Bingley

Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which had a population of 18,294 at the 2011 Census. Bingley railway station is in the town centre and Leeds Bradford International Airport is away. The B6265 connects Bingley to Keighley. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bingley appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Bingheleia". Bingley was probably founded by the Saxons, by a ford on the River Aire. This crossing gave access to Harden, Cullingworth and Wilsden on the south side of the river. The origins of the name are from the Old English personal name Bynna + ingas ("descendants of") + lēah ("clearing in a forest"). This would mean altogether the "wood or clearing of the Bynningas, the people called after Bynna". In the Domesday Book of 1086, Bingley is listed as "Bingheleia": m In Bingheleia hb. Gospatric iiij car' tra e' ad gld. tra ad ii car' Ernegis de burun h't. & Wast' e'. T.R.E. val, iiij lib'. Silva past' ii leu' lg' & i lat'. Tot' m' e iiij leu' lg' & ii lat' which roughly translated reads: In Bingheleia, Gospatric has a manor of four carucate of land to be taxed, land for two ploughs. Ernegis de Burun has it and it is waste. In the time of King Edward the Confessor it was valued at four pounds. Woodland pasture two leagues long and one broad. All the manor is four long and two broad. The ford was superseded by Ireland Bridge. Bingley was a manor which extended several miles up and down the Aire valley, extending upstream to Marley on the outskirts of Keighley and downstream to Cottingley. Bingley became a market town with the grant of a Market Charter in 1212 by King John. According to the poll tax returns of 1379, Bingley had 130 households, probably around 500 people. The nearby towns of Bradford, Leeds and Halifax had about half this population. At this time Bingley was the largest town in the area. No records tell of how Bingley fared in the Black Death that swept Europe in the 14th century.