| Hunslet | |
|---|---|
 Former Printworks, now part of Leeds City College | |
  Hunslet | |
| Population | 33,705 (City and Hunslet Ward. 2011) |
| OS grid reference | SE311314 |
| Metropolitan borough | |
| Metropolitan county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LEEDS |
| Postcode district | LS10 |
| Dialling code | 0113 |
| Police | West Yorkshire |
| Fire | West Yorkshire |
| Ambulance | Yorkshire |
| UK Parliament | |
| 53°46′40″N1°31′50″W / 53.7779°N 1.5305°W /53.7779; -1.5305 | |
Hunslet (English:/ˈhʌnzlət/) is an inner-city area in southLeeds,West Yorkshire, England. It is 1 mile (1.6 km) southeast of thecity centre and has an industrial past.
It is situated in theHunslet and Riverside ward ofLeeds City Council andLeeds South parliamentary constituency. The population of the previous City and Hunslet council ward at the 2011 census was 33,705.[1]
Many engineering companies were based in Hunslet, includingJohn Fowler & Co. manufacturers oftraction engines andsteam rollers, theHunslet Engine Company builders of locomotives (including those used during the construction of theChannel Tunnel),Kitson & Co.,Manning Wardle andHudswell Clarke. Many railway locomotives were built in the Jack Lane area of Hunslet.
The area has a mixture of modern and 19th century industrial buildings,terraced housing and 20th century housing. It is an area that has grown up significantly around theRiver Aire in the early years of the 21st century, especially with the construction of modern riverside flats. It was at one point the main production site for Leeds Creamware, a type of pottery (still produced) so called because of its cream glazing. Hunslet is now prospering as it follows the trend of Leeds generally and the expansion of office and industrial sites south of Leeds city centre.
Hunslet is first mentioned asHunslet (sic, for*Hunsflet) in theDomesday Book of 1086, though twelfth-century spellings of the name such asHunesflete seem to be more conservative: the name appears originally to have meant 'Hūn's creek', from an Anglo-Saxon personal nameHūn[2] (orHūna[3]) and the Old English wordflēot 'creek, inlet', probably referring to an inlet from the River Aire[2] (>-fleet :Adlingfleet,Adelingesfluet 1086 ;Marfleet,Merefluet 1086 ;Ousefleet,Useflete 1100–1108). There are also the Old Norse personal namesHúnn (Old DanishHun)[4] andHúni,[5]cognates ofHūn(a). The district of Hunslet Carr, whose name is first attested in the period 1175–89 asKerra, includes the northern English dialect wordcarr, meaning 'bog' (borrowed into English fromOld Norsekjarr, which had the same meaning, but more commonly "copsewood", "brushwood", "thicket"). Meanwhile, Hunslet moor is first mentioned in 1588.[6]
Notice : Hunslet is possibly related etymologically to the place-nameHonfleur in Normandy, which is probably of Anglo-Scandinavian origin and mentioned asHuneflet in 1025,Hunefleth in 1082 - 87.[7]
At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the manor of Hunslet belonged to the Lacys, from whom it passed to various families including the Gascoignes and the Neviles.[8] Hunslet was the birthplace ofThomas Gascoigne, born in 1404 and later chancellor of Oxford University.
The brewersJoshua Tetley and Son set up business in Hunslet in 1822 producing beer andbitter today as part ofCarlsberg Tetley group. However, in 2011 the brewery closed.[9]
In 1823 forty working men from Hunslet raised the sum of£1 5s 1d which they sent to the radical publisherRichard Carlile who was serving a prison sentence inDorchester gaol for the publications in which he exposed the reactionary policies of the government ofLord Liverpool. The subscription was accompanied by a noble letter written by one of the contributors, William Tillotson.[10]
The population of Hunslet grew rapidly in the first half of the 19th century becoming an important manufacturing centre. Several large mills were built for spinning offlax includingHunslet Mill, and there were chemical works, works for the manufacture of crown and flint glass, extensive potteries for coarse earthenware and the Leeds Pottery. Hunslet Mill, created between 1832 and 1842, is aGrade II listed building.[11]
From 1898 to 1935 it was the home of the 25 acres (10 ha) LeedsSteel Works, with fourblast furnaces, which was the site of a major industrial accident in 1913, when a boiler explosion killed nine men.[12] Thirteen years earlier, four men had died in a very similar explosion.[13] By 1906 Hunslet was home to Leeds’ second-largestgas works, the city's main rail goods yards, known at the time as Midland Goods Station (now the site of Crown Point Retail Park), as well as a large number of factories.
Hunslet was home to the first free public library in Leeds when a branch library opened on evenings from October 1870 in a room at the Hunslet Mechanics Institute. It became a day branch in 1912. On 23 February 1931, the new building was opened byArthur Greenwood MP and Minister for Health.[14] The fixtures and fittings in the interior of the library, with an adult and junior reading room, were designed by Thomas Horsman and Co Ltd, costing£1,049 17s 6d.[15] The building is now Hunslet Library and Community Hub.[16]
Crown Point once had a large railway depot which contained Leeds' main goods station. After many decades lying derelict the area was redeveloped into the Crown Point Retail Park, though the main railway cutting into the terminus station can still be seen at the southern end. The former track beds are currently let for storage and contain timber and brickwork.Tetley's Brewery was to the north of this area, as was the Yorkshire Chemical Works: both have now been demolished. Next to the river isClarence Dock.
Pottery Fields is the industrial area around Kidacre Street, Leathley Road, Ivory Street, Meadow Lane and Cross Myrtle Street whereLeeds City Council's Pottery Fields Depot and the former Meadow Lane Gas Works are situated. Pottery Fields House, has the administrative and engineering functions for Northern Gas Networks. Other businesses include Merlin Gerin medium voltage electrical supplies, ascrap yard andVolkswagen auto breakers, and a motorcycle training centre. There are several disused railways crossing the roads, which brought coal fromMiddleton Colliery to the Meadow Lane Gas Works for the production oftown gas, before conversion toNorth Sea natural gas.
Penny Hill surrounds Church Street. This is the old centre of Hunslet referred to as Hunslet Grange when the Leek Street Flats (1968 to 1983) were built. The Leek Street Flats developed problems with crime andcondensation and were demolished fifteen years after their construction.
The area was redeveloped in the 1960s, the main feature of this being the Hunslet Grange (Leek Street flats). In the 1980s it was again redeveloped, and in the 2000s, the area around theRiver Aire andClarence Dock was redeveloped.
In the 2020s, Hunslet is part of theLeeds South Bank development.[17]
Aire Park, a 4.9 acres (2 ha) new public open space and redevelopment, is now being planned for the site surroundingThe Tetley art gallery as part of the regeneration of the South Bank of Leeds.[18]
Hunslet was formerly atownship in the parish of Leeds,[19] in 1866 Hunslet became a separatecivil parish, on 1 April 1925 the parish was abolished and merged with Leeds.[20] In 1921 the parish had a population of 71,626.[21]
Hunslet, in the lower Aire Valley, is bounded on the east by theRiver Aire and covers nearly 1,200 acres of flat land. The underlying rocks werecoal measures.[8]Hunslet has different areas including Hunslet Moor, Hunslet Carr, Crown Point, Pottery Fields and Penny Hill.
Hunslet today is still primarily based around manufacturing and heavy engineering. Newer industries have moved to the western fringes of the area in recent years with the building of new office complexes including the Leeds City Business Park which originally opened with offices for companies includingO2 andBritish Gas. O2 have since moved toMorley. The Morrisons supermarket in the Penny Hill Centre as well as the Costco wholesale warehouse on Leathley Road are also large employers. In 2011, Aston Barclay, a car auction group, purchased the former Motor Auctions Leeds car centre on Hillidge Road to further add to the regeneration of the area.
According to an article by theYorkshire Evening Post, 43% of the area's population lives in poverty and it has the ninth highestchild poverty rate in the country, with a reported 4,579 children having been fed byfood banks between April 2019 and February 2020.[22]
A chapel dedicated toSt. Mary the Virgin was built in 1636, and enlarged in 1774. It was a brick structure with a tower. It was enlarged by subscription in 1826.[8] There were two churches built on the site. The Victorian church, of which the spire remains, is the tallest in Leeds, was built in 1864 and the new church building surrounding it was built in the 1970s but was demolished in 2019.
Other smaller less notablechurches exist in the district. The area is also home to St Joseph's Catholic Club (near a St Joseph's Catholic Church that was demolished in 2005 and is now part of the parish of St Margaret Clitherow).[23][24]
Hunslet's redevelopment in the 1960s was notable for the construction of the Hunslet Grange (usually known as 'Leek Street Flats'). Construction of the 350 flats and maisonettes started in 1968 following a widespreadslum clearance project in the area.[25] The complex was commissioned byLeeds City Council and built byShepherd Construction,[26] in amaisonette style with so-called 'streets in the sky' and overhead walkways connecting blocks. The exterior of the buildings were pale grey pebbledashed concrete. Each floor had a rubbish disposal chute leading to huge bins at street level.[27] Hidden in the complex on the second floor were shops and apublic house, 'The Pioneer'. Twelve of the blocks were six storeys in height and six were of seven, with the entrance on the second floor. The estate covered a large area of Hunslet and was arranged in three clusters around a small park.[28]
The individual flats had large windows and were spacious and light, and were very popular with their new tenants. But the popularity was short-lived; the heating systems were inadequate for the poorly insulated concreteprefabricated buildings, the interiors suffered fromcondensation and the exterior walls became streaked with black. In addition, the "rabbit-warren" layout made the estate hard to navigate and, within a few years, even harder to police.
Demolition of the complex started in 1983, less than fifteen years after the first tenants moved in, to be replaced with low-rise council housing, which was largely built around the late 1980s. Low Rise private housing was added in the 1990s and 2000s and a public space known as Hunslet Green occupies much of this space.[25]
The area is home to a number of voluntary organisations servicing the community, this includes the Hunslet Club, a youth organisation established in 1940 which provides sport, dance and drama activities for hundreds of young people in the area as well as offering vocational education courses for 14- to 16-year-olds.[29]
Hunslet is also the home of Voluntary Action Leeds, theCouncil for Voluntary Service in Leeds, which provides direct support services and specialist advice toVoluntary Sector organisations across the city.[30]
TheM621 andA61, two major roads, pass through the area, providing convenient access to the whole ofYorkshire and access theM62 toManchester and Hull. The motorway was completed in 1971, and isolated a large part of Hunslet Moor.
Leeds Hunslet Lane railway station was located on theHallam Line. It opened in 1840, but in 1846 theMidland Railway replaced it withLeeds Wellington station, and Hunslet Lane became a goods depot, which closed in 1972: the area is now occupied by the Crown Point Retail Park. There was also a passenger station on Hillidge Road: this is gone, but the Station Hotel remains.[31] The railway yard is now used as the Leeds Vehicle Maintenance Facility forFreightliner.[32]
An educational hub has been formed in the north of Hunslet, withLeeds City College's Printworks Campus using the formerAlf Cooke printworks building,Leeds College of Building's Cudbear Street site,[33] theRuth Gorse Academy,[34] andUniversity Technical College Leeds (UTC) using the former Braime's engineering works,[35] all in close proximity to each other.[36]
Bewerley Street Infant School, designed by famous Leeds architect,George Corson, opened on 8 August 1873. By the 1950s, the school was for Juniors (7 – 11 Years) and the Infants had moved to a school on Hunslet Hall Road.[37]
The area has arugby league club with historic roots in the form ofHunslet who play at theJohn Charles Centre for Sport formerly known as theSouth Leeds Stadium.[38]
The originalHunslet, who played atParkside, Hunslet, were the first club in Rugby League to win"All Four Cups" in season 1907–08, the Challenge Cup, the RFL Championship, the Yorkshire County League Cup and the Yorkshire County Cup.[39] Only two other clubs have achieved this feat,Huddersfield (1914–15)[40] andSwinton (1927–28). Other local rugby league clubs includeHunslet Warriors, andHunslet Parkside.
