Discovering Leeds

[chameleon]

Not really sure where to put this or indeed if it has been mentioned before - dug up a link to part of Leodis I'd forgotten about entitled 'Discovering Leeds'.Very much history and development but searching round, there is a mine of interesting snippets, some pictures and the odd map, one dated 1530 showing Timble bridge as a significant feature, and more - even if its been featured before, no harm in mentioning it again for newer users.http://www.leodis.org/discovery/default.asp

[chameleon]

Found this in the YEP today - a snippet of the history of Leeds by the WYAAS. No apology for borrowing it and copying in full here.«IntroductionToday Leeds is one of the most important cities in England, if not in Europe. For all that it is not the capital of its own kingdom, but there was a time when it was. 1500 years ago it was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Elmet and this is its story – a story that may begin before the time of the Romans.CartimanduaThe first written records for the north of Britain are the works of Greek and Roman historians. They tell how the Pennine uplands were occupied by a tribe called the Brigantes. They were ruled by a queen called Cartimandua. After the Roman conquest Brigantia became a client kingdom of the Romans. Effectively this meant that the Romans had a friendly power between them and the openly hostile tribes further north while Cartimandua had a strong military power backing up her rule. This worked well until the mid 50s AD, when Cartimandua broke with her husband and took a new consort. The result was civil war. Eventually a peace was brokered between the two factions but it couldn't last. When the Roman Empire descended into turmoil on the death of Nero in AD 69, Cartimandua's husband tried again. The Romans had to step in to rescue Cartimandua and finally had to move north to suppress the whole region. The story seems to suggest that the Brigantes were not really one tribe but several groups or clans brought together under the control of a strong leader. Some of these groups may have been pro Roman, some of them anti. This might in part account for the way in which the north descended into civil war. Cartimandua's faction was broadly pro-Roman and her husband's anti. We do not know how they were organized or where Cartimandua's main residence might have been. Victorian antiquaries suggested places like Castle Hill at Almondbury or the hill fort at Barwick in Elmet to the east of Leeds. This seems unlikely and modern archaeologists would favour Stanwick in North Yorkshire. FortificationsIt is possible that one of these groups or clans was centred in the area of what is now Leeds. Ralph Thoresby the Leeds antiquarian noted in 1715 that there was a large earthwork surrounded by a single deep ditch on Quarry Hill (the area where the Leeds Playhouse now stands). Thoresby thought that this might have been Roman or Saxon, but the hill top location make it seem much more likely that it was probably pre-Roman Iron Age. There was a similar earthwork on Woodhouse Moor which is still remembered by the street name Rampart Road. * Click here to follow the YEP on Twitter.Thoresby was probably wrong when he suggested that this earthwork might be Roman in origin. Roman forts tend to have straight sides with rounded corners rather like a playing card. Geophysical surveys have located one near Adel. They also generally chose flat areas rather than on the tops of hills. Both these structures are likely to have been unoccupied by the time of the Roman invasion. This certainly seems to have been the case where similar sites have been excavated elsewhere in the north of England.* Click here to become a fan of the YEP on Facebook.Roman LeedsWe know little of Roman Leeds. There may have been a fort there. There is an area of Holbeck which used to be known as Camp Fields. This might be an indication that the area once contained the remains of a Roman fort. Certainly it would be in the right place for one. It would be situated on the south side of the river near an important crossing point. Parallel locations can be found at both Ilkley and Castleford. Alternatively 'camp' may just be a corruption of the French word champ, which just means a field. CampodunumWhatever the status of Camp Field and Quarry Hill in the Roman period, it is still possible that the area we now know as Leeds might have been the site of a major royal settlement called Cambodunum. Its location is given in a later Roman route finder called the Antonine Itinerary where it is said to be 20 Roman miles from Tadcaster on the road to Manchester. The town survived into the 7th century. Bede refers to it as Campodunum (with a p rather than a b) and says that it is in the region of Leodis. At the time Bede is referring to, Leodis was the central area of the British kingdom of Elmet.The ancient kingdom of ElmetThe origins of Elmet are obscure. However, it seems reasonable to assume that the kind of cultural differences which were evident before the Roman invasion re-emerged once Roman rule was removed. Alliances broke down and a number of smaller kingdoms were established in the north of England. Elmet was one of these as was the adjacent kingdom of Craven. We are also not sure of Elmet's full extent. There are still a few place names such as Barwick or Sherburn which are still followed by the phrase in Elmet. In earlier times there were many more and some historians have suggested that at the height of its powers Elmet might have stretched out as far as the Humber estuary. * Click here for latest YEP news and sport picture slideshows.The people of Elmet spoke a language which was the ancestor of modern Welsh. They were also mainly Christians, a fact overlooked by Anglo-Saxons writers such as Bede. His concern was with the conversion of the English, not with the religious life of the conquered Britons. A church and a royal palaceElmet was conquered by Edwin the Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria in 617. Edwin had recently converted to Christianity and established a church in Campodunum. He also had villa regia or palace there. These are both likely to have been wooden structures. Certainly they were both burnt down when the town was sacked by King Penda of Mercia after Edwin was killed at the battle of Hatfield Chase in 633. All that was recovered from the church was the altar of Paulinus, the missionary who had converted King Edwin. According to Bede the altar was deposited in the monastery of Abbot Thrythwulf 'in the Wood of Elmet'. This was possibly at Dewsbury which seems to have developed as a Minster Church. The battle of WinwaedLeeds probably saw more action in 655. This is the date of the battle of Winwaed. There is some argument about its location amongst historians as to the location of Winwaed, but many think that it was at Whinmoor on the outskirts of modern Leeds. In this battle Penda was slain by Edwin's nephew in his struggle to regain control of Northumbria. It also established Christianity as the principal religion in Anglo-Saxon England. The battle is still remembered in modern place names such as Penda's Way in Manston. St CadroeDuring the 10th century Leeds seems to have been an important trading settlement situated near the borders of Anglo-Saxon England to the south, Viking York to the north-east and the British kingdom of Strathclyde to the northwest. This is indicated by the Life of St Cadroe. At one point in the story the saint visits Donnall, king of the British. After the visit Donnall accompanies Cadroe to Leodis. There the saint is handed over to a Viking nobleman who will guide him to York. A 1000 year old flying machineWhat happened to Leeds after that is not clear, but one thing seems certain. It must have developed around an important religious centre. One of the treasures of Leeds Parish Church is an Anglo-Scandinavian stone cross from the 9th or 10th century AD. It is decorated with a variety of designs. Some are abstract patterns. Others are carvings of saints. The strangest of all and, to modern minds at least, the most out of place is a carving of a man in a flying machine. This is the Scandinavian hero Wayland. He was a smith and master craftsman. At one point in his career he was imprisoned on an island and forced to make precious item for his captors. In order to escape Wayland built a flying machine to soar over the water to freedom. It is this incident which is depicted on the Leeds cross. The beginnings of modern LeedsWe have no idea how large Leeds would have been under Viking rule but when the Domesday Survey was compiled for William the Conqueror in 1086, it was quite a sizeable village. The survey mentions a total of 36 inhabitants including a priest. These will be the heads of households. If we allow for families and other dependants the total number of inhabitants could have been four or five times larger. The layout of this settlement is likely to have been different from that of the present city centre. In 1207 Maurice de Gant laid out the town on completely new lines. This focused on what is now Briggate with equal plots of land on either side. The 'footprint' of these plots of land can still be traced in the alleys and ginnels that run off from Briggate. The old had been swept away and the development of the city we know today had begun. * There's lot more information about local places on the WYAAS website at www.archaeology.wyjs.org.uk/wyjs-archaeology.asp Have a look today. You never know what you might find