Swarcliffe, originally the Swarcliffe Estate, is a district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is east of Leeds city centre, and within the LS14 and LS15 Leeds postcode area. The district falls within the Cross Gates and Whinmoor ward of the Leeds Metropolitan Council.
In the 1950s, the Swarcliffe housing estate was developed by the city council, which built two- and three-bedroomed semidetached council houses, a number of three-storey blocks containing 12 flats or more, and three brick-built nine-storey blocks of flats. Two of the blocks of flats were demolished in the 1990s, and an old people's home was built on the site. In 2007, the remaining block was demolished. The previous year, six of seven 15-storey high-rise blocks of flats, built in 1966 as part of the Whinmoor estate, were demolished.
Swarcliffe is served by Swarcliffe Primary School and Nursery, Grimes Dyke Primary School, and St. Gregory's Youth and Adult Centre. Stanks Fire Station provides a service to more than 42,452 people. Swarcliffe has a dwindling number of public houses and shops. Great and Little Swarcliffe Woods lie within the boundaries of the estate.
The area is being regenerated by Yorkshire Transformations, a private finance initiative, which is a partnership between Leeds City Council and two private-sector companies: Carillion and the Bank of Scotland. The MP for the Leeds East constituency from 1955 to 1992 was Denis Healey, who represented the Labour Party. He was succeeded by George Mudie MP. In 2009, the population of Swarcliffe and Stanks was 6,751, of which 4,544 were considered to be "hard-pressed", or experiencing financial difficulty.
History
The Battle of the Winwaed, between the army of the Christian king Oswiu of Bernicia and the pagan army of King Penda of Mercia, took place in 655 AD, according to Bede, although some historians favour 654 or 656. The actual site of the battle is disputed, but one possibility is that the River Winwaed is now the Cock Beck, to the east of Swarcliffe. The battle is remembered in the names of Pendas Way, a street south of Swarcliffe, and the nearby Pendas Fields estate.
After the Norman Conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror granted the parish of Whitkirk, which included Seacroft, to Ilbert de Lacy of Pontefract, whose descendants held the title of Earl of Lincoln. The parish was subsequently leased by the de Lacys to the Somerville family. During the English Civil War in 1643, Lord Goring's Royalist army defeated the Parliamentarians under Sir Thomas Fairfax at the Battle of Seacroft Moor.
In the 1820s, Swarcliffe and Stanks were part of the Barwick-in-Elmet parish. The name "Stanks" derives from a French word meaning ponds or pools of putrid water. Before the Swarcliffe Estate was built, the area contained Winmore Lodge (renamed Winn Moor Lodge in 1893), Penwell House, Hill Top, Spikeland Nook, Swarcliffe Farm, and a parochial school on Stanks Lane South/Barwick Road, which was replaced by Windsor Terrace before 1892.
The Leeds to Halton Dial road was turnpiked in 1751. Tolls were collected at the Penny Toll, a toll house on York Road, at the north-eastern border of the area. This road is the A64 Leeds to York road The toll house was owned by Sir Thomas Gascoigne, whose agents charged one penny per pair of wheels, which was "a considerable sum", according to the historian, Ralph Thoresby, who visited the area in 1702. In 1886, the property was owned by Colonel Frederick Trench-Gascoigne, of Parlington Hall, Aberford, who rented it out for three pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence a year. Gascoigne owned and rented out a number of houses, coal mines, woodland and farm land in Seacroft, Whinmoor, Barnbow, Garforth, Barwick-in-Elmet, Cross Gates, and Scholes. The toll house was situated north of a cottage and a 19th-century granite-built windmill, which is now part of the Britannia Hotels Leeds hotel. In the mid-1800s, Isaac Chippindale, who lived at Windmill Farm, started the Scholes Brick and Tile Works on Wood Lane, on the border with Scholes. The company's quarry produced high-quality bricks, which were used to build many houses in the surrounding area. Its kilns and house were demolished in the early 1980s, leaving two small fishing lakes, but the site is still known as "Chippy's Quarry".
The Leeds to Wetherby Railway had a station at Scholes and passed under the turnpike to the northeast. The line was built by the North Eastern Railway and ran past the eastern border of Swarcliffe and Stanks. It opened on 1 May 1876 and closed in 1964. Services were withdrawn as part of the Beeching Axe, an informal name for the British Government's attempt to reduce the cost of running British Railways in the 1960s.