporated into the shipbuilding yard of John Harker & Co., Ltd., and the former residence was used as a planning office but eventually demolished.

AUSTRALIAN POTTERY The
Built in the late 1850s by Lewis Woolf on a site adjacent to the Knottijngley Pottery which he had recently purchased. The pottery, situated at the foot of Ferrybridge Hill, was built to capitalize on the booming colonial trade, as shown by the name. Woolf’s son and successor, Sydeny Woolf, became the M.P for Pontefract Borough in 1880. A decline in trade overstretched his financial resources and he was made bankrupt and had to resign his seat and surrender the ownership of the Australian Pottery in 1885 The pottery was next in the hands of the Horn Brothers until 1920 when it was sold to the Co Operative Wholesale Society who closed it in 1929. In 1947 the property was purchased by T.H. Newsome & Co., and has subsequently functioned as an oil refinery.

BACK LANE
A linear settlement such as the first phase of habitation at Knottingley usually consisted of peasant homes (tofts), fronted by land used for cultivation or pasture (e.g. the Flatts). Each of the rown of tofts had a small area of land at the rear, known as a croft, which was cultivated by the peasant family as a means of subsistence. Behind the peasant holding and running parallel to the front of the rown of tofts, was a pathway known as the back lane. The adjacency of the lane to the crofts resulted in the names Back Lane and Croft becoming synonymous at Knottingley. Interestingly, with the advent of metalled roads in the nineteenth century the made up part between Cow Lane and Primrose Hill was referred to as the Croft and the unmade dirt track west of Primrose Hill connecting with Chapel Street was known as Longwood’s Walk with the connecting path between this location and Aire Street being named as Back Lane.

BANK DOLE
Situated at the eastern end of the township in a bend of the riverbank, and marking the probable boundary of the original communal field system, the land was one of the hay meadows and the name is derived from the Old English term which signifies the division and apportionment of newly gained land into individual shares. The use of the term ‘dole’ by previous generations of local inhabitants as a name for unemployment benefit probably derives from this practice.

BANK DOLE REACH
The stretch of river between two bends was named a reach. Bank Dole Reach is that section of the river Aire extending in a northerly direction from Knottingley Lock to the West Ings, thus the lock is known as Bank Dole Lock.

BANKS CLOSE
An enclosure of land adjacent to Banks Lane (c.f. infra) occupying the space between that location and Weeland Road. Just over an acre in extent, the close originally formed and entity with Banks Garth, being bisected by a footpath, later designated Banks Lane. The existence of the footpath, effectively created a division which resulted in the two portions becoming separate plots. Banks Close was derelict and overgrown for several generations before being adopted for residential development in the 1960s. From the late 1930s the land was earmarked as the site for a cinema and plans were drawn up and approved but the advent of the Second World War, followed by the eventual decline of cinema attendances meant that the project never reached fruition.

BANKS GARTH
The term ‘garth’ means either an enclosure or garden and therefore the name may indicate a personal holding, originally of asserted land, the origins of which may lie in the land clearances of the twelfth century. Most probably, however, the name derives from a site for bean crops situated near a slope or shallow embankment constructed as a marker for a field boundary such as that formed by the nearby balk, Spawd Bone Lane.
The Garth was an enclosure of a little over two acres lying on the west side of Banks Lane and originally part of Banks Close but bisected by the footpath so that by the late eighteenth century the two elements were regarded as separate plots.
The field was first used by Knottingley Town Cricket Club in 1875 but thereafter the Club played at Howards Field until the turn of the twentieth century when the Banks Garth field became the regular venue for the Club’s matches. Messrs Bagley & Co., became the owners of the field in 1918 but it has continued to be tenanted by Knottingley Town Cricket Club to the present time.

BANKS HOUSE
Recorded in the Enclosure Award Schedule of 1793 as occupying two small sites at the northern end of Banks Lane. The Census of 1861 shows the site as that of the Anvil Inn, occupied by John Fell, described as an anchorsmith and Innkeeper. The Inn had been established by Fell late in the previous decade, presumably in the premises named Banks House, the identity of which is unrecorded from that time. By the 1890s however, a terrace of houses erected adjoining the Anvil Inn bore the name Banks Houses, presumably by association with the original Banks House.

BANKS LANE
Originally Banks Lane was the name given to that part of Weeland Road which may be identified as lying between the present Anvil Inn and the junction with the east end of Morley Lane. Following the development of Weeland Road and its increasing use by vehicular traffic, the footpath which ran behind the inn and terminated to the west of Morley Lane increasingly served as an important pathway providing access between Aire Street and the early common field system via England Lane and Spawd Bone Lane. Through common usage the name Banks Lane was transferred to the footpath, the former location becoming merely identified as Weeland Road. As late as the 1860s, however, the original route was commonly referred to as an ‘occupation road’, being used to access the agricultural land and limestone quarries lying to the south and west of the township. Until the 1960s the Banks Lane footpath was much used by pedestrians from the England Lane estate but with the demolition of Aire Street and the increase in car ownership the route became virtually disused and became overgrown by brambles on its most northerly section between Banks Garth cricket field and Jackson’s (Anvil) bridge. The route was subsequently reopened but is little used.

BARNCASTLE
Land situated in Longlands Field on which a barn-like structure may have stood or, alternatively, a peasant holding on which beans were grown and originally referred to as ‘bean acre’ but becoming corrupted to ‘barnacle’ before being further transformed as Barncastle.

BARNCASTLE BOTTOM
An area of land in excess of four acres lying within the South Field which probably derives its name from the fact that it is the lower of two parcels of land bearing the name Barncastle, the upper one being located off Spawd Bone Lane and the lower in the area of the present Warwick estate.

BARTONS COTTAGES
Cottages and homestead situated at Low Green and occupied by the Barton family throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the following one. The site was originally developed by the consolidation of strip holdings for residential and occupational use in the post feudal area. The Barton’s were joiners, cabinet makers and wheel wrights and in the mid nineteenth century George Barton held the contract to make coffins for the deceased paupers of the township. At the turn of the last century Edwain Barton was a horticulturalist but the last occupant, Mr Tom Barton, repaired cycles on the site. The cottages and workshops were demolished during the second half of the twentieth century.

BELL VUE COTTAGES
The name means ‘beautiful view’, a fairly common nineteenth century appellation. Probably named here for the vista of verdant meadowland and marsh surrounding the Marsh End site of this pair of houses when erected in the nineteenth century.

BENDLES HOUSE
Built at the north side of Bendles Field and occupying the site which now forms the eastern end of Weeland Crescent. Following the establishment of Bagley’s Glassworks in May 1871, the house was the home of John Wild, one of the founding partners, until his death in 1884. The house was gradually encompassed by the glassworks and was eventually sold to the Company and demolished to facilitate further expansion of the works early in the twentieth century.

BENDLES LANE
Originally part of the Racca lands, the site was an element of the early two field system in the early Middle Ages which following the breakdown of feudalism was exploited for its clay and limestone deposits/ The irregular landscape arising in consequence of sporadic excavation may have prompted the designation of the area as the ‘Bend Hills’, a term which was commonly used in the late eighteenth – early nineteenth century. The terms ‘Bendals’ and ‘Bendels’ which are also a feature of that period may merely be variant spellings of Bendles. In modern times the name is associated with the pathway which runs parallel to the south side of the canal and connects Weeland Road with Cow Lane but in earlier times the whole area lying west of Racca Green to the route of Weeland Road and between that roads southern flank and the present day Ropewalk, was known as the Bendles. Bendles Lane originally ran in a north-south direction and its earliest form was probably a headland separating the two field system. Prior to the last quarter of the nineteenth century the original Bendles Lane was part of a route connecting Racca Field Lane (Womersley Road) and Primrose Hill along which limestone was carted from the quarries at the south of the town to the staithes on the river bank. Folowing the establishment of the glassworks of bagley, Wild & Co., in 1871 and its subsequent expansion, the lane was incorporated into the glassworks yard, its southern end still forming the main entrance to the factory site.

BENDLES ROPEWALK
One of six ropewalks which were once located within Knottingley township, the Bendles Ropewalk was situated at the southern end of the original Bendles Lane on its eastern side. The earliest known owner was Samuel Atkinson who was also a brewer and the owner of the now defunct Roper’s Arms Inn which took its name from the proprietor’s occupation. The ropewalk was still in existence at the time of the construction of Christ Church vicarage on an adjacent plot in 1850 but was eventually closed down and the site absorbed into the glassworks complex of Bagley & Co.

BEN KALODYNE TERRACE
Something of a misnomer as the property consisted of two dwelling houses located at the forefront of Tupmans Yard, Racca Green, one of which was occupied by Captain Benjamin Tupman. The origin of the name is not known but Mr. Ron Gosney has posited the theory that it may have been derived from the fusion of Tupman’s forename with that of his wife who was Belgian born. The theory is lent further substance by the fact that Captain Tupman named one of his sailing ships ‘Kalodyne’, presumably in honour of his wife.

BETHEL The
A terrace of houses situated at the lower end of Aire Street close by the former Palace Cinema. The houses are sub divisions of the building known as Bethel which served as a mission house for mariners. The façade of the building had a plaque, subsequently covered by plaster, on which was inscribed the text of Genesis chapter 20 verse 19, “And He called the name of that place Bethel.” Oral tradition has it that the building was erected in 1811 and was originally intended to be a chapel. However, as the extant deeds only date from 1908 it is not possible to confirm the assertion.
A pair of brick built houses to the west of Womersley Road, one being the erstwhile residence of Lewis G. Creaser, a director of Bagley & Co., and K.U.D.C. Chairman 1942 & 1949, are also named Bethel House. Creaser also had a forbear named Bethel Creaser.

BEULAH PLACE
A disparate group of nineteenth century houses, mainly of rendered limestone construction, which stood slightly to the east of a row of three dwellings off Racca Field Lane (Womersley Road) in the former Racca Field, known as Field Cottages, situated close to the present railway crossing. Nothing is known of the original owner of the properties beyond the fact that the Old Testament name suggest a degree of religious fervour. Field Cottages and the adjacent Beulah Place were demolished in the second half of last century and the site is now occupied by Beulah Court Sheltered Housing complex.

BLACKBURN LANE
A latterday name for Cridling Park Road, running across the western edge of Knottingley Common and named from the association with the house and homestead built by John Blackburn in the late eighteenth century. C.f. Common Lane House, infra.

BLACKSMITH’S FORGES
In a developing township in an era of horse drawn transport, it is not surprising that a growing number of blacksmiths should feature within the town during the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century. Census returns record the number of resident blacksmiths between 5 in 1841 and 23 half a century later, although the latter figure also included those following their craft within the shipyards and in workshops of allied trades as opposed to roadside forges. By 1901 a dozen blacksmiths are listed and even as late as the mid twentieth century, two forges were operational ; those belonging to Birkett, off Banks Lane, and Swales, located on the canalside near Shepherds Bridge.

BOARD SCHOOLS The
Products of the Education Act of 1870. A local School Board had been established as early as 1872 and following an abortive attempt to commandeer the existing National School, premises were obtained opposite the church in Chapel Street in June 1874. The mixed Board School was housed in converted stables, the former stable yard forming the new school playground when the school opened in January 1875. Part of the money used to establish the school was provided from the sale of the defunct Knottingley Workhouse.
In 1885 a new board school was opened in the Holes, replacing a run down infants’ school, and this was followed by the erection of a new Board School on a site at Weeland Road which opened in 1894, the Chapel Street School being retained for use by boys and the Weeland Road school for girls. The former site was commonly known as ‘Low’ Board School; the latter as the ‘Top’ Board School. Eventually, under the aegis of the West Riding County Council Education Department, the system was changed with both schools adopting mixed pupilage, the Chapel Street school becoming an infants’ school, serving as a feeder for the Weeland Road Junior School.

BONE MILL GARTH
One of a series of small plots of land known as the Mill Closes, Bone Mill Garth was an enclosure situated near the bone mill which was located to the east of the King’s Mills, standing between William Shaw’s bone mill and the Mill Close dry dock adjacent to the river bank. Both the dry dock and the bone mill appear to have suffered adversely following the opening of the Aire & Calder Canal between Knottingley and Ferrybridge in 1826 and became defunct shortly afterwards. Another bone mill was situated between Longwoods Walk and Aire Street in the second half of the nineteenth century but nothing is known of the proprietor(s) and by 1890 the buildings were standing derelict.

BOTTOM FIELD
A furlong name for a portion of land within the great East Field and lying adjacent to the Racca Field to the north. The Bottom Field is now covered by part of the Broomhill housing estate. A part of the Bottom Field lying to the left side of Broomhill Avenue was used as an unofficial playground by children resident on the estate between the time of the construction of the first Council houses in the late 1920s and the building of the flats on the site as part of the extension of the estate in the mid 1950s.

BROCKHOLES
Peasant strips close to the site of badger setts located in the great South Field close to the edge of the field boundaries of Ferrybridge and Pontefract. The name also features in several additional areas of the town fields.

BROOKLYN HOUSE
A brick-built town house of the 1880s situated on the west side of Cow Lane between garden Lane and the Croft. The house is believed to have belonged to Captain William Johnson, a master mariner, who was a member of Knottingley Select Vestry from 1881-1891 and was nominated as Overseer of the Poor in 1874 and 1875 but was unelected.
In the early 1920s the house became the residence of Mr Harry Gregg of Gregg & Co., glass manufacturers, and during the 1950s was the home of Mr R Grayson, taxi proprietor.

BROOM HILL
A barely perceptible rise in the elevation of land lying to the east of Womersley Road, marked by the houses at the top end and named Broomhill Avenue is the site of the original Broom Hill which was so named from the abundance of the broom plant. The name is derived from the Old English brom’, indicating the antiquity of the site.

BULL HORN CLOSE
Named in ancient documents and in the Enclosure Award Schedule, this site is of great antiquity. The name may be derived from the Old English ‘hyme’, meaning a nook or corner of land and may therefore have acquired the Old English name ‘Bulherne’ because its shape suggested a beast’s horn. The allotment to Thomas Farnhill numbered as plot 412 in the South Field on the Enclosure Map of 1800 bears the exact shape of a bull’s horn and is named in the Schedule as Bull Horn Close.

BULLOCK CLOSE
Referred to in a document of 1675 this site may be named from the land where a bull was kept. The site does not appear under the name Bullock Close in the 1793 Enclosure Survey but is probably that named as Bullock, being a four acre rectangular plot lying north of the South Moor (Lane) Road near the town end of the former common land.

BURDLES
The name may be a derivative of ‘burnt land’, arising from the method of clearing stubs of shrubs and trees as part of the process of assortment in order to increase the amount of land for cultivation. Alternatively, the phonetic element of the name has much in common with ‘fardles’ and may derive from that word which meant a bundle or burden and may therefore have been an ironic adaptation, indicating poor quality land which was burdensome to work. The one acre enclosure was situated at the top end of the Bendles and was triangular shaped.

BUTLER BRIDGE
One of the original bridges constructed over the canal between 1820-26, providing access to the river from Hill Top and situated between Gaggs Bridge and Mill Bridge. The diversion of river traffic following the opening of the canal in 1826 resulted in the decline of the river trade and when it was decided to replace the original canal bridges of the town some decades later, it was also decided to demolish the largely redundant Butler Bridge. Elements of the foundations of the bridge may still be seen on the opposite side of the canal from the towpath just south of Kings Mills.

BUTLER GARTH
A three acre enclosure originally part of the Middle Field. The site is a personal place name, the Butler family being prominent residents within the township by the late eighteenth century.

BUTTLEBANK
The name is recorded in the sixteenth century. The original location is uncertain but the name may be one which earlier identified the site later known as Sunny Bank. Buttlebank may derive from the combination of the terms ‘butt’ and ‘bank’ which were common features found at the edges of the common fields. Alternatively, the ‘Buttle’ element may denote a bank where buttercups grew in profusion. Again, favouring a south facing site such as Sunny Bank.

BUTTS CLOSE
Not all furlongs were of precise geometric shape. The curvatures of some furlong boundaries meant that not all doles of land were rectangular but that some, located at the edges of the arable land were small irregularly shaped pieces known as gores or butts.

CANAL BRIDGES The
The cutting of the Aire & Calder Canal through Knottingley between 1820-26, necessitated the construction of a series of road bridges within the township. Of the seven principal bridges those known as Gaggs Bridge, Jackson Bridge and Butler Bridge were named after the families owning the land in their locality. The name of Shepherds Bridge is less certain and may be either a personal or occupational name. Cow Lane Bridge is self explanatory and likewise Skew Bridge which lies diagonally askew the canal near the eastern edge of the town. Calder Grange Bridge lies at the eastern extreme of the town.
Two minor bridges, the Mill Bridge adjacent to the Kings Mills, and Trundles Bridge, covering the canal junction at the northern end of Trundles Lane, were originally stone built but in the late twentieth century were replaced by more functional but less aesthetically pleasing steel bridges.
Butler Bridge, leading from Hill Top to the commercial and residential centre on the riverside below Kings Mills was demolished when the original canal bridges were replaced in 1877-78, at which time the crowns of the rebuilt Cow Lane Bridge, Shepherds Bridge and Skew Bridge, were raised to enable the passage of larger vessels beneath. Simultaneously. The access to the towpath at Shepherds Bridge was moved from the Sunny Bank side to the eastern side of the bridge.
In the 1990s work was undertaken to strengthen the Cow Lane, Shepherds and Skew bridges.

CATHOLIC CHURCH The
Knottingley became a Catholic parish in 1964 and the first Catholic Church was built on the Hill Top site of the former Ingram manor house. Within a few years the church was destroyed by an arson attack and the present one, dedicated to St Michael, was erected upon the same site in 1996.

CATTLELAITHES LANE
A lane on the western fringe of Knottingley, leading to the grazing or pastureland on the edge of the South Field near to the boundary with Darrington. The name is recorded as Cattle Layer in 1771 which probably derived from Cattleleases. More recently the location was referred to as Cattle Leys Lane. The word derives from the Old English ‘laes’ meaning meadowlands. After harvest the cattle were turned out into the great fields to graze the stubble and to manure the soil.

CHAPEL STREET
From its eleventh century foundation until 1725 the church dedicated to St Botolph served as a chapel of ease for the inhabitants of Knottingley which formed part of the parish of Pontefract, hence the designation of the street in which the church stood, as Chapel Street. Although the township was made a perpetual curacy in 1725, it remained part of the parish of All Saints, Pontefract, until 1789 by which date the street name was so well established that it remained unchanged thereafter.

CHARLES HOUSE
Originally a private residence situated at Fernley green close to the east end of the Liquorice lane, this property became a beerhouse known as the Beehive following the passing of the Wellington Act in 1830. Following the withdrawal of the licence in 1926 the premises were sold and for many years were used as offices by the adjacent coopers firm, declining into a state of dereliction before finally being demolished in the 1960s.

CHELSEA HOUSE
Standing at the junction of Aire Street, marsh End and Cow Lane, Chelsea House is one of three Knottingley residences, named after types of pottery and belonging to members of the Poulson family, local earthenware manufacturers. The other two residences are Dresden House (off Glebe Lane, Hill Top) and Wedgwood House (Ropewalk). The properties have long ceased to belong to the Poulson's. Chelsea House was latterly the residence of K.U.D.C. Chairman, Pilgrim Gross.

CHERRY TREE HOUSE
Situated at Low Green, this building was a pair of houses belonging to John Pickering by the late eighteenth century, having been a single unit at an earlier date.
The house may have been the original site of the Cherry Tree Inn for one Robert Pickering is listed as an innkeeper in 1752 and the relocation of the Cherry Tree Inn to a site at the junction of Cow Lane and Marsh End by the early nineteenth century under the proprietorship of James Pickering, may have enabled the former location, consisting of a public and a private area, to be converted into two separate dwellings.

CHESTNUTS The
The name of a large detached house which formerly occupied land lying between the Wakefield – Goole Road and Simpsons Lane, close to Cattlelaithes Lane, and named from the avenue of horse chestnut trees lining the long driveway.
The house was the residence of the Bagley family, glass manufacturers, in the late nineteenth century but was eventually owned and occupied by Mr Sam Gregg, a pattern maker, who is alleged to have won the house and the adjacent foundry in a poker game in the early 1900s. The new proprietor renamed the business as the Model Foundry and resided at the Chestnuts which served as a family home and business centre. The surrounding land included tennis courts, bowling green, and extensive flower beds, shrubberies and orchard. In the 1970s, Knottingley Council considered the purchase of the property for conversion into a youth club but the proposal never came to fruition and the estate was privately purchased, following which the house was demolished, the chestnut trees cut down and the land used for development as a private housing estate.

CHRIST CHURCH
As Knottingley developed residentially during the nineteenth century a separate ecclesiastical parish was created for East Knottingley and a new church, known as Christ Church, was built on land donated by Mrs Seaton and known as Seatons Croft.
The foundation stone was laid by William Moorhouse of Marine Villa who had been instrumental in obtaining funds to facilitate construction and the church was consecrated by the Archbishop of York in October 1848.
Oral tradition states that one of the masons employed in the construction of the church was Tom Sayers the famed bare knuckle champion of Great Britain.
In 1941 the two parishes of the town were reunited and Christ Church was deconsecrated in 1968 and demolished in the early 1970s.

CHURCH LANE
A lane leading from the peasant tofts and crofts in Aire Street to the demesne and sole entrance to the parish church in Chapel Street. Originally it was merely a dirt path connecting with the Back Lane but by the eighteenth century contained a number of dwelling houses. Today it is a flagged path lying between and running parallel to upper Aire Street and the new Croft road.

CHURCH STREET HOUSE
A large detached town house of the late eighteenth-early nineteenth century standing opposite the Chapel Street entrance to St Botolph’s Church. The property appears never to have had a formal name bestowed upon it. The house is referred to as Church Street House in 1872 but this name appears to have been for ease of identification rather than a formal designation of the dwelling which was the residence of the Jackson family by the 1830s and remained in their possession for almost half a century. The house was part of a complex of buildings which included stables, stable yard and outbuildings. In 1875 the newly established local School Board acquired the property and converted it for use as a schoolroom, teacher’s and caretaker’s residences and by the 1930s the house was in use as the W.R.C.C. Divisional Education Offices with a clinic standing at right angles to the schoolrooms. In the 1950s the house became the Knottingley Branch Library and the clinic section was used by Stephen House, a manufacturer of leather goods. When the premises were again vacated in the 1970s the former dwelling served briefly as the base of the Knottingley Boxing Club before passing into a period of abandonment and decline. The property was subsequently purchased and has been recently refurbished.

CLAYPIT CLOSE
A small two rood partition of a larger modern five acre field bearing the same name, the small portion presumably being the actual clay pit. This parcel of land was situated on the edge of the South Field at the boundary with Darrington parish and is probably the ‘Claywick’ site referred to below.

CLAYTON GARTH
Originally a selion or strip holding in the Low Field which was presumably identified by the surname of the landholder.

CLAYWICK CLOSE / LANE
The element clay comes from the Old English ‘Claeg’ whilst the Old English ‘wic’ indicates land used for a special purpose, in this case presumably, the extraction of clay for use in the making of domestic utensils. Claywick Lane was therefore the access way to a parcel of land with clayey soil. Claywick Close, also known as Claypit Close, was situated in the Middle Field near Waterfield Hill.

CLAYWOOD CLOSE
A plot of land adjacent to Claypit Close. The name Claywood clearly predates the clearance of trees in order to extend the area of the great South Field.

CLIFF SIDE
A misnomer for a location on the east side of Womersley Road. The edge of the cliff was originally a field balk, separating furlongs lying within the East Field of the common field system and the cliff was created by the excavation of the limestone underlying the adjoining land during the nineteenth century.

CLOSE The
Situated to the south side of Weeland Road at Hill Top, and bounded on the south side by the series of closes which now form Knottingley Playing Fields, this parcel of land was purchased early in the twentieth century by Tom Jackson, one of the founding partners of the glass container manufacturers, Jackson Bros., Ltd., upon which a detached residence was erected and named as The Close. The house was referred to colloquially as ‘Crooked Villa’ by many contemporaries who alleged, albeit without proof, that the building had been financed from money obtained from Victor Wild and the Allen brothers, Tom and William, who had originally formed part of the subsequently dissolved business partnership. The property was originally named as Jacksonville but was retitled when someone altered the name board to ‘Pinchville’ which action some ascribe to John Jackson’s habit of stopping a ½ hours pay from employees caught slacking or laughing.
In the 1960s, The Close was purchased by Knottingley Urban District Council and converted into the administrative offices of the Council. Following the reorganisation of local government early in the following decade, the K.U.D.C. was abolished and The Close became the property of the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council who subsequently used it as a Housing Department office.

COCK GARTH
A parcel of land a little over 3 acres in extent lying at the north side of the Croft near Cow Lane end and later known as the Orchard. The appellation is commonly used to denote the habitat of woodcocks and was probably an early clearing in which the birds settled in the evening and breeding season and were frequently netted to provide food.

COMMERCIAL DOCKYARD The
Situated in Cow Lane at the east end of the Bendles and occupying the land in front of the former Commercial (now Steam Packet) Inn from which the dockyard took its name, this shipbuilding and repair yard, also known as Carpenter’s Yard, was operated by Robert Garlick and later by John Branford who also had a canal carrying business, his hauling horses being kept in stables in the nearby Bendles. It was from this site that the first screw steamer, the Message, was launched in 1893.

COMMON The
The common land was situated at the eastern end of Knottingley and as its name implies, was wasteland held in commonality by the manorial inhabitants. The common was a most valuable area as it provided free grazing for livestock, roots, beech mast and nuts (pannage) for pigs, turf (turbury) for fuel and building purposes and firewood. The area of commonland extended eastwards from Knottingley as far as Hut Green (Eggborough) and was held in severalty by the inhabitants of Beal, Kellington, Stubbs and Whitley until its enclosure at the end of the eighteenth century. Today the bulk of the land is arable but to the north side of Common Lane there is some industrial activity, the two principal firms being a chemical works, established in the 1950s and Kellingley Colliery constructed in the following decade.

COMMON LANE
The pathway from Low Green providing access to the common or waste land at the east end of the township.

COMMON LANE HOUSE
A detached house situated at the west side of Cridling Park Lane at the edge of Knottingley Common. The house was built in the late eighteenth century by John Blackburn, a ships carpenter with workshop, stable, dovecote and brewhouse, and features in both the Enclosure Award (1793) and the Tithe Apportionment (1842). At the latter date it was occupied by Mary and Richard Blackburn, probably the widow and son of the builder. By the late 1850s the house and garden, comprising two roods 23 perches of land, belonged to Richard Blackburn but was occupied by one Samuel Gill. The holding passed briefly into the trusteeship of the Long family, resident at the Old (Wildbore) Manor House, Knottingley, and by the 1860s was in the hands of James Afflic, a descendant of the Blackburns. Between the 1870s and 1920 the owner was George William Carter, erstwhile brewer of Knottingley and was then obtained by George Burdin. Following his incapacity and eventual death the house was deserted and in the early 1940s provided a periodic hideaway for a couple of local Army deserters when sought by the military police. By the 1950s the property was in an advanced state of dereliction and was eventually demolished.
The house was never formally named. John Blackburn is said to have referred to it as ‘Ducalfield Hall’ and it was affectionately known as ‘Honeysuckle Cottage’ by Burdin. So strong was the association of the site with the former family that the adjacent Cridling Park Road, the exclusive entrance route to Near Park Farm prior to 1817, was renamed as Blackburn Lane.

CONGREGATIONAL (UNITED REFORMED) CHURCH
A group of nonconformist worshippers came to the township from Pontefract in 1804 using the cottage of Dame Gawthorpe until 1807 when a chapel was built in Gaggs Yard off Aire Street. By 1848 the chapel was too small and the present one was built in the Croft costing in excess of £1,000, including the price of the site. In 1955 major alterations were undertaken. The gallery was removed and the building was sub-divided horizontally, the church being on the upper floor and the Sunday School on the lower. There was also an adjacent Sunday schoolroom, used as a meeting room for church and public events. The room was demolished in the late 1950s when the Garden Lane area was developed for housing. The church has a graveyard which includes the grave of Dr William Bywater, a prominent medical practitioner and businessman within the town in the mid nineteenth century.

CO-OPERATIVE STORE The
A large red brick building of the early twentieth century situated on the roadside at Hill Top. With the advent of local supermarket shopping in the 1960s the trade of the Co-operative store declined and the building was closed and demolished. Ironically Morrisons supermarket occupies the site today.

COW LANE
One of the principal manorial routes, this lane connected the primary area of settlement (Aire Street) with the secondary area of settlement at Racca Green and the tertiary area at Fernley Green.  Cow Lane provided access for livestock to the grazing and watering areas at the riverside. Clear documentary evidence exists indicating the embodiment of ancient grazing rights in individual holdings in the post feudal era with citizens dwelling in Racca Green and Cow Lane being allocated “horse or beast gates” on Brotherton Marsh.

CRIDLING PARK ROAD
An unmade cart and bridle track running across the western edge of Knottingley Common. Prior to 1817 when an alternative route leading off Womersley Road was laid, the Cridling Park Road was the sole means of access to Near Park Farm. The new route proving more popular, the older road was less used and following the establishment of a house and homestead by John Blackburn in the late eighteenth century, the lane formerly known as Cridling Park Road became known as Blackburn Lane.

CROOKED FAR SHOTT
A landholding (shutt, or shott being a variant name for such an area customarily about ten acres in size) situated in the Longlands furlong of the great South Field. The term ‘far’ comes from the Old English ‘feor’ indicating land at some distance from the settlement area, as confirmed by reference to the Enclosure Map. The site has a clearly discernible bow or curve along its length which explains the prefix ‘Crooked’. The terms ‘Fur’ and ‘Fir’ which are also found in references to this land may be ascribed to linguistic distortions over time rather than being topographical or locational characteristics.

DARK LANE
A lane also known as Narrow Lane, originally a footpath connecting the demesne land with the highway to Pontefract and the South Field beyond and now erroneously regarded as the upper part of Holes Lane, being the unmade part located to the west of Ferrybridge Road.  The original name probably arose in consequence of the shade cast by the overhanging trees which lined either side of the narrow path.

DECONTAMINATION CENTRE The
Standing next to the Salvation Army citadel, Weeland Road, this building was erected about 1940 as a precautionary measure to counter the possible use of gas or other chemical elements by enemy aircraft in raids on the civilian population. In the post war period the building was used as a W.R.C.C. dental clinic and eventually sold as commercial premises.

DEMESNE
Manorial land reserved for the exclusive use of the lord of the manor and worked by the inhabitants of the manor on a day labour basis in return for land held of the lord. At Knottingley the demesne was situated between Weeland Road at Hill Top and the river and reached from a point slightly east of Chapel Street to the western fringe of The Holes.

DEPOT ROAD / FIELD
The name given to the roadway which was constructed in the mid nineteenth century to provide access to the coal staithes alongside the Wakefield-Goole railway line from Racca Field Lane (Womersley Road) to the east and England Lane to the west, bisected by Middle Lane. The road, which followed the line of a medieval footpath crossing Racca Field, curved in a semi-circle round an extensive area of land known as Depot Field at the eastern edge of which stood the Pickling Tank.  The road was owned and maintained by the L.M.S. Railway Company and public access was stopped each New Year’s Day morning by workmen who placed a chain across the ends of the road to assert the Company’s legal control.

DEREINGS
An enclosure of land which prior to assortment was associated with presence of deer.

DOG GEORGE’S
Now an outbuilding of Thistleton farm. Dog breaking was a fringe occupation in the town in the mid nineteenth century with Henry Smith and his son, Thomas, being listed in the 1851 census as resident on the site and subsequently at Racca Green. The site name presumably derives from a former resident dog breaker named George Smith, the family being recorded at Common Lane end in the early nineteenth century with Edward Smith listed as a gamekeeper and dog trainer in 1828.

DOG TAIL CLOSE / FLATT
At first consideration a name induced by topographical imagery but more likely to derive from the profusion of dog-tail grass on or adjacent to the site. Dog Tail Close was a furlong in the South Field but an alternative one acre site in the Low Field was known as Dog Tails, perhaps from the original strips of land.

EAST PARADE
A large block of nineteenth century dwellings situated on the river bank at the west end of the Flatts close by the Kings Houses and probably named from the fact that they occupied the most easterly portion of the buildings of upper Aire Street located between Chapel Street and the Flatts.
East Parade was demolished in the 1960s as part of the Aire Street redevelopment scheme.

ELIM TABERNACLE
A brick-built church standing in Tithe Barn Road bearing the date 1882 on the foundation stone which is so weathered that all other details has been obliterated. The building was erected as the base of the Red Ribbon Army following a breakaway from the Salvation Army, itself but recently established within the town and also identified as the Red Ribbon Army. A newspaper report dated 1893 refers to the celebratory service to mark the church anniversary indicating that the church opened in 1893.
The breakaway group became identified as the Tabernacle Free Church circa 1910 and between 1928-30 as the Tabernacle Full Gospel Church. In the latter year the group was incorporated into the Elim Foursquare Alliance and was then named the Elim Church, although still referred to by many locals as the Tabernacle.

ELMHURST
Location unknown but land by a copse, presumably predominated by elm trees. Derived from the Old English ‘hyrst’.

EMMA BALK
As the term ‘balk’ implies, a division between two cultivated strips of land. Name and location unknown.

ENGLAND CLOSE
A two acre enclosure formed by consolidation of peasant strips located within the Middle Field alongside Racca Field Lane.

ENGLAND HOUSE
Situated in upper Aire Street at the junction with Back Lane, this property was owned for over 40 years from the 1830s by Francis England, a grocer and maltster. By the mid twentieth century the house with shop was in the possession of the Benton family and served for two decades as the Knottingley Post Office before the building was demolished as part of the Aire Street regeneration scheme in the late 1960s.

ENGLAND LANE
The name probably derives from the Old English ‘inland’ meaning assarted land taken in and enclosed by an individual before being incorporated into the open field system by extension of the common field. Such intakes were usually made on the fringe of the waste or common and assuming that Spawd Bone Lane once formed the most southerly boundary of the manorial fields, the route leading beyond the common field to the assarted enclosures acquired the name England Lane.
With the extension of the common fields following the adoption of the Midland three field system, the intakes were eventually absorbed by the giant South Field complex, with England lane forming a dividing line between the South and Middle fields.

FAR FIELD
A two acre meadow situated opposite Headlands Lane close to the site of Mount Pleasant. The land was later a limestone quarry and subsequently waste land.

FARM FLATT CLOSE
A three acre enclosure on the edge of the former open field boundary close to Doveroyde Farm where the lands of Knottingley, Ferrybridge and Darrington converged.

FERNLEY GREEN
An area of tertiary settlement at the east end of Knottingley and one of the three ‘greens’ areas of settlement (the others being the Racca and Swinely greens.) Lying on the fringe of the central area, Fernley Green was most probably carved out of the surrounding woodland and common by assart.

FERRIES The
There were two ferries in the township; one at either end of the Flatts at which point the river is shallow.
The King’s Ferry was situated at the western end of the Flatts behind East Parade and took its name from its proximity to the Kings Houses which originally belonged to the religious order based at Meaux but became Crown storehouses in the sixteenth century.
On the Island Court site at the east end of the Flatts, was the public ferry which was operational until the demolition and reconstruction of Aire Street in the 1960s. Generations of Knottingley inhabitants paid a penny to be ferried over to the ‘island’ in the centre of the river from where a causeway permitted access to Brotherton Marsh, a favourite spot for walks and picnics in the years preceding the mid twentieth century.
The ferryman was a manorial appointment and throughout the nineteenth century the office was determined by the Select Vestry. Two well-remembered ferrymen during the following century were ‘Crafty’ Spence and Barny Rhodes, the latter being the last to hold the post.

FERRYBRIDGE HOUSE
The residence of the Woolf family, proprietors of the nearby potteries between 1851-1885.

FIELD MILL
Alternative name for the site of Trundles Close in the great East Field.

FIRE STATIONS
In pre local authority days it was common for private establishments to operate their own fire brigades. While the primary purpose of such brigades was to protect their own premises they often turned out to assist local townspeople when conflagrations occurred. Foremost in this respect was the brigade belonging to Carter’s Knottingley Brewery Company.
Following the establishment of the Knottingley Urban District Council in 1893 a town fire brigade was formed. In 1898 it was proposed to convert part of the Chapel Street schools site as a town fire station and simultaneously, Bagley & Co., allowed a buzzer to be installed on their factory site to be sounded to summon the part-time firemen in the event of a public fire.
The following year it was decided to prepare plans for a fire station at Racca Green but in 1899 it was decided that the Pinfold site was unsuitable as it was not in the centre of the town and the cost involved in conversion of the site was almost as much as that for new premises. However, a temporary station was established on the site and this was retained until well into the twentieth century when the station was established in premises belonging to the Brewery Company at Hill Top.
In the 1960s a modern purpose-built and permanently manned station was built at Hazel Road on the fringe of the Warwick estate and this serves the town today.

FLAGG LANE / WALK
The route which led from Cow Lane to the Tithe Barn was a narrow dirt track named Flagg Lane or Flag Walk from the wild irises (flags) growing at the path side. The lane was probably a field balk in the early communal field system and was not paved (flagged) until 1869.

FLATTS The
The flatts were areas of land used for cultivation and alternatively known as furlongs. The first and best recorded flat in Knottingley township is the one alongside the river in Aire Street which has been held in commonality for about a thousand years and is known simply as the Flatts.

FORGE HILL CHAPEL
The chapel of the Primitive Methodists, known as the Zion Chapel. The worshippers came to the town early in the nineteenth century and first occupied an old sail loft before erecting a small chapel in Bells Yard, off Aire Street, in 1818. In 1832 a chapel and schoolroom were built at the bottom of Forge Hill Lane. Toward the close of the century the chapel was in such a state of disrepair that it was considered to be unsafe and was closed for some years. In April 1890, however, a complete renovation was undertaken and a celebration tea was held in Knottingley Town Hall to commemorate the event. The reopening of the chapel for worship in October that year was marked by a parade through the town led by Knottingley Silver Prize Band.

FORGE HILL LANE
The lane connecting part of the former demesne containing the manorial mills and the highway to Pontefract was later designated as Forge Hill Lane. A forge is recorded close by the Kings Mills in 1709, suggesting that it may have been established in the previous century and perhaps earlier as its foundation may have occurred in parallel with the rise of shipbuilding within the town.

FOUNDRY LANE
A modern appellation for the roadway connecting Racca Green with the canal and deriving its name from the proximity with the nearby foundry of Armytage Bros. The name was also applied by extension to the surrounding area.

GALLOWS HILL
Situated on the periphery of Knottingley township being that part of the Great Northern Road (A1) between Grove Hall and the Ferrybridge flyover.
The line of the Wakefield – Goole road (A645) was from medieval times the principal route connecting the hinterland with the Humber ports. Prior to the construction of the Ferrybridge roundabout which preceded the present flyover, a grassy plot marked the crossroads. On this site stood the public gallows, its grizzly fruit serving as a warning to potential miscreants. It is claimed on good authority that the decaying elements of the gibbet were a feature of the scene as late as the end of the nineteenth century.

GARDEN HOUSE
Built in 1875 at the east corner of Middle Lane by a member of the Beckett family, the house was later successfully integrated into a terrace of houses named Beckett’s Row. The name Garden House was also used at a slightly earlier period in the nineteenth century to identify a property located at Marsh End.

GARDEN LANE
The name of a lane running between Primrose Hill and Cow Lane. Originally a field balk running parallel to the Croft, the ridge became a pathway between the two locations. A three acre parcel of land at the north side was commonly known as The Garden and during the first half of the twentieth century was an allotment site. The site was utilised for council house development in the late 1950s and the footpath adopted as a road although still known as Garden Lane.

GARDLAND LANE
The name is probably derived from the butts or gores at the edge of an irregular shaped furlong in one of the three fields. The lane probably provided access to one of the fields though which is not known.

GARNER (GANDER) HAVEN
The property most recently known as Gander Haven farm was originally a domestic dwelling. The site, identified merely as an allotment in the Ings in the Enclosure Award Schedule of 1793, was originally named Gander Haven and was the site of a clay pit and by the mid nineteenth century was used for the manufacture of bricks and tiles but later became a farmstead, the name of which was linguistically transformed to Gander Haven, presumably because of the farming connection. By the end of the nineteenth century the name had become further transformed, the site being referred to as the ‘Ganner’. The last family to farm the land were the Jackson’s. Following archaeological excavation in 2004 the house was demolished prior to the construction of anti flood defences.

GASCOIGNE REACH
The name is derived from the Old English ‘gaers-tun’, meaning grassland. Gascoigne Reach was the bend in the River Aire east of Bank Dole. Following the reorganisation of the common fields, Gascoigne Reach became the northern border of the great East Field.

GASWORKS The
In 1844, Thomas Bell, a chemist of Aire Street, introduced the manufacture of coal gas to the town. By the end of the decade the principal places of business, and gradually the main thoroughfares of the township, were lit by gas. The supply was produced by the Knottingley Gas Company, established by Bell and other wealthy and influential townsmen. The site of manufacture was Ings Lane which before the end of the century was popularly known as Gas House Lane.
The mid twentieth century witnessed the demise of the company due to nationalisation of the industry and the introduction of North Sea gas a few decades later drastically reduced the demand for town gas so that by the century’s end, Knottingley gasworks, like the original company, had become defunct.

GENTLEMENS’ CLUB The
Situated at the top of the Ropewalk, this social club was frequented by the professional middle class men of the town and neighbourhood. Founded circa 1860 by a local teacher, Thomas Speak, who served as Club Secretary and later as Secretary of the Liberal Club and also of Knottingley Gas Co., the institution outlived its founder, finally closing in 1947 at which time it was known as Knottingley Social Club.

GILLANN STREET
A small estate of terrace houses built by Bagley & Co. in the late nineteenth century as residences for their workers on the former Pinfold Close site opposite the factory. The name is a composite of Gill and Ann, the forenames of wives of William Bagley.

GLASSWORKS
The earliest Knottingley glassworks was that of Bagley, Wild & Co., established at the Racca Green end of the Bendles Field in 1871. Three years later the Round House was built on the site of a former shipyard at Fernley Green. The latter works had a succession of proprietors between 1875 and 1905 when the site, known by then as the Hope Glassworks, came into the sole ownership of the Gregg family who retained control of the firm throughout last century.
The Bagley & Wild partnership was dissolved upon the death of John Wild in 1884 and thereafter the firm traded as Bagley & Co., Ltd.
In 1887 Isaac Burdin founded a glassworks at Quarry Gap, Headlands Lane, principally manufacturing carboys, and in 1893 Jackson Bros., was established, initially by a five man partnership, on an adjacent site.
Burdin Bros., were bankrupted in the mid 1930s but Jackson's prospered and built a modern factory early in the 1950s on a Greenfield site near to their existing plant, the latter being gradually phased out and ceasing production in the late twentieth century.
Large scale consolidation within the glass industry from the middle of the century resulted in the take over of Bagley's by Jackson Bros., in 1962, followed by both sites being incorporated into the Rockware Glass group a little later.
In the latter years of the century, Rockware sold the Bagley site to the Stolzle company and in 1999 the Headlands factory was sold to the Irish company, Ardagh. The only remaining family firm, Greggs, became part of Associated British Foods, merging with Lax & Shaw to form Allied Glass Containers in 1993.

GLEBELANDS The
Lands held by the incumbent vicars of Knottingley, which apart from parcels within the township were located at Kellingley, Minskip and Haddlesey. The land situated at Kellingley, lying between Knottingley Common and the Stocking Lane was known as the Glebelands and the pathway connecting the two locations was named Glebe Lane.

GLEBE LANE
The lane leading to the land or residence of a clergyman held as part of his benefice. Glebe Lane led off Weeland Road at Hill Top close to Gaggs Bridge and provided access to Spawd Bone Lane via Greenhouse Fields.  Following the sale of the Christ Church vicarage to Bagley & Co., Ltd., in the early twentieth century, the Glebe was the residence of sundry incumbents of the East Parish until; 1940.

GOOSE ISLAND
An island in the middle of the river Aire opposite Kings Mills, a corner of which formed one end of the Mill weir. The Island, in excess of 4 acres, is named as Willow Island on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of the mid-nineteenth century.

GORDON TERRACE
A row of terrace houses standing to the east side of Womersley Road near Broomhill. Built in the last decade of the nineteenth century and probably named after General Charles Gordon, the hero of Sudan, who was slain in 1885. One of the houses was used as a residence for the commandants of the local Salvation Army Corps in the middle decades of the last century.

GRANGE The
The name given to the former Mount Pleasant site at the junction of Ferrybridge Road and Weeland Road at Hill Top following its purchase and refurbishment by the Knottingley brewer, John Carter, in 1871. Carter’s widow lived there until her death in 1907 after which Ellis Williamson, proprietor of the Kings Mills, lived there until November 1908. The property then belonged to Bagley & Co., until the late twentieth century. Today, the property is sub-divided into flats.

GREAT WALL CLOSE
The name of a six acre enclosure lying alongside the field boundary dividing the South and Middle fields near Waterfield Hill at the southern end on England Lane. The term ‘wall’ may derive from the earthen balk which separated the two great fields.

GREENHEAD COTTAGES
Believed to date from 1866, this pair of brick-built houses stands on the south side of Cow Lane bridge opposite the Bendles. One of the houses was occupied by John Branford, proprietor of the Commercial Shipyard situated at the opposite side of the road. The name signifies the location of the houses as the former head of Racca Green.

GREEN HOUSE The
A house situated in Spawd Bone Lane now licensed premises known as the Green Bottle public house, licensed in 1962. The premises were previously the domestic base of an urban farmstead known as Greenhouse Farm and briefly, in the early years of the last century, an Adult School.

GREEN HOUSE FARM
Land adjacent to the Green Bottle Inn in Spawd Bone Lane. For the greater part of the preceding century the Green House had been the residence of the occupiers of the adjacent farmstead known as Greenhouse Farm. The farm was established by the mid-nineteenth century, being offered for sale in 1869 and again, by a Mr Craven, the owner-occupier, three years later, the rapid change in occupation reflecting the increasing depressed state of British agriculture at that time. By 1880 the owner was Mark Stainsby, a partner in the Stainsby & Lyon Aire Tar Works, situated to the east of the town. In June 1886 Stainsby was killed, being struck by a locomotive whilst walking along the railway line between his home and the works, and in 1892 his widow, Mary, left the town, renting out the property leasehold until her demise in 1905, the tenant at the turn of the century being John Firth. The farm was occupied as late as the 1930s and was eventually owned by Mr. G.R. Barker. Many of the farm buildings are still in situ.
Following the establishment of Knottingley Playing Fields in 1931, the name ‘Green House’ was popularly adopted as the unofficial title for the recreation ground which was located in the Green House Fields.

GREENHOUSE FIELDS
Several closes of land variously known as Greenwood Close situated between Hill Top and Spawd Bone Lane and forming a portion of the divided manorial lands of Knottingley in the nineteenth century, were purchased as a result of public subscription in 1931 to enable the laying out of Knottingley Playing Fields (commonly referred to as The Greenhouse). The land, together with Greenwood Close, had previously been excavated for limestone before being leased as pastureland by the tenant of Greenhouse Farm. Following its purchase, the land was held in trust by the K.U.D.C. and was inherited by its successor body, the Wakefield M.D.C., but belongs to the people of Knottingley and is subject to restrictions which allow no building development and confines use of the land to recreational purposes. The fields are at present the subject of a 60 year leasehold agreement between the Local Authority and the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation at a token rent of £1 per annum. The lease expires in April 2025 at which time it behoves the citizens of the town to be vigilant in order to secure their heritage.

GRENLEY STREET
A small street of terrace houses off Racca Green, close to Foundry Lane. The name is probably a nostalgic evocation of ‘Green Ley’, an echo of the original appearance of Racca Green and its environs.

GREVILLE HOUSE
A substantial brick-built, nineteenth century house situated at Hill Top close by the junction with Marine Villa Road and owned by Francis Reynolds, a lime merchant. In 1910 the property was converted into the Hill Top Workingmens’ Club (Top Club) and was used as such until the 1960s when the house was demolished and new club premises were built on the site. By the mid 1980s the club had closed and the premises were acquired by the Five Towns’ Christian Fellowship. In 2004 the premises were demolished to enable the space to be used for the construction of Morrisons new supermarket.

GROVE The
A large detached building standing at the south end of Marine Villa Road. Now a private nursing home, the house was the periodic residence of several prominent Knottingley families for almost two hundred years before late last century.

GROVE HOUSE
Situated at the junction of Marsh End and Ings Lane, this property was long associated with John Howard who owned the adjacent ropewalk. However, Grove House may have previously belonged to Howard’s father, Thomas, a mariner, and may have been acquired from the Standage family following the death of Robert Standage, ropemaker, in March 1841.

HADGE CLOSE
Probably a linguistic development of Had Close, itself a variant of Hadland or Headland. The name is derived from the Old English ‘heafod’ or ‘haga’, indicating a fenced enclosure. The location was probably close to the river as the site is recorded in a survey of the river Aire in 1699.

HALL The
A misnomer for Marine Villa which gained popular usage during the last century.

HARKER HOUSE
Initially, the business offices of John Harker & Co., Ltd., were located at the former Stainsby & Lyon chemical works (later Y.T.D.) at the eastern fringe of the town but in 1947 new premises were built at Low Green, near the entrance to Common Lane, for the administration of the business of the expanding Lyon & Lyon group of companies.
The office block was named Harker House after John Harker, the former manager of the local Aire Tar Works and founder of the canal carrying trade, after whom the shipyard established in 1929 had been named and which in the post war boom from the late 1940s saw the construction on a regular basis of the ‘dales’ fleet of oil tankers for the service of the company as well as the vessels built for other users.
The early 1970s witnessed a fuel crisis which resulted in a rapid decline in the company’s carrying trade and ultimately in local shipbuilding activity. From that time the Lyon & Lyon group sought to diversify its business interests and in consequence, Harker House is, at the time of writing, leased out to Ex Pac Packaging Company.

HARKER STREET
A row of houses which stood across Fernley Green from the early twentieth century until demolished in the 1960s. Named for John Harker, manager of the local tar distillery and Chairman of Knottingley U.D.C, 1903 and 1904.

HASSLES CLOSES
Name derives from the Old English meaning land with course grass. The Closes were situated within the Middle Field at the boundary edge with Darrington Leys. The larger of the two closes had no less than 12 nooks or corners.

HAZEL CLOSE
Named for its nearness to hazel trees which supplied nuts for human and animal consumption or for proximity to Hazel Lane.

HAZEL LANE
A pathway at the perimeter of the South Field leading to the grazing land at Darrington Leys and lined, inter alia, with hazel nut bushes. The lane was probably a headland at the time of the open field system and only later became tree lined following the contraction of open field agriculture from the fourteenth century.

HEADLANDS The
Every furlong had a headland created by the soil deposited ahead of the plough as it was turned to move in a reverse direction. Numerous indications of former headlands are to be found within Knottingley but as in the case of the Flatts, one particular site, Headlands Lane, represents the many which once existed. Glebe Lane, Marine Villa Road, Forge Hill Lane, Womersley Road, Spawd Bone Lane and Bendles Lane are but a few of the locations which were originally headlands situated within the open fields of the town.

HEALD LANE
The location of this lane is not known. The Old English ‘helde’ means a slope while ‘heal’ indicates high land by the bends of a stream so it is possible that Heald Lane was situated close to the river Aire either at the Hill Top end of the town or at the other extreme; the fields adjacent to Gascoigne Reach where the river bends and the banks are high which seems the most likely prospect.

HEDGE The
The series of ‘islands’ running along the length of the river Aire between Kings Mills and Garner Haven and situated about a third of the width of the river from the Flatts, are the eroded remains of a causeway or ‘hedge’ which was constructed in the river about 1738 with the aim of narrowing and deepening the channel on the town side in order to facilitate navigation by vessels of larger burthen. Following the opening of the canal, the river trade declined to non existence and the hedge was no longer maintained, hence the appearance of the ‘islands’ following the breakthrough of the river.

HIGH CROSS
A roadside landmark situated at the summit of Hill Top. Probably marked the boundary of the manorial vill and was possibly the location of a shrine in the Middle Ages. High Cross Close is shown on the Enclosure Map near to the crossroads formed by the junction of Ferrybridge Hill and Weeland Road so the junction probably marks the site of the cross.

HILL TOP
An area of the town marked by development at either side of the Weeland Road between Knottingley Town Hall and Warren Avenue at the western edge of the town.

HILL TOP HOUSE
One of a pair of late nineteenth century houses which stand at right angles in a yard alongside Brewery Lane. Little is known of previous owners except that Hill Top House was the residence of Mrs Elizabeth Atkinson in the 1880s-1890s and the dental surgery and residence of Mr. Tom Stirling in the middle decades of the last century. The other house, named Holme Lea, was, from the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the mid 1920s, the home of Mrs Roberts who donated a peal of eight bells to St. Botolph’s Church in 1890 and also other benefactions. Mrs Roberts was the daughter of George Greenhow, a druggist, prominent in the civic life of the town from the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

HILL TOP ROPEWALK
Situated at Hill Top at the eastern side of the junction with Forge Hill Lane, this ropewalk was owned by Edward Gaggs and following his demise, by William Moorhouse as one of his diverse business interests. In the early nineteenth century the ropewalk was worked by Horatio Woods. Following the death of Moorhouse in 1865, the ropewalk became defunct when the Moorhouse estate was purchased by William Jackson. The site was subsequently sold to John Carter and absorbed into the Mill Close Brewery complex.

HOLES The
In common with the Bendles, this was an area of irregular limestone extraction situated in the demesne land near the river Aire and adjacent to the Kings Mills. Limestone pits are recorded near this location as early as the thirteenth century and it is probable that a number of bell pits gave rise to the area being named as the Holes. The construction of the mill weir resulted in maritime activity and associated business being undertaken and the site becoming a centre of local population so that the name of the holes site was applied to the area in general.

HOLES POTTERY The
Situated at the junction of Forge Hill Lane and The Holes, this small pottery was established by the Masterman family in the early nineteenth century and functioned until about 1881. Thomas Masterman took advantage of the Wellington Beer Act of 1830 to obtain a beerhouse licence and established the Potters Arms on the site. The beerhouse closed in 1907.

HOLLINGWORTH LANE
A path connecting Chapel Street with Primrose Hill. A former balk in the early open field system. The name is probably of more recent origin, commemorating the Hollingworth family who were resident in the town for about one hundred years from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. At that time and into the last century, it was usual to lock a gate situated at the Chapel Street end of the lane on one day of each year in order to preserve the legal status of the lane as a private road.

HOLME LEA
c.f. Hill Top House

HOPEWELL HOUSE / FARM
A large detached house with substantial, formally arranged gardens, standing in the Holes. Little is known of its origins except that it was erected before 1840. By the 1870s it was the residence of Edwin Wood, lime and cement merchant and farmer, who was previously resident at Bridge House, Hill Top. Edwin inherited the house and adjacent farmstead from Thomas Wood, possibly the builder of Hopewell House. The house was the residence of the Horn family early last century until demolished later in the century. Shaw’s foundry occupied the site of the farmyard for most of the twentieth century.

HOPWOOD’S LAND
A small enclosure of pastureland, a mere rood in extent, situated at the junction of Dark (Narrow) Lane and Pontefract Road, the site of the present York House, Hill Top.

HOWARD’S FIELD
Originally known as Pighill (Pickhill) Garth, this land lay adjacent to the Crown land alongside the Aire upon which shipbuilding was undertaken. It is therefore unsurprising that a ropewalk should be established close by the shipyard. The first known proprietor is Robert Standidge but the site is more popularly identified with the subsequent owner, John Howard, who took over in 1844, hence Howard’s Field.
Sometime after the death of John Howard, the ropewalk was abandoned and the site cleared. Under Howard’s widow the site became used as a recreation ground and by the end of the nineteenth century was the home of the Knottingley Cricket Club. Public events such as carnival gala’s and the annual horticultural show were regularly held on the site which was also used by travelling circuses. The site was obtained by the local carpenter and farmer, Benjamin Braim, following Mrs Howard’s death and was known to some as Braim’s Field. The field was later acquired by Knottingley U.D.C. but continued in use for public events, the Festival of Britain Gala in 1951, and sundry local carnivals being prime examples. Today, Howard’s Field is the home of Knottingley Rugby Union Club.

HUGGARD CLOSE / LOW HUGGARD CLOSE
A place cleared of trees lying close to existing land, therefore probably an individual assart which was eventually incorporated into the great field. May be the original name for Hugger Close.
Low Huggard Close is possibly a sub-division of Huggard Close or a separate assart adjacent to the same.

HUGGER CLOSE
A six acre enclosure situated in the South Field adjacent to the Longfields furlong. The meaning of the name is unknown but the land is close to a former ridgeway across South Field and may be said to ‘hug’ the path but possibly a linguistic transformation of Huggard Close. The site was referred to as Hugget Close by 1842, presumably a further linguistic corruption.

HUMBER COTTAGES
A pair of brick-built cottages situated at the edge of the former Bendles Field opposite Banks Lane, Weeland Road. The houses were erected in 1862. Based on the name it may be presumed that the original owner was a seaman who remains unidentified as yet.
By 1881 one of the houses was occupied by Thomas Brook, a glassblower, whose descendant. Norman Brook, was one of the founding partners of Knottingley Printers, the firm being established in the mid-twentieth century and occupying this site until its subsequent move to Hill Top a few decades later.
The houses are presently in a state of semi-dereliction and their appearance suggests they seem likely to face eventual demolition.

INGLAND CLOSE
An ‘L’ shaped enclosure of land lying at the east side of England Lane. The name indicates that it was originally an assarted intake which was incorporated into the land forming the Middle Field.

INGS LANE
The term ‘eng’ indicates pastureland. Knottingley Ings were located at the east of the town, along the river bank between the river and Marsh Lane. The land is low lying and prone to seasonal flooding and this resulted in verdant pasture which was part of the earliest common field system at Knottingley, being a continuation of the land sued for cultivation, the Flatts. The water meadows were divided into two areas, the West Ings and the East Ings, also known as Little Marsh. The fomer were adjacent to Pighill Garth on the land later known as Garner Haven and the latter occupied land in the bend of the river known as Bank Dole.

ISLAND The
A once densely populated area of lower Aire Street which, being situated close to the river bank, was prone to frequent flooding. When flooding occurred the geographically almost self contained community was isolated from the rest of Aire Street, being surrounded by water and therefore ironically named as the Island. Close by stood a jetty from which numerous vessels discharged and loaded cargoes. The lower ferry was also situated at the back of the Island and in the nineteenth century the Ship Inn stood on the site. Following closure of the inn in 1908 the premises were sold and refurbished as a dwelling house before being demolished in order to clear the site for the erection of the Palace Cinema in 1912. Most of the property on the Island was demolished as part of the Aire Street Redevelopment Plan in the 1960s.

JACKSONVILLE
Also known as Jackson’s Row, Long Row, and Moorhouse’s Row, (although another site with the name Morrhouse Buildings which stood at the Weeland Road end of Headlands Lane was also referred to colloquially as Moorhouse Row) this terrace of houses stood on the site now occupied by Knottingley Swimming Pool and Sports Centre. The row was built in part of the grounds of the residence of the Moorhouse family, Marine Villa, alongside the Weeland Road at Hill Top and is recorded as early as the 1840s. Following the relinquishment of Marine Villa by the Moorhouse family and the acquisition of the house and its adjoining estate by William Jackson, the original row of houses was rebuilt and made longer, becoming more identified with the Jackson family, hence the appellation Jacksonville. The fact that there always appeared to be one or more of the residents either standing or sitting at an opened doorway of the houses watching the passing scene (i.e. ‘gawping’ or ‘gaping’) resulted in the property being named colloquially as ‘Gaping Row’. The row was demolished in the late 1970s.

JAIL (GAOL) HOUSES / YARD
Former terraced cottages later used as small shops, including Knottingley Post Office, the Jail Houses are situated opposite the Arcade at Hill Top. Jail Yard is located behind the properties. One of the former gatehouses, also used for commercial purposes, was for many years a cobblers’ workshop and stands in a detached position marking the former entrance to the debtors’ prison from which the name of the site derives.

JUBILEE BUNGALOWS
A group of eight bungalows situated in The Holes, Hill Top, and built to commemorate the silver jubilee of George V and Queen Mary in 1935.

JUBILEE HOUSES
A group of five houses on the south side of Weeland Road and standing adjacent to Jubilee Walk, now merely identified as Weeland Road houses.

JUBILEE WAY
The designated name of the snicket which connects Racca Green to Womersley Road via Beulah Place. The name was bestowed to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Silver Jubilee of 1887 but the ginnel is of ancient date being a pathway across Racca Field in the Middle Ages which enabled peasant labourers to take a short cut from Racca Green to the Racca Field Lane (Womersley Road) and providing access to the open fields to the south and west of the settlement area.

KELLETTS ROPEWALK
The ropewalk lay alongside the canal occupying the ground between the canal and Marsh Lane from Shepherds Bridge to Trundles Lane. Founded by David Kellett circa 1860, unlike its competitors, this ropewalk adopted mechanised production and therefore continued in operation long after the others within the town ceased to exist, closing down in August 1932 when Kellett relocated to Hull.

KERSHAW HOLES
Two adjacent sites situated in the former South Field which were being excavated by Shackleton & Co., in the late eighteenth century for the underlying limestone deposits. Nearby was Kershaw Lane which connected the Simpsons and Hazel lanes. The appellation ‘Kershaw’ may derive from reference to the presence of hawthorn trees, the fruit of which are known as haws, for the name is also presented as Kirkaw in some documents but it seems more probable that Kershaw is a personal name element.

KEMP BANK
Lying on the eastern outskirts of the township, north of Weeland Road between the road and the river, the name is probably a corruption of Hemp Bank indicating land where hemp was grown for textile manufacture and rope making, for both processes are recorded within the town in the sixteenth century.

KING’S HOUSES The
Originally in the possession of the monks of Maux, the property, situated in Aire Street, was possessed by the Crown following the dissolution of the monasteries in the period 1536-40 and thereafter became a storehouse. It has been speculated that the site may have provided lodging for Oliver Cromwell during the third siege of Pontefract Castle in 1648.
By the eighteenth century the building was divided into five domestic dwellings known as the King’s Houses, doubtless so named because of the previous ownership of the property. The old houses were knocked down and replaced by a brick-built terrace in 1912 and this in turn was demolished as part of the Aire Street redevelopment scheme about 1970.

KINGS MILLS The
Centrally situated on the demesne land alongside the river, the wheel was removed in 1990 but the race of the former water mill may still be seen. The mill was one of three which are recorded as occupying the site in the Middle Ages (with others also situated on the opposite river bank).
The original mill was erected in the post Conquest period and belonged to the lord of the manor, the manorial inhabitants being compelled to use the mill for grinding their corn.
In 1399 the manorial overlord, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, usurped the English throne and thereafter the mills became known as the Kings Mills.
Following the demise of the last of the Ingram family in the mid eighteenth century, the possession passed to the proprietors of the Aire & Calder Navigation Co., who farmed out the mill. The most celebrated tenant was William Jackson who held the tenancy for 43 years from 1830. The mill ceased production for a period following the end of Jackson’s tenure and were eventually reopened by Ellis Williamson. Following his death in 1908 they were operated for a time by the Croysdale family who also occupied the mill at Whitley Bridge. Following the nationalisation of the waterways in 1948 the Kings Mills were purchased by the Donovan family but were amalgamated to form the Allied Mills group some decades later.

KING’S STANDARD The
Situated at the highest point of the Womersley Road, this site provides a panoramic view over the Downlands and the surrounding countryside and for this reason an observation post was built here during the Second World War for use by the local volunteer Observer Corps. The name of the site has been the subject of fanciful speculation for many years but the original name was the King’s Stand, being an elevated hide within Cridling Park towards which deer and game were driven to be ‘picked off’ by the waiting dignitaries concealed there.

KIPPING GARTH
A group of three semi-detached houses at Sunny Bank built in 1937 and named after J.W. Kipping, manager of the local tar distillery and a director of the Lyon & Lyon Group. Kipping himself lived at Arkendale Villas, Cow Lane, which he inherited from his father-in-law, John Harker, in 1911, until moving to West Mount, a detached house on Ferrybridge Hill in the mid 1920s.

KITCHEN CHAIR / CLOSES
A series of strip holdings situated within the Middle Field. The appellation Kitchen Chair suggests the name was prompted by some aspect of its appearance but there is nothing in the shape of the land to suggest such imagery. It is possible that linguistic transmutation rather than imagery holds the key to the name, for instance, in Holley in Leicestershire, a field named Oustreng (eastern) Meadow became identified as Austrian Meadow. Such corruption may well be applicable in respect of Kitchen Chair. Whatever relevance the name had originally is now, alas, lost in antiquity.

KNOTTINGLEY BREWERY
Prior to the early nineteenth century most local publicans brewed their own beer but in October 1801 a partnership of Edward Gaggs, Mark Carter and Robert Seaton, leased space on the site of the former Wildbore manor house, Hill Top, and commenced in business as common (i.e. public) brewers. Early in 1807 a site was chosen for a new purpose-built brewery at Mill Close, a little further up Hill Top, and this opened in 1809.
The business fell into the sole control of the Carter family by 1840 and they remained in control until in 1892, when the grandson of Mark Carter sold the business to members of the newly established public limited company. The new concern retained the tile of Carters’ Knottingley Brewery and although on site brewing ceased in 1935 following the acquisition of the firm by Bentley’s Yorkshire Breweries, the name continued. In the mid 1960s the company was taken over by Whitbread plc., and the brewery ceased to operate as an administrative base. It was closed and demolished soon after. The site is now occupied by a private housing estate.

KNOTTINGLEY CEMETERY
Growing urbanisation and attendant population growth during the first half of the nineteenth century posed problems concerning space for the disposal of the dead within the church burial ground. Following the establishment of a Board of Health at Knottingley in 1853 and the enactment of legislation concerning provision of public cemeteries, negotiations were undertaken concerning the establishment of a public cemetery for the township.
Land known as Park Balk Close (Womersley Road) was sold to the town by William Moorhouse for £500 in March 1858 and the cemetery was consecrated by the Archbishop of York the following year. The first interment was that of 14-year-old David Thompson on the 8th June 1859.

KNOTTINGLEY DOG TRACK
Established in June 1939 on land in Gas House (West Ings) Lane and known officially as Knottingley Sports Stadium, the history of this venture was ill-starred from its inception. Within a month of the opening the Second World War commenced and this led to the suspension of activity for the duration. The immediate post war period saw the reopening of the dog track but fuel shortages impaired its operation.
In an ingenious attempt to overcome the power cuts which prevented use of the electric ‘hare’ the management resorted to the use of manual control. The lure was fastened to one end of a length of stout cord and the other was attached to the tyreless rim of a bicycle wheel suspended above the ground. The effort proved largely unreliable, however, and as a result the track was closed shortly afterwards. The abandoned site stood derelict for some years before being cleared and all material sign of this abortive venture has long since disappeared.

KNOTTINGLEY POTTERY
The earliest local pottery was established in 1793 on lane a few hundred yards to the east of Ferrybridge Lane and close to the west end of the Holes. The site belonged to Timothy Smith, a coal proprietor, who joined with William Tomlinson, a grocer, and John Seaton, a banker, to establish the company known as Knottingley Pottery.
In 1851 Lewis Woolf, a London china merchant, took a five year lease on the pottery and purchased the premises in 1856. At the same time, Woolf established the Australian Pottery nearby and under him and his son Sydney, the business flourished until an economic recession in 1883 caused the bankruptcy of the latter.
The business was eventually taken over y the Horn Brothers who traded until 1920 when the two elements were separated. Production on the Knottingley Pottery site was undertaken from 1926 by Sefton & Brown (later by the Brown family alone) and then under various forms of management until under the aegis of Cauldren Potteries, the pottery closed in June 2003.

KNOTTINGLEY SOUTH POTTERY
c.f. South Moor Pottery (infra)

LABOUR EXCHANGE The
An L shaped single storey building situated at the top end of Racca Green at its junction with Weeland Road. The rustic brick facing and hipped roof with its clay tiles are redolent of the period, the premises being built as a labour exchange in 1938 to assist the implementation of government policy to combat the high level of unemployment arising from the economic depression of the previous decade. The new building replaced the original Labour Exchange, housed in premises in Aire Street.
With the creation of Job Centres from the 1980s the old Labour Exchange became redundant and the premises were sold and subsequently let out to commercial organisations. At the present time the former labour Exchange is used as a ‘betting shop’.

LANES The
By the 13th century when the term ‘lane’ was widely adopted to indicate a minor track of footpath through fields and woods, most such paths were already of considerable antiquity while many others developed from former balks, ridgeways and headlands marking the boundaries of elements within the communal field system.
Knottingley has at least 50 lanes, a few of which have, with the passage of time, been upgraded as roads. A few have become associated with modern industries, others have lost their identity or in some cases are in danger of doing so due to physical change in their surroundings. Knottingley lanes include: -
Back Lane, Banks Lane, Bendles Lane, Blackburn Lane, Brewery Lane, Bridge Lane, Carr lane, Cattlelaithe Lane, Claywick Lane, Common Lane, Cow Lane, England Lane, Ferrybridge (Road) Lane, Foundry Lane, Foreg Hill Lane, Flagg Lane, Garden Lane, Gardland Lane, Glebe Lane, Grove Lane, Hazel Lane, Headlands Lane, Heald Lane, Holes Lane, Hollingworth Lane, Ings Lane, Kershaw Lane, Liquorice Lane, Marine Villa (Road) Lane, a.k.a. Shiften, Shitten lane, Ratten Row, Rotten Row), Marlpit Lane, Marsh Lane, Middle Lane, Mill Fields Lane, Mirey Butt Lane, Morley Lane, Narrow Lane (a.k.a. Dark Lane), Orchard Lane, Pottery Lane (a.k.a. Stagg Lane), Racca Field Lane (a.k.a. Womersley Road), Shilling Hill Lane, Ship Lane, Simpsons Lane, Southfield Lane, South Moor Lane, Sowgate Lane, Spawd (Spald) Bone Lane, Springfield Lane, Stocking Lane, Tithe Barn (Road) Lane, Trundles Lane, Water Lane, Waterfield Lane.

LIME GROVE / CLOSE
The Hill Top site situated next to Mill Close in which Mark Carter built a brewery in 1808. Lime Grove Close was the chosen site for the adjacent family residence which was named Lime Grove. Following the sale of the brewery by George William Carter in 1892 the house served for a few years as the home of the manager of the new limited company trading as Carters’ Knottingley Brewery Co., Ltd., before being used solely as the company offices. In later years the house was used as a private school and leasehold residence before being converted into flats. The Brewery was acquired by Bentley’s Yorkshire Beers in 1935 and then by Whitbread & Co. in the 1960s. At this point the property became redundant and was demolished. The location is now the site of Bradley’s Bungalows, a private housing estate.

LIME ROUTES The
The extension of limestone excavation into the former common fields to the south and west of the town resulted in the establishment of a series of clearly defined routes between the quarries and the waterways. The six principal ones were: -
Racca Field Lane – Bendles Lane – Primrose Hill – Aire Street.
Middle Field Lane – Banks Lane – Chapel Street – Aire Street.
Waterfield Lane – England Lane – Banks Lane – Chapel Street – Aire Street.
Ridgeway – Spawd Bone Lane – Forge Hill – Holes.
Simpsons Lane – Headlands Lane – Hill Top – Forge Hill – Holes.
Warren Hill – Dar (Narrow) Lane – Holes.
Originally the routes terminated at the riverside but after 1828, at the canalside.

LIQUORICE LANE
A narrow footpath running to the south of Manor Fold and connecting Racca and Low Green. The name is probably of mid eighteenth century origin for at that time an unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the liquorice confectionery trade at Knottingley to challenge that of Thomas Dunhill at nearby Pontefract.

LITTLE CLOSE
A small area of only 37 perches lying adjacent to Holes Lane at its junction with Ferrybridge Hill. Originally part of the manorial demesne land, the name is self explanatory.

LODGING HOUSES
As early as 1840 paupers, denied access to the parish workhouse because of lack of space, were provided with accommodation in a lodging house in an unspecified location within the township. By the middle of the nineteenth century Aire Street had two lodging houses, catering mainly for casual labourers and at the end of the century there was a lodging house in Waggon & Horses Yard, a second lower down in Aire Street and a third in Back Lane. A smaller lodging house also existed at Hill Top at this time, albeit catering for a smaller, more genteel clientele. The Back Lane accommodation continued in use well into the last century before being closed down in 1925 as unsuitable for use as a common lodging house. An application to restore the premises to their former use with accommodation for 22 lodgers was rejected in 1926 and the premises were eventually demolished.

LONG ROW
c.f. Jacksonville supra.

LONGWALL CLOSE
The location is unknown but Great Wall Close may be an alternative name in which case the site was to the east of Waterfield lane off England lane and thus in the Middle Field. The appellation ‘wall’ probably indicates an individually owned plot enclosed by a wall, doubtless constructed of local limestone, or, alternatively, the presence of a boundary marker separating the Middle and South Fields.

LONGWOOD / LONGWOOD CLOSES
Three parcels of land situated close to the boundary of the East Field and land belonging to Kellington parish. The name may refer to the woodland which existed prior to the laying out of the East Field and from which the closes were cleared by individual labour. Alternatively, the name may indicate ownership by the Longwood family.

LONGWOODS WALK
The Longwood family were resident in Knottingley by the late sixteenth century when William Longwood was indicted for encroaching on public land on the Flatts in Aire Street and stopping up a water course there. Longwood’s Walk was a former balk between cultivation strips which later became a path connecting Chapel Street with the Croft.

LOW CROSS
A landmark monument corresponding to the High Cross (c.f. supra) and situated at the eastern edge of the demesne land close to Church Lane. The area is marked today by the high rise flats known as Low Cross Court.

LOW DUCKS
A linguistic corruption of Low Docks, being the shipyard sites situated near Fernley Green which were established following the opening of the Aire & Calder Canal in 1826. The ‘High Dock’ was probably the one situated on the canal bank at the Bendles adjacent to the Commercial Inn but may have been the riverside dockyard located at Mill Close.

LOW SHOTT FLATT
An irregularly shaped parcel of land having six corners which was part of Waithwaite furlong in the South Field, standing slightly distant from the south side of Pontefract Road, on or near the site now occupied by Knottingley railway station. The terms ‘shott’ and ‘flatt’ are both used to identify furlongs in the common field system of agriculture. As this parcel of land is shown as a ‘L’ shaped configuration on the Enclosure Map of 1800 we may assume it was carved out of a series of strips running in one direction and a second series running at right angles to it.

MANOR FARM
Lying just west of St Botolph’s Church and within the former demesne of the manorial lords, Manor Farm is commonly mistaken for an old manor house. Although of considerable antiquity, the farm house is of later construction than either of the two buildings which were the manorial halls. By the seventeenth century the tenant of the newly established manor farm, had an obligation to supply the nearby manor house occupied by the Ingram family, the manorial lords, with victuals and to oversee the working of the adjacent farmland. It is claimed that the last bull baiting in England was held in a nearby garth shortly before the ‘sport’ was outlawed in 1823.

MANOR FOLD
An area on the north eastern edge of Racca Green now occupied by Foundry Lane and its environs. Manor Fold was the place to which the town pinder brought the beasts which grazed the greens and commons and lanes and verges of the town by day for safety during the night.

MANOR PARK
An enclosure in excess of two acres situated behind the Manor House of the Ingrams at Hill Top. By the time of the construction of the mansion in the seventeenth century parkland was no longer an exclusive hunting preserve but had become a retained area of natural beauty close to the manor house and regarded as an amenity and a status symbol. The rectangular park bounded by the river, is still discernible today, being retained as pastureland, although only a few of the trees which provided adornment in past ages remain.

MARINE GROVE
An area of land lying at the northern end of Middle Lane at its junction with Weeland Road and Morley Lane. The Morley Lane housing estate now occupies the major part of this site.

MARINE VILLA
The residence of the Moorhouse family, Marine Villa was built in the eighteenth century, its name reflecting the prominence of the maritime trade of the town, being one of the major business interests of William Moorhouse Senior. The pleasure gardens which formerly stretched in front of Marine Villa occupied the ground on which the Knottingley Swimming Pool and Sports Centre and The Close now stand. Following the departure of Moorhouse Junior’s successors from the town in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, Marine Villa was purchased by William Jackson and held by his heirs until shortly after the Great War. During that time the building became known locally as the Hall. The house was occupied by the Hartley family for some years in the mid twentieth century. From the mid 1960s Marine Villa was in the ownership of the Knottingley building and construction company, McLauchlan Ltd., being utilised as company offices. Thereafter, the building served the same function for the supermarket company, G.T. Smith & Sons for several decades until the end of the twentieth century. When Smiths’ sold the business to the Co Operative organisation, the building became defunct and fell into a state of disrepair. Early in 2004 the supermarket group W. Morrison acquired the existing supermarket and Marine Villa site and demolished both buildings in order to erect a new, enlarged store and filling station. Thus was a further element of the town’s heritage despatched to oblivion in the interests of commercialism. O tempora O mores.

MARINE VILLA (ROAD) LANE
A roadway to the south of Hill Top which connects Weeland Road with Spawd Bone Lane via Knottingley Playing Fields. Marine Villa Lane (Road) is but the latest of several other names which have identified the location. Originally the Lane was merely a headland dividing two furlongs of the open fields of the manor of Knottingley. The nature of the land was obviously unstable leading to the adjacent pathway becoming known as Shiften Lane, which over time became corrupted linguistically to Shitten Lane. In the more decorous society of subsequent centuries the Lane was referred to as both Ratten and Rotten Row until with the construction of Marine Villa in the eighteenth century, the name Marine Villa Road was adopted.

MARLPIT CLOSE / LANE
Situated within the South Field the marlpit consisted of an area of soil, the composition of which was sandy, containing elements of fine gravel. Such soil was used on the heavy clay soils found in some areas of the great fields in order to make them more suitable for cultivation.

MARSH END / LANE
Marsh End was the name of the area to the east of Aire Street which was the location of the water meadows forming the common pasturage of the manorial vill and Marsh Lane (often mistakenly referred to as Stocking Lane) was the pathway which provided access to Bank Dole and the adjacent pastureland and following the extension of the town fields eastward, via Trundles Lane to Stocking Lane and the outlying common fields.

MATT ALLEN CLOSE
A personal place name for an enclosure of about one acre of land situated in the South Field. The Tithe map of 1842 refers to Matthew Allen Close and the 1857 Rate Book names the site as Matt’w Allen Close, confirming the origin of the name.

MEABY CLOSE
Meaning of name and location unknown, perhaps an enclosure named for an individual.

MEDLEY GARTH
Probably land composed of various types of soil. The location of the close was within the furlong known as Waithwaite Field which also contained another furlong known as Stoneylands, indicating the variable texture of the soil.

METHLEY CLOSES
Two areas of pastureland situated south of Simpsons Lane near its junction with Spawd Bone Lane. Comprising six acres of land, the smaller two acre plot contained several scattered buildings indicative of a homestead and accompanying croft.

MIDDLE FIELD CLOSE
A two acre enclosure situated on the west side and adjacent to England Lane which cut through the north-east corner of this site.

MIDDLE LANE
Leading off Weeland Road at the south side of the section originally named Banks Lane (c.f. supra) this lane, as the name implies, ran through the middle of the smaller of the three common fields of Knottingley Manor. From the eighteenth century, following the opening of several quarries in the Middle Field area, the lane became one of several busy lime routes along which limestone was conveyed to the town’s waterways.

MIDDLE FIELD QUARRY
Opposite the east end of the pathway presently known as The Bendles, situated close to the southern side of Cow Lane Bridge, the site is one of the early quarries which were located close to the centre of the township, being worked out in the eighteenth century. The defunct quarry site was owned by Widow Sefton at the clos of the century but by the early decades of the nineteenth century a public house known as the Mariners Arms had been erected thereon under the proprietorship of George Sefton. By 1870 the inn was closed but the derelict building remained until it was demolished in the early twentieth century. The site remains overgrown and unoccupied to this day.

MIDGLEY CLOSE
A location adjacent to a stream or into which seepage from a manure heap drained (c.f. Old English ‘micge’ meaning liquid). Alternatively, the name could indicate a place plagued by gnats or nidges (O.E. ‘mycg’). Lack of data concerning location prevents identification and the name may merely be a personal one.

MILL CLOSES
Land adjacent to Kings Mills which was originally demesne land but by the late eighteenth century was a series of closes known collectively as Mill Fields. One close was the site of a dry dock for the repair of vessels using the river Aire which flowed at the northern end of the close. Another, to the south and subsequently separated by the construction of the canal between 1821-26, was the site of the brewery built by Mark Carter and partners in 1808 and sometimes thereafter referred to as the Mill Close Brewery.

FIELDS LANE
A lane leading from Mill Bridge via the Kings Mill yard and the fields beyond and terminating at the junction of Chapel Street and Aire Street near St. Botolph’s Church. The route was through the manorial demesne and was the one taken by the local peasantry to have corn ground at the lord’s mill. Owing to common usage from time immemorial a right of way through the Mill yard was established and was observed until the late 1970s when the potential danger to the public, resulted in the path being diverted along the canal bank and around the mill instead of through the yard.

MIREY BUTT CLOSE / LANE
Land in the south field lying between Simpsons Lane and Cattle Laithes Lane amidst the irregularly shaped strip holdings formed by the edge of the common field and known as butts. The initial name element suggests land of poor quality, probably due to the draining of rainwater onto the lower level of the butts situated at the bottom of the sloping land.
Mirey Butt Lane was the access route to the said butts, situated close to Simpsons Lane Hill.

MOOR DYKE
Name of a drainage ditch lying in the great East or Low Field. An adjacent parcel of land is named as Moor Dyke Close.

MOORWAY CLOSE
As with the above, the name of this plot is derived from its adjacency to the lane leading onto the moor or common land.

MORLEY HOUSE
The detached house at the junction of Middle Lane and Weeland Road at the eastern corner of Marine Grove. The house was the residence of the Spoforth family, farmers and lime merchants, and later in the ownership of T.H. Bentley, auctioneer and valuer. During the twentieth century the premises were converted into a houses and shops but in recent years one property has again become solely residential.

MORLEY LANE
A short pathway connecting Weeland Road with Spawd Lane. The construction of the Wakefield – Goole Railway Company’s line in 1845 cut through the bottom end of Spawd Bone Lane at its connection with Morley Lane adjacent to Banks Garth. Thereafter, the connection with Spawd Bone Lane was restored by means of a short right angle, left turn over England Lane railway crossing.

MOUNT The
A large detached brick-built house of the late nineteenth century situated off Grove Lane, Hill Top. The house was the residence of the medical practitioner, Erasmus Stone, for whom it may have been built. Stone retained the ownership into the following century until it was acquired by J.W. Bagley and was later lived in by his son, Dr. S.B. Bagley.
During the early years of the Second World War the house was commandeered as the headquarters of a detachment of Army personnel and was later a sub-divided dwelling.

MOWEY CLOSE
Situated in the Middle Field near the boundary with Darrington Leys, this enclosure of two acres plus, takes its name from the Old English ‘muga’ meaning land on which a stack stands.

Terry Spencer