Thoresby’s ‘Hedingley’
Headingley was developed as an industrial suburb by the Victorians. But for a thousand years (or more) it was a village, “this pleasant rural village” as it was called just before Victoria’s accession (in Edward Parsons, History of Leeds, 1834). Of course, most of Headingley’s rural heritage has been overlaid by Victorian development. But traces persist. And these ‘rural remains’ are shown in the gallery above. They are explored here through the imaginary eyes of Ralph Thoresby, whose book Ducatus Leodiensis (‘The Duchy of Leeds’), published in 1715, surveys the town and its surroundings, including ‘Hedingley’, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Photographs by Jerry Hardman-Jones (JHJ), Helen Pickering (HP), Andrew Pomeroy (AP) and Richard Tyler (RT). Photographs are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced without the owner's permission.
For further information, follow the links in the captions above, and see also Eveleigh Bradford, Headingley: this pleasant rural village, Northern Heritage (2008), and David Hall, Far Headingley, Weetwood and West Park, Far Headingley Village Society (2000) and the Thoresby Society, at https://www.thoresby.org.uk/index.html
