Keighley Parish main page

KEIGHLEY:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1750.

"KEIGHLEY, (given as "KIGHLEY") a parish in the West Riding of Yorkshire, near the r. Are, 6 m. to the S. E. of Skipton in Craven, gave name to a family that were a long time its owners, one of whom procured of Edward I. a Mt. and Fair for it on Oct. 27, but the former, if not the latter, is disused. Since the extinction of the Kighleys, there have been three manors in this parish one bel. to the D. of Devon, another to Ld. Fairfax, and the third to Michael Stell. This T. stands in a valley, surrounded with hills, at the meeting of two brooks, which fall into the r. Are 1 m. bel. it. Every family is supplied with water brought to or near their doors, in stone troughs, from a never-failing spring on the W. side of it. The parish is 6 m. long, and 2 broad, and is 60 m. from the E. and W. seas, yet at the W. end of it, near Camel-Cross, is a rising ground, from which the springs on the E. side of it run to the E. sea, and those on the W. to the W. sea. There is not half a m. of level ground in the whole p. except at the W. end of it, where is a pretty even field 1 m. and an half round, where are some times horse- races. Near the Town is that called the King's-Mill, which used to yield 44 l. 13 s. 4 d. rent to the Ds. of Devonshire, into whose family an heiress of the Kighleys married."

[Transcribed by Mel Lockie © from
Stephen Whatley's England's Gazetteer, 1750]