Roundhay Park
The Gipton Wood side of Oakwood Boundary Road marks the boundary of the Norman hunting park from which we get the name ‘Roundhay’
‘Lerundeheia’ is more than 900 years old. The name is first mentioned in a charter of 1153 whereby Henry de Lacy granted those lands next to Roundhay to the Abbott of Kirkstall Abbey along with valuable grazing rights
It derives its name from the circular ‘hay’ or ‘round enclosure’ created at the end of the 11th century on lands granted by William the Conqueror to Ilbert de Lacy as a hunting park for members of William’s Norman aristocracy
It was one of around 2000 hunting parks the Normans enjoyed and part of Ilbert’s reward for his loyalty in helping William carry out the ‘Harrying of the North’, brutally crushing the Anglo-Scandinavian revolt of 1069
Lerundeheia’s perimeter ditch and bank was 6 miles around. A
surviving section of ditch near Kirkstall Abbey’s Roundhay Grange is twenty feet wide and ten feet deep. The bank was fenced with vertical pales of oak. Construction was a massive undertaking, estimated to have required moving 250,000 tons of earth and cutting thousands of trees. (One can speculate how Ilbert commanded the labour needed.)
In time the Round Hay’s ancient boundary became a Parish boundary, Parliamentary boundary and boundary with Leeds which achieved City status on 13 Feb 1893. The independent Township of Roundhay was finally swallowed up by the Leeds extension scheme in 1912
The outer boundary of the Round Hay is still present in land boundaries around Roundhay today. For instance, you can see this evidenced by an unexpected kink in Gledhow Lane as it crosses the ancient hunting park boundary road near its junction with St Catherines Walk
In medieval times and extensive iron ore and coal fields were discovered beneath Seacroft and the southern half of Roundhay. After the Norman Conquest the monks of Kirkstall organised the lucrative business of mining and smelting using the woodlands of Seacroft to produce the charcoal necessary for smelting. It was a environmentally damaging business and the area of the east bank of the Wyke Beck below Easterly Road was known as Cinder Hills because of the slag still to be found there. The metal was then taken to a forge for hammering into saleable tools and goods at Foundry Mill by Foundry Lane. When the monks fell into massive debt following a devastating disease affecting their sheep the mineral rights reverted to control by the de Lacy family
By the 1400s accessible ore and raw materials were beginning to run out and the park formed part of the royal estates largely devoted to forestry. A tenant started to denude it of trees…
By 1625 Charles I, short of money, gave Roundhay to the Corporation of London to settle debts and by 1779 it was in the hands of Lord Stourton. By 1797 the estate now relatively isolated, denuded, enclosed and largely given over to arable and pastoral farming was offered for sale
In 1803 it was finally sold for £58,000 to Quakers Samuel Elam a speculator (whose business subsequently failed) and Thomas Nicholson who wanted to build himself a country estate
The rest of the story including the purchase of Roundhay Park for the people of Leeds and the subsequent development of Roundhay and Oakwood as we know them today is admirably told in the many books and articles linked from this page
Notes
Articles
Oak Leaves ODHS
Part Five - Christmas 2004
Roundhay and the Domesday Survey of 1086
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by Peter Kelley
Part One - Spring 2001
Ownership of Roundhay Manor and Park
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by Peter Kelley
Part One - Spring 2001
The Life and Family of Thomas Nicholson of Roundhay Park
PDF 0.6 Mb
by Neville Hurworth
Part Nine - Autumn 2009
The Third Lake and Other ‘Fish Ponds’ at Roundhay Park
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by Neville Hurworth
Part Seven - Autumn 2007
Cobble-Stone Buildings in Roundhay Park
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by Murray Mitchell
Part Ten - Autumn 2010
A Very Public Row between Colonel Campbell
and Thomas Nicholson. Important Historical
Information in the Leeds Mercury of 1811
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by Neville Hurworth
Part Eleven - Spring 2012
Where was William Nicholson Nicholson's House (where he shot his Uncle's Gamekeeper)?
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by Neville Hurworth
Part Twelve - Autumn 2012
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by Anne Wilkinson
Part Twelve - Autumn 2012
Thomas Nicholson (1830-1860) and
how Roundhay Park was nearly lost
before Leeds Corporation could buy it
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by Neville Hurworth
Part Thirteen - Autumn 2013
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by Neville Hurworth
Part Four - Spring 2003
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by Joan Newiss
Part Twelve - Autumn 2012
Sale of Surplus Land from the Roundhay Park Estate. The Pursuit of 'a Park for Nothing'
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by Neville Hurworth
Part Twelve - Autumn 2012
Henry Marles and the Roman Lamp he
found in the Gorge at Roundhay Park
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by Peter Marles
Part One - Spring 2001
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by Geoff Hall
Part Eight - Autumn 2008
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by Hilary Dyson
Part Four - Spring 2003
PDF 0.1 Mb
by Neville Hurworth
Download
1840s Map - Roundhay PDF 1.1 Mb
Courtesy of Barwick-in-Elmet Historical Society
Links
References
An Illustrated History of Roundhay Park
by Stephen Burt
Published 2000, ISBN 0-9539745-0-2
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