Pudsey

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Pudsey
Pudsey Parish Church
Pudsey shown within West Yorkshire
OS grid reference	SE225335
Metropolitan borough	City of Leeds
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LEEDS
Postcode district	LS28
Dialling code	0113
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
European Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Pudsey
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Coordinates: 53°47′51″N 1°39′27″W / 53.797552, -1.657611

Pudsey is a market town and suburb of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, between Bradford and Leeds. It is part of the City of Leeds metropolitan district.

Pudsey constitutes the areas of Fartown, Lowtown, and Chapeltown. There is also the area of Fulneck.

Pudsey has given its name to "Pudsey Bear", the mascot of the BBC's annual fundraising marathon Children in Need. It also lends its name to the local parliamentary constituency of Pudsey, of which it is a part.

[edit] History

Formerly within the wapentake of Morley and Calverley Parish, Pudsey became a Municipal Borough in 1889. For many years, despite being joined to the Leeds conurbation, it avoided being made part of Leeds County Borough. In 1937 the Farsley and Calverley urban districts were added to Pudsey. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, it became part of the Leeds Metropolitan District.

The name Pudsey occurs in the 1086 Domesday Book as "Podechesaie" and "Podechesai", but in the early 6th century Pudsey and the neighbourhood appear to have been the centre of the considerable Kingdom of Elmet, which retained its independence for more than 200 years after other more petty kingdoms had been subdued by the Angles.

The town was famous in the 18th and 19th centuries for its wool manufacture, and, more recently, for cricket. Yorkshire and England cricketers Sir Len Hutton, Herbert Sutcliffe, Ray Illingworth and Matthew Hoggard all learned to play in Pudsey.

[edit] Present

There is a recreational park in Pudsey; features include Pets Corner, aquarium, bird houses, tropical greenhouse and a large play area for children. There is also Queens Park where the Pudsey carnival is held once a year.

Pudsey has one of the region's most popular and well-known running clubs, Pudsey Pacers.^[1] The club meets every Tuesday and Thursday at 7 pm at the town's Leisure Centre.^[2] The club organises the annual Pudsey 10k Challenge,^[3] widely regarded as one of the most challenging 10k races;^[4] it attracts around 450 runners.

Pudsey's market operates on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday ^[5] and has recently been refurbished.^[6] Pudsey has also seen the introduction of a monthly farmers' market with a range of stalls selling meat, fish, dairy produce, organic fruit and vegetables, delicatessen and craftware.^[7]

Pudsey town centre has many amenities and a shopping centre which includes high street stores such as Boots and Woolworth's, etc. In keeping with many affluent areas it has its fair share of banks and estate agents. Following the closure of Kwik Save supermarkets across the country, Pudsey's store has been bought by Sainsbury's.^[8]

There are three high schools situated in the Pudsey boundary: Crawshaw, Priesthorpe and Pudsey Grangefield, which is currently undergoing an extensive redevelopment programme which sees a whole new state-of-the-art school building constructed adjacent to the current site. The front grammar school building, opened in 1911 ^[9] and a prominent landmark of Pudsey, will be converted into flats and not demolished, unlike the rest of the school, due to its listed building status.

Pudsey's historic town hall is benefitting from a new, energy-efficient lighting project to highlight its most interesting features. The multi-coloured lights can be changed to offer 255 different scenes.^[10]

[edit] Public transport

New Pudsey Station

Pudsey Park - opened in October 1889

There is a small railway station known as New Pudsey. It is on the Caldervale Line between Leeds and Bradford Interchange and was built to replace Pudsey's two original stations - Pudsey Lowtown and Pudsey Greenside - which were both destroyed in 1964 by the Beeching Axe along with the Stanningley-Laisterdyke-Bradford GNR loop serving them. However, New Pudsey's situation over a mile away from the town centre makes it impractical for commuters especially as there is no bus that links the station with the town centre.

Pudsey is now served by a number of First and Arriva bus services that run through to Leeds City Centre and other areas of the city, Bradford and other surrounding towns. The 4 FTR service runs regularly to the Leeds city centre from Waterloo via the town centre and Swinnow. There are also bus services that run between Leeds, Bradford and Halifax along Stanningley Road, which is 10 minutes walk from Pudsey town centre.

Plans for a £2 million covered bus station in Pudsey, to replace the current array of individual bus stands, have been given the go ahead.^[11]

The Leeds-Pudsey tram route via Armley and Bramley was opened in the early 20th century; it was closed in 1938 and most of the infrastructure was removed, although roadworks on the central reservation of Stanningley Road uncovered some of the tracks in October 2005.

[edit] Sport

Speedway racing was staged at a track which was located at the base of the famous Post Hill hillclimb course. Eight meetings were staged in the pioneer days of 1928. A couple of the meetings were operated in conjunction with a road race type event at Post Hill. The nearest professional football team, located in Farsley and known as Farsley Celtic, are currently in the Blue Square Premier (the Conference league).

[edit] Cultural References

In The Meaning of Liff a Pudsey is defined as "The curious-shaped flat wads of dough left on a kitchen table after someone has been cutting scones out of it."^[12]

Toward the beginning of the Monty Python episode You're no Fun anymore. The two characters, Mr and Mrs Samuel Brainsample can be seen walking along the platform of New Pudsey Station.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• YEP Pudsey Today Community Website
• Calverley.info Pudsey & Calverley genealogical and historical data
• Pudsey.com Pudsey Online Community Website.
• Pudsey Civic Society
• BBC Children in Need
• Pudsey Carnival
• The Ancient Parish of Calverley at GENUKI: Pudsey was in this parish

[edit] Location

• Wikimapia