* Click here for latest news in Moortown and Alwoodley.

Early beginnings

No one knows for certain when the region around Alwoodley was first settled. However, the first people to leave any distinctive traces in the area were the Romans. They built a fort at Adel around which a small settlement grew. They established a network of roads to connect it to other forts and settlements. One of these, (the road from Ilkley to Tadcaster) runs through the township of Alwoodley. Its route ran to the north of Stairfoot Lane and crossed Alwoodley Lane about halfway along its length. There is little trace of it to be found above ground level today. However, archaeologists excavated a section of it before houses were built along Lakeland Crescent in 1994. They found that the road was constructed straight onto the contemporary ground surface. The foundations were a compact mix of sand and gravel. Onto this the builders had laid flat stones and more gravel. If there had ever been a paved surface, the upper parts of the road had completely disappeared.

* Click here to sign up to free news and sport email alerts from Moortown Today.

A graven image

What the Romans found when they arrived in the region is unclear. Archaeologists think that the Britons themselves lived in small scattered farmsteads with round wooden buildings with thatched roofs. Certainly this is the case where the remains of their houses have been excavated to the east of Leeds. No Romano-British houses have been found in Alwoodley. However, it is possible that there was some kind of Celtic religious centre in the area that is now called Alwoodley. Classical writers speak of Celtic priests worshipping in the open air or in groves of trees. On one of the rocks in Adel Crags is an incised figure of the Celtic God Cocidius. He is shown with a spear in one hand and something which might be a shield in the other. Perhaps this was the focal spot for a group of Celtic priests performing one of their open air rituals. Alternatively the carving may be a burial marker.


Domesday Alwoodley

The name Alwoodley first occurs in the Domesday Survey carried out for William the Conqueror in 1086. There it was spelled Aluuoldelei. The first part of this word seems to be derived from an Anglo-Saxon personal name Athelwald. The second is the Old English word for clearing in a forest. (Old English was the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons.) The whole word therefore means Athelwald's forest clearing. Names ending in ley are quite common in the Leeds area. They suggest that much of the district was heavily wooded when the first Anglo-Saxons arrived in the 7th century AD and that the trees had to be cleared away before the Anglo-Saxons could turn the land to agriculture.

Unfortunately Domesday is not very informative about Alwoodley at the time. It tells us that the manor was in the hands of a man called Rossketill and that he had 5 carucates of land. A carucate is a medieval land measurement which was supposed to be the area that a team of eight oxen could plough in a day. In practice the size of a carucate varied from place to place. In Yorkshire they were usually between 64 and 120 acres. Rossketill's holdings could therefore have been as large as 600 acres of arable land. At the time of Domesday the manor was worth 20 shillings (£1).There is no mention of other villagers. Perhaps they were too poor to come to the notice of the tax-collectors of Domesday. If the inhabitants of Alwoodley did not pay taxes they would not be registered in the document. However, they must have existed. One man could not farm the whole township on his own, even with the assistance of his family and household servants.

Alwoodley Old Hall

The manorial centre was probably Alwoodley Old Hall. This was situated to the south of Eccup reservoir on what is now a golf course. There is little trace of it above ground today but in its heyday the building must have been an imposing sight. A map of 1682 shows the late medieval manor house. It appears to have formal gardens laid out to the south side. However, it is just possible that it might have been a moat. The shape is right but there is no other evidence for it. The site may have already been declining in importance by 1682. It certainly appears to have shrunk in size for some of the adjacent field names suggest a former use for domestic rather than agricultural purposes. One is called Hall Garth (i.e. garden) and another is marked as an orchard. The hall was finally demolished in 1822.

Alwoodley village

The layout of any early settlement in Alwoodley is a matter of conjecture. Archaeologists usually look for clues on the first edition six inch to the mile Ordnance Survey maps produced in the 1850s. Sometimes the layout of the medieval fields can be traced in the Victorian field boundaries. This is not so at Alwoodley. Even the 1682 map is of little help. It shows a landscape which has already been enclosed and which bears no resemblance to its medieval predecessor. There are a few traces of ridge and furrow which show up on aerial photographs of the golf course under a light dusting of snow. These could represent the divisions of the medieval open fields. They could just as easily be the remains of 18th century land improvement or even of landscaping for the modern golf course.

The lost village of Alwoodley

These scant traces have cased a lot of discussion over the years. Some historians and archaeologists think there must have been one. Others are much less sure. Perhaps its remains still lie undiscovered under the golf course; perhaps not. Perhaps the village is under the waters of Eccup reservoir. If so we may never know.

* There's lot more information about local places on the WYAAS website at: www.archaeology.wyjs.org.uk

* Click here to become a fan of Moortown Today on Facebook.

* Click here to follow Moortown Today on Twitter.

* Click here for Moortown Today's Community Directory, where you will find basic information on a wide range of local community groups and organisations.

* Click here to visit our Moortown and Alwoodley ex-pats map and say hello from whereever you are in the world.