Ledston (historically also spelt Ledstone)[2] is a village in the Leedsmetropolitan borough, in the county of West Yorkshire, England.[3] It is 3 miles (5 km) north of Castleford and 10 miles (16 km) east of Leeds. The parish had a population of 400 in 2001,[4] which decreased slightly to 394 at the 2011 Census.[1]
Ledston is first mentioned in 1086, and on through the Middle Ages, in forms like Ledestun(e), Ledestona.[5] The name seems to refer to Leeds (or the Old English precursor of this name, Loidis, which denoted a region rather than a town), meaning the tūn ('settlement, estate') belonging to Leeds.[6]
Mary Pannal of Ledston was executed in 1603 as an accused witch.
Ledston was historically a township in the ancient parish of Ledsham in the wapentakeofBarkston Ash in the West Riding of Yorkshire.[7] The township became a separate civil parish in 1866.[8] In 1974 Ledston was transferred to the City of Leeds in the new county of West Yorkshire. On 1 April 2023 the civil parish was abolished.[9]
Ledston Hall featured in the television show Most Haunted:Live on 27 October 2007, but was called "Wheler Priory" for security reasons at the time (Wheler being the surname of the last family owning the hall).[12]
Ledston is also home to the Ledston Equine Centre located in the stables of Ledston Hall.[13]
Ledston lies to the east of the A656 road,[3] and there was a railway station named after the village on the Castleford to Garforth line, though this station was actually adjacent to Allerton Bywater Colliery. The village also had a colliery named after it, Ledston Luck, which was connected to the railway via a narrow gauge railway line up to Peckfield Colliery in Micklefield.[14] The colliery, like the railway station, was some distance away from the village from which it took its name, being actually only 0.6 miles (1 km) east of Kippax.[3] Ledston Luck Colliery closed in 1986[15] and the site is now a local nature reserve.[16]
The White Horse Inn is a 15th-century public house.[17] It was 2019 regional winner of North East Pubs in Bloom,[citation needed] and supports various local activities such as the Ledston in Bloom[clarification needed], a village scarecrow competition.[citation needed] and the Ledston christmas light switch on.
^Ekwall, Eilert (1960). The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names (4 ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 293. ISBN0-19-869103-3.
^Watts, Victor; Insley, John; Gelling, Margaret (2004). The Cambridge dictionary of English place-names : based on the collections of the English Place-Name Society (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 366. ISBN9780521362092.
