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".
History
In 1775 a farmer near Bingley found a large chest of silver coins, some dating back to Julius Caesar, on his land. Moreover, in 1779 a similar chest was found in Morton.
Founding
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".
Normans
In the Domesday Book of 1086, Bingley is listed as "Bingheleia":
<blockquote>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'''</blockquote>
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.
Medieval
The ford was superseded by Ireland Bridge.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. Approximately one third of all the people in Europe died of this plague, sometimes wiping out whole towns and villages. According to the 1379 Poll tax records, the nearby town of Boulton had no survivors worth taxing. It seems Bingley may have got off relatively lightly.
Tudors
In 1592, Bingley was shown on a map by Yorkshire map-maker Christopher Saxton as a single street with about 20 houses on each side. The church sits at the west end of the street opposite a single large house, possibly a manor house. Since Bingley was a market town, the market stalls would have been set up on either side of the main street. One of the oldest buildings in Bingley is a coaching inn, the Old White Horse Inn, on the flatter north bank of the River Aire by Ireland Bridge.
Industrial Revolution
Like many towns in the West Riding, Bingley prospered during the Industrial Revolution. The Bingley section of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was completed in 1774, linking the town with Skipton, and Bradford via the Bradford Canal. The canal passes through the town centre and ascends the side of the valley via the Bingley Five Rise and Bingley Three Rise Locks. Several woollen and worsted mills were built and people migrated from the surrounding countryside to work in them. Many came from further afield such as Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine. A railway and line goods yard were constructed bringing further trade. The villages of Gilstead and Eldwick became conurbated with Bingley. The Bingley Building Society was also founded in this period.
Post-industrial
Bingley Teacher Training College opened in 1911 with Helen Wodehouse as principal. The first intake of students was 102 women from in and around the then West Riding of Yorkshire. Before its closure in 1979, the college produced approximately 16,000 teachers.