Pudsey

For other uses, see Pudsey (disambiguation).

Pudsey
Pudsey Parish Church
Population	32,391
OS grid reference	SE225335
Metropolitan borough	City of Leeds
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	PUDSEY
Postcode district	LS28
Dialling code	0113
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
UK Parliament	Pudsey

Pudsey is a market town in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Once an independent town, it was incorporated into the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds in 1974, and is located midway between Bradford and Leeds city centres. It has a population of 32,391.

Pudsey constitutes the areas of Fartown, Troydale, Littlemoor, Lowtown, Uppermoor and Chapeltown. There is also the village of Fulneck, the district of Stanningley and part of the district of Tyersal.

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.

History

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, from the 19th century, for cricket. Yorkshire and England cricketers Sir Len Hutton, Herbert Sutcliffe, Ray Illingworth and Matthew Hoggard all learned to play in Pudsey. One of the 19th century Yorkshire cricketers John Tunnicliffe was born in Lowtown.

During the Industrial Revolution Pudsey was said to be one of the most polluted areas of the UK due to its position within a slight valley and between the two industrial cities of Leeds and Bradford. As a result whichever way the wind blew Pudsey would become covered in thick soot. The temperature inversion created by being in a valley led to the soot becoming trapped leading to dense smogs in the area. This is believed to have led to jokes that Pigeons in Pudsey park flew backwards in order to keep the soot out of their eyes.

Governance

Pudsey Town Hall

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 metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds.

Pudsey forms part of the Pudsey parliamentary constituency, along with Farsley, Calverley, Horsforth and Guiseley. The MP is Stuart Andrew.

Present

The World's End public house

There are several recreational parks in Pudsey, the largest is Pudsey Park; features include Pets Corner, aquarium, bird houses, tropical greenhouse, a "Pudsey Bear" (made of vegetation) and a large play area for children. The park hosts the new West Leeds Country Park Visitor Centre. There is also Queens Park where the Pudsey carnival is held once a year.

Pudsey's market operates on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday and has recently been refurbished. 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 craft-ware.

Central Pudsey street map.

Pudsey town centre has many amenities and a shopping centre which include many high street chain stores and independent retailers. 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. Until the administration of the group, Pudsey had a Woolworths situated on Church Lane. It is now a B&M Home Bargains store.

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 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 benefiting 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.

During the Easter weekend 2009, the Pudsey Business Forum launched the Pudsey Shop Local campaign. The campaign is to encourage local residents to shop more in Pudsey Town Centre. As part of this campaign they have launched a directory of all local shops.

There are many community groups working for the benefit of Pudsey, and their aim is simply to make their town a more attractive and interesting place to visit. One of these groups, established in 2002 is Pudsey in Bloom.

Pudsey is also now home to an established Indian Sikh and minority Hindu and Muslim community.

Pudsey's business community have recently introduced a Loyalty Scheme, aimed at local shoppers. The loyalty scheme, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, encourages shoppers to collect stamps from a number of local shops within the scheme. Once enough stamps are collected on a card it can be submitted for a monthly draw, where the winner receives vouchers that they can spend in any of the participating shops. There are currently 50 retailers taking part in the scheme.

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 closed in 1964 by the Beeching Axe along with the GNR Pudsey Loop serving them. However, New Pudsey is situated over a mile away from the town centre making it somewhat impractical for commuters especially as there is no bus that links the station with the town centre, although the #16 frequent bus service between Pudsey and nearby Farsley passes within 500 yards of the station. However, the location of the station near to the junction of the main Leeds to Bradford road with the Ring Road provides easy access for those travelling to the station by car. There is a large car park adjacent to the station.

There are several pubs and clubs in and around the town centre. There is the busy Butchers Arms, The Farmers, The Masons Arms, The Shamrock, The Junction, The World's End pub and the very quiet Troydale Recreational Club, which is out of 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. Work on the new bus station started in December 2009.

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. Like the rest of West Leeds, Pudsey was never included in the original planning for the Leeds Supertram, subsequent plans such as that for trolley buses, a revised tram scheme or tram-trains have also failed to include West Leeds.

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.

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

There are two cricket clubs in Pudsey: Pudsey Congregational and Pudsey St Lawrence.

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." 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. Pudsey is also mentioned frequently in the Michael Palin TV series Ripping Yarns.

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