Information about Chapel Allerton in Leeds

Potternewton is a suburb and parish of north-east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, situated between Chapeltown and Chapel Allerton, mainly in the LS7 postcode. It is between Scott Hall Road on the West and Roundhay Road on the East, with Harehills Lane on the North. The main thoroughfare is Chapeltown Road, and it is often taken to be part of a larger area referred to as Chapeltown.

In mediaeval times the area was mostly small farms, but by the end of the 17th century it had become a resort or second home for wealthy people from Leeds and in 1767 was described as the Montpellier of Yorkshire by one visitor.

Chapel Allerton was incorporated into Leeds administrative area in 1869 as a civil parish

Meanwood Hall is a grade II listed building. It was built about 1762 for Thomas Denison, extended in 1814 for Joseph Lees, and further developed in 1834 for Christopher Beckett. In 1919 it was bought by the city council to form the nucleus of Meanwood Park Hospital which accommodated men, women and children with learning disabilities. It served the city of Leeds and other areas of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and at its maximum in the 1960s had 841 beds. After the hospital closed in 1997 the hall was converted to housing and further houses were built in the grounds.

In keeping with the grand design, the house was built with inordinately tall chimneys, but in 1969 these were shortened for safety reasons. Most of the original house survives, but converted into flats.

Historically, Chapel Allerton had a strong connection with the Irish. With many families in the area being Irish immigrants or of Irish descendents

Little London along with its adjacent areas Lovell Park and Blenheim, is an area of 1960s high-rise and maisonette council housing in inner-city north Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, situated between the city centre and Sheepscar.

It is home to a small population of students although nowhere near as many as the more popular student areas such as Headingley, Woodhouse, or Hyde Park.

After the Second World War further building and rebuilding continued, mostly unremarkable, though with a few examples of good modern design. The area was once home to an art decocinema, the Dominion. Opened in 1934 and lasting only until 1967 when it operated as a bingo hall until the later part of the 1990, the cinema stood on Montreal Avenue. The residential street 'Dominion Close' is close to its former site.

Chapel Allerton is an inner suburb of north-east Leeds, 2 miles (3.2 km) out of the city centre, West Yorkshire, England. The Chapel Allerton electoral ward includes areas otherwise referred to as Chapeltown and Potternewton - the suburb is generally considered to be only the northern part of this. The ward population was estimated at 18,206 in the 2001census

It has a brand new Children's Centre called ' Little London Children's Centre ' designed by Leeds Architects Bauman Lyons.

Little London will almost certainly become swallowed up by the ever expanding city centre. There are flats going up all around the area and there are plans in place to demolish the area surrounding Carlton Barracks to make way for more flats.

The 1960s-built council flats, stand high at around fifteen storeys, however they are now dwarfed by new private developments exceeding 20 storeys.

The 1960s council housing in the lower parts of Little London originally housed many of the people from nearby Woodhouse, where there was large scale demolition and slum clearance. The Woodhouse residents were originally going to be dispersed around Leeds but after a prolonged battle with the council, they won the right to move the short distance to the new Holborn Estate.

There are currently plans to demolish the housing in Little London (which is largely 1960's and 1980s built council housing). This will leave only the high rise flats which would be privatised, and sold on. There is criticism that these flats will be luxury, high specification flats that current residents will not be able to afford.This led to graffiti in the area stating 'Hands off our Homes' and 'Yuppies Out'. The campaign and debate with Leeds City Council is ongoing. The three Lovell tower blocks were saved from demolition and are currently undergoing work to raise standards to decency standard. The rest of the estate wait for a PFI scheme to finance refurbishment.

Tenants' groups have accused the council of benefiting wealthy city workers and property developers at their expense, while Leeds City Council have accused left wing activists of misusing the campaign.

In the middle of an estate of inter-war semi-detached houses behind Stonegate Road stands a Victorian Gothic house, Meanwood Towers. Designed by Edward Welby Pugin, and built in 1866 - 1867, this private house was commissioned by Thomas Stewart Kennedy and was originally called Meanwood House.

Mr Kennedy then commissioned the famous German organ-builder Edmund Schulze to build him a pipe organ. In 1869, this was installed in a specially-built 800-seat wooden concert hall or 'organ house'. Clearly, Mr Kennedy liked things on a grand scale. However, after only 8 years, there were problems with the 'organ house', so the Schulze organ was loaned to St. Peter's Church, Harrogate; 2 years later, in 1879, it was sold to a private individual, who presented it to St. Bartholomew's Church, Armley

The area has a small shopping precinct with an Off Licence and various other shops. The areas most notable public house, The Londoner (formerly The Little Londoner) closed in 2005 and was demolished in 2006, there is now a building exceeding 20 stories on the site of the former pub. This now leaves just two pubs, The Hobby Horse and The Leeds Rifleman. The Post Office closed in August 2008, despite a public campaign to save it.

The area backs onto the Sheepscar Interchange (a major road interchange between the A61 towards Harrogate and the A58 towards Wetherby) and the Leeds Inner Ring Road. The Merrion Centre is also nearby

Meanwood is a suburb and former village of north-west Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.

The name goes back to the 12th century, and is of Anglo-Saxon derivation: the Meene wudewas the boundary wood of the Manor of Alreton, i.e. the woods to the East of what is now called Meanwood Beck Dwellings and farms near the wood were known by a variety of local names including Meanwoodside until 27 August 1847 when the parish of Meanwood was established. (This meant that the woods became Meanwood Woods.)

The Meanwood Valley was a place of industry as long ago as 1577 and continued up to the nineteenth century, with the Meanwood Beck (then much larger) providing water and power for mills (corn, flax, paper) and dye works and tanneries. There were also numerous quarries.

In 1830 a turnpike road was established down the Meanwood Valley to Leeds. Public transport followed from 1850 and electric trams in 1890, meaning that it was practical for people to travel to work from greater distances, encouraging both industrial buildings and housing.

The 1841 census listed 144 houses, including 3 large ones, Carr House (Carr Manor), Meanwood Hall and Whalley House (now demolished). Most were stone cottages, now gone, with the exception of a few houses on Monkbridge Road. Hustler's Row remains as a group of 1850 stone cottages, actually named after John Husler (note spelling), a quarry owner.

There is a shopping centre with a large Waitrose Food & Home store on Green Road, the site of a former tannery business which is believed to date from 1700. To the west along the road towards Meanwood Park some houses for tannery workers and the Meanwood Institute (built c. 1820, but opened as the Institute in 1885) a Grade II listed building]

There are a number of nineteenth-century industrial buildings in Meanwood Valley at the sides of Meanwood Beck, and nineteenth-century terraced housing on the valley side leading up to Headingley, Weetwood and Woodhouse, along with an area of woodland known locally as The Ridge.

New estates have been built in Meanwood with grand, suburban housing, the Woodleas, the Stonegates and the Bowoods. Twentieth-century council housing mixed with open space forms the opposite side of the valley leading up to Scott Hall.

It is also home to Meanwood Valley Urban Farm.

There was a village referred to as Alreton (meaning Alder farm) in the Domesday Book, then in 1240 a charter referred to land "which lies between the road which goes to the Chapel of Allerton and the bounds of Stainbeck".The chapel was associated with Kirkstall Abbey and was demolished in the 18th century: however the site remains between Harrogate Road and Church Street.From this time the terms "Chapel Allerton" and "Chapeltown" became essentially interchangeable.Ralph Thoresby, writing in 1715, records Chapel-Town as a common name for the township of Chapel Allerton, describing it as "well situated in pure Air, upon a pleasant Ascent, which affords a Prospect of the Country ten or twelve miles". The open space to its east and north of Potter-Newton was "a delicate Green commonly call'dChapel-Town Moor"."

Chapel Allerton is a conservation area for the character and historical interest of its buildings, noted not for grand edifices but rather a diversity of good quality domestic buildings from various periods. The historic core is around Stainbeck Corner, particularly around Town Street and Well Lane, with 8 listed buildings. To the south and west of this is an area of grand detached houses with large gardens dating from the 18th and early 19th century.The earlier buildings are of fine-grained sandstone derived from the quarries which were once on Stainbeck Lane. These include a number of small 19th century two-storey houses as well as grander buildings. After 1890 brick terraced and back-to-back houses were built, but of better quality than workers' housing elsewhere in Leeds, as they were intended for artisans and the lower middle class. The advent of the electric tram in 1901 made the area more accessible and further housing began to fill in empty spaces though this was of varied types. It finally lost its village character in the 1920s and it joined the Leeds urban area. Thus the area between King George Avenue and Montreal Avenue was filled in between 1920 and 1939 with bungalows and stucco-faced houses typical of Leeds of the time. In Riveria Gardens were built white rendered houses in the Modernistic style

Sugarwell Court on the Meanwood Road, is the former Cliff Tannery, an 1866 Grade II listed building now converted into a university hall of residence Nearby is a former Baptist school, a fine brick Grade II listed building dating from about 1886.

The Church of England parish church is Holy Trinity Church, a Grade II* listed building consecrated in 1849, designed by William Railton in the Lancet Gothic style. Its clock was designed by Edmund Beckettand made by Edward John Dent who were responsible for Big Ben. It has only 3 faces, as there was only open country to the East.

The Methodist Church is at the corner of Monkbridge Road and Green Road. It was built in 1881 in a modified Gothic style, and enlarged seven years later to accommodate a further 120 seats.

Potternewton Park is the location of the Leeds Carnival, and the start and finish of the carnival procession. As well as open areas, children's playground and sports facilities, it includes a skate park for skateboard and bmx activities.

St Martin's is the Church of England parish church just off Chapeltown Road, consecrated in 1881.

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