The name of Calverley is first attested in the 1086 Domesday Book, as Caverlei and Caverleia.[3] Spellings including the l, such as Kalverlay, are found in twelfth-century sources. The name comes from the Old English words calfra, the genitiveplural of calf ('calf'), and lēah ('open ground in woodland'). Thus the name once meant "calves' clearing" or something similar.[4]
History
Calverley is a rural village with a medievalmanor house, Calverley Old Hall, which dates back to the 14th century and was home to the Calverley family. In 1605 the landowner, Walter Calverley, went insane and murdered some of his children in Calverley Hall. He refused to plead and was ordered to be pressed to death, a method used to try to force a confession. He died without confessing his crime in order to ensure that his estate was not taken from his remaining family.[5]
Houses in the village are mostly constructed of sandstone, darkened by the soot of the Industrial Revolution, though there are brick buildings to the south of the original village. The Anglican parish church St Wilfrid's has parts dating from the 11th or 12thcentury. The tower was added and increased in the 13th to 15thcentury.[6] The Methodist church beside Victoria Park opened in 1872. Both churches are Grade II listed buildings.[7]
Calverley Cutting, a straight road which was intended to replace the old winding packhorse way through the woods between Carr Road in Calverley and Apperley Bridge, was cut through the local sandstone rock by 1856. It was meant to be part of a scheme to develop the area for luxurious residential purposes which, however, failed. Local residents objected to the closure of the old route because the new road proved to be very steep.[8][9]
Historically, Calverley was an ecclesiastical parish in the district of Bradford and the Morley wapentake. In 1894 Calverley Urban District was formed and on 1 April 1937 it was abolished and merged into the Municipal Borough of Pudsey,[11] where it remained until its abolition in 1974.[12] Both Pudsey and Farsley were part of the Calverley parish.[13]
Sports and recreation
The recreation ground in Victoria Park is home to Calverley St Wilfrid's Cricket Club.[14] There are two golf courses to the south of the village: Woodhall Hills (established 1905) off Woodhall Road, and Calverley Golf Club off Woodhall Lane.
↑O'Connor, W.J. (1990). British physiologists, 1885–1914: a biographical dictionary. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p.464. ISBN0-7190-3282-2.
↑"Charles Smith". ESPNcricinfo. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
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