Coordinates: 53°50′03″N 1°38′34″W / 53.83413°N 1.64288°W / 53.83413; -1.64288

Horsforth
Town Street, Horsforth
Horsforth  Horsforth shown within West Yorkshire
Population	18,928 (2001)
OS grid reference	SE236376
Civil parish	Horsforth
Metropolitan borough	City of Leeds
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LEEDS
Postcode district	LS18
Dialling code	0113
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
EU Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Pudsey
	Leeds North West
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Horsforth is a town and civil parish within the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, in West Yorkshire, England, lying to the north west of Leeds. It has a population of 18,928.^[1] Horsforth was considered to have the largest population of any village in the United Kingdom during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It became part of the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in 1974, and became a civil parish with town council in 1999.

History[link]

Horsforth Museum

The Home Front: World War II display in Horsforth Museum

Horsforth was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Horseford, Horseforde, Hoseforde and its name derives from horse and ford. This refers to a river crossing on the River Aire, probably used for the transportation of woollen goods to and from Pudsey, Shipley and Bradford. The original ford was situated off Calverley Lane (near the Calverley Bridge Zero Waste Sort Site), but was replaced by a stone footbridge at the turn of the 19th century.

The three unnamed Saxon thegns that held the land at the conquest gave way to the king and then lesser Norman nobles,^{[citation needed]} but it was not long after this that most of the village came under the control of Kirkstall Abbey, a Cistercian house founded in 1152 on the bank of the River Aire downstream of Horsforth.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, Horsforth was partitioned and sold to five families, one was the Stanhopes who achieved supremacy and controlled the village for the next 300 years. The estate record of the Stanhopes is regarded as one of the most extensive and important collections of its kind, complementing the extensive mediaeval record associated with Kirkstall Abbey.

Until the mid 19th century Horsforth was an agricultural community which expanded rapidly with the growth of the nearby industrial centre of Leeds. At Woodside was founded in about 1820 the tannery business of the Watson family, at the eastern edge of their small family farm, now memorialised by Tanhouse Hill Lane. The business transformed into a soap manufacturer which moved in 1861 to Whitehall Road in Leeds and under the chairmanship of Joseph Watson junior, created Baron Manton in 1922, as Joseph Watson & Sons Ltd, became the largest soap supplier to the NE of England, second in size nationally only to the Liverpool firm of Lever Brothers.^[2] Industrially, Horsforth has a long history of producing high quality stone from its quarries. Not only did it supply Kirkstall Abbey with building materials and millstones in the medieval period, it provided the stone for Scarborough seafront and sent its prized sandstone from its Golden Bank quarry as far afield as Egypt. Situated on Horsforth Beck (Oil Mill Beck) were a string of mills serving the textile trade, but a large area of the town still reflects its original function as an agricultural community.

Between 1861 and 1862, there was an outbreak of typhoid in Horsforth.^[3]

In the late nineteenth century it achieved note as the village with the largest population in England. Railways, turnpike roads, tramways, and the nearby canal made it a focus for almost all forms of public and commercial transport and sealed its fate as a dormitory suburb of Leeds. Despite its large population and extensive commercial activity this role appears to have stopped it achieving independent town status and it remained a village (as Horsforth urban district) until its inclusion in the City of Leeds metropolitan district when this was created in 1974. However, in 1999 a parish council was created for the area, which then exercised its right to declare Horsforth a town.^[4]

Horsforth Village Museum^[5] has collections and displays that aim to illustrate aspects of life set against the backdrop of the changing role of the village.

During World War II the £241,000 required to build the corvette HMS Aubretia was raised entirely by the people of Horsforth. In 2000 the then US President Bill Clinton acknowledged Horsforth's contribution to the war effort in a letter sent to local MP Paul Truswell.^[6] The letter now resides in the museum.

Transport[link]

Rail[link]

Horsforth railway station looking South towards Leeds

Newlay & Horsforth Station, with Up empties train in 1964

Horsforth railway station is on the Harrogate Line between Harrogate and Leeds City. The station lies just outside the Horsforth parish boundary, on the Cookridge side of Moseley beck.

Newlay station, which was built as part of the Midland Railway, was renamed Newlay & Horsforth station in 1889. This station was situated south of the River Aire and was accessible from Horsforth on Pollard Lane (the road connecting Horsforth to Bramley).^[7] The station, which was on the Airedale Line (Leeds-Shipley-Skipton), was renamed Newlay station in 1961. It closed on 22 March 1965, along with other stations on the Airedale Line: Armley Canal Road, Kirkstall, Calverley & Rodley and Apperley Bridge.

Bus[link]

The town is served by First Leeds bus routes:

• 8 - Pudsey to Cross Gates via Horsforth
• 9 - Seacroft to Holt Park via Rothwell & Pudsey evenings and Sundays
• 31, 32 - Horsforth Town Circular
• 33, 33A - Leeds city centre to Guiseley/Otley via Kirkstall, New Road Side, Guiseley & Menston
• 50, 50A - Horsforth (The Green) to Seacroft via Burley, Leeds city centre & Harehills
• 97 - Leeds city centre to Guiseley via Headingley, Horsforth & Yeadon
• 757 - Leeds to Otley via New Road Side, Leeds/Bradford Airport

Air[link]

The nearest airport to Horsforth is Leeds Bradford International Airport, located in Yeadon

Education[link]

Leeds Trinity University College (formerly Leeds Trinity & All Saints College) is now an independent higher education college after a period as an accredited college of the University of Leeds. The residential campus is located off Brownberrie Lane, Horsforth.

The main secondary school is Horsforth School.^[8]

Horsforth's state sector primary schools are West End Lane Primary School, St Margaret's Primary School, Newlaithes Primary School, Westbrook Lane Primary School, Broadgate Lane Primary School, St. Mary's Catholic Primary School and Featherbank Primary School.

Featherbank School opened in 1911 as a primary school, replacing the Grove Day School. The school's Infant Department was moved to the Grove Methodist Church on Stanhope Drive in 1933, but in 1960 transferred to the Featherbank School annexe. In 1972 Featherbank juniors (7–11 years) were allocated places at the newly-built Newlaithes Junior School, at which point Featherbank became purely an infants' school (4–7 years).^[9] In September 2011 Featherbank reverted to a full primary school.

There is also the independent primary school, Froebelian School (ages 3–11).

Architecture[link]

Horsforth is notable for having a large percentage of sandstone buildings sourced from local quarries, more than any other part of Leeds. A draft design statement^[10] was produced in 2010, which summarizes much of the architectural and historical character, to help when considering new planning applications.

Churches[link]

St. Margaret's church

The main churches in Horsforth are;

• Lister Hill Baptist Church^[11]
• Cragg Hill Baptist Church^[12]
• St Margaret's Church of England^[13]
• St James Woodside Church of England^[14]
• Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses^[15]
• Central Methodist Church, Town Street^[16]
• Grove Methodist Church^[17]
• Woodside Methodist Church^[18]
• Willow Green Christian Fellowship Pentecostal^[19]
• St Mary's Roman Catholic Church^[20]
• Leeds Trinity University College campus chapel^[21]
• Comboni Missionaries, Brownberie Lane^[22]

Pubs and bars[link]

The Black Bull, Town Street

Old Kings Arms, Town Street

Queens Arms

Horsforth has an ever increasing number of pubs and bars. Longstanding pubs in Horsforth include:

• The Black Bull
• The Bridge
• The Eleventh Earl (formerly The Stanhope)
• The Fleece
• The Fox and Hounds (although this is on the Cookridge side of Moseley Beck)
• The Grey Horse
• The Horsforth Hotel (despite its name it is not a hotel)
• The Old Ball (previously called the Old Bull)
• The Old Kings Arms (Horsforth's oldest pub)
• The Queens Arms (though it did not become a pub until later in its history this pub has the oldest building)
• The Ringway
• The Woodside
• The Sand Bar (previously a Take-away) is a popular wine bar
• Town Street Tavern (previously an Off-License) serves wide range of traditional ales and is part of the Market Town Taverns group
• Bar 62 is a sports bar
• Bar 166 wine bar and restaurant
• Medusa Bar and restaurant

and on New Road Side:

• Enigma Bar (previously Suburban Style Bar)
• Kobe (previously Fat Francos) mainly a restaurant

A regular event in Horsforth is the 'Horsforth Mile' pub crawl.^[23] This usually starts off at the Fox and Hounds next to the railway station, although this is regarded by many as being in Cookridge, so an alternative is to begin at The Old Ball, and meander through at least 10 pubs in the town.

The Scout and Guide Hut[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The Scout and Guide Hut on New Road Side was requisitioned during the war as an emergency mortuary for the factories based around what is now Leeds/Bradford Airport but was Yeadon at the time. It was never needed. Prior to purchase by the scouts and guides^[when?] the building was used as a cafe, a popular stop off on the way out to Otley, Ilkey and the dales.

Sports clubs and facilities[link]

• Yarnbury Rugby Club
• Horsforth Cricket Club^[24]
• Hall Park Cricket Club
• Hall Park Cricket Club is also the home of Horsforth Harriers^[25] running club
• Horsforth Golf Club
• Old Ball Football Pitches (Home of Horsforth St.Margarets FC)
• Cragg Hill Football Pitches (Home of Horsforth St.Margarets FC)
• The Rec FootballPitch (Home of Horsforth Ringway)
• Horsorth School Astroturf (Owned by Horsforth School)
• Horsforth School Football and Rugby Pitches (Owned by Horsforth School)

Notable people[link]

• The former Foreign Secretary David Miliband who, although originally from London, attended Horsforth Primary School^[26] in the 1970s when his father Ralph Miliband was a professor at the University of Leeds^{[27][not in citation given]}
• The footballer James Milner who attended Horsforth School and used to play for Leeds United, Newcastle United, Aston Villa currently plays for Manchester City. He is an English International Footballer.
• The actors Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter film series), Patric Knowles and Frazer Hines
• The keyboard player Nick Baines, from the Kaiser Chiefs
• The singer Marc Almond, who was educated at Featherbank Primary School until 1968^{[citation needed]}
• David Oxtoby, artist^[28]
• Actor Malcolm McDowell, famous for his film roles including If..., A Clockwork Orange and O Lucky Man!.
• Paralympic double gold medalist and OBE David Stone^[29]
• Olympic cycling Bronze Medallist Jonny Clay^[30] and world class triathletes Alistair Brownlee and Jonathan Brownlee^[31]
• Sean Conlon who was in the boyband Five, grew up in Horsforth and attended St Mary's RC Primary School.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Leeds Country Way close to Horsforth

• 

  Horsforth Millennium Stone

Location grid[link]

		Yeadon
	Rawdon		Cookridge
		Horsforth    East
		Bramley

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Horsforth

• Horsforth Today Online Newspaper
• Horsforth school website
• YEP Horsforth Today Community Website
• Horsforth Town Council website
• Horsforth Community website
• "The Ancient Parish of Guiseley". GENUKI. http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Guiseley/index.html. Retrieved 2007-10-29.  Horsforth was in this parish
• Lister Hill Baptist Church site

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that in 2007 became Thomas Cook Group.

Early days[link]

Thomas Cook was born to John and Elizabeth Cook, who lived at 9 Quick Close in the village of Melbourne, Derbyshire.^[1] The couple's first child, he was named after Elizabeth's father, Thomas Perkins. John Cook died when Thomas was three years old, and his mother remarried later that same year.

At the age of 10, Cook started working as an assistant to a local market gardener for a wage of six pence a week. At the age of 14, he secured an apprenticeship with John Pegg, and spent five years as a cabinet maker.^[1]

He was brought up as a strict Baptist, and joined his local Temperance Society. In February 1826, Cook became a preacher, and toured the region as a village evangelist, distributing pamphlets, and occasionally working as a cabinet maker to earn money.^[1] After working as a part-time publisher of Baptist and Temperance pamphlets, he became a Baptist minister in 1828.

In 1832, Cook moved to Adam and Eve Street in Market Harborough. Influenced by the local Baptist minister Francis Beardsall, he took the temperance pledge on New Year's Day in 1833. As a part of the temperance movement, he organized meetings and held anti-liquor processions.^[1]

On 3 March 1833, Cook married Marianne Mason. John Mason Cook, their only son, was born on 13 January 1834 .^[1]

The first-ever excursions[link]

Panels from the Thomas Cook Building in Leicester, displaying excursions offered by Thomas Cook

Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while waiting for the stagecoach on the London Road at Kibworth. With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook arranged for the rail company to charge one shilling per person that included rail tickets and food for this train journey. Cook was paid a share of the fares actually charged to the passengers, as the railway tickets, being legal contracts between company and passenger, could not have been issued at his own price. This was the first privately chartered excursion train to be advertised to the general public; Cook himself acknowledging that there had been previous, unadvertised, private excursion trains.^[2] During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for temperance societies and Sunday-school children. In 1844 the Midland Counties Railway Company agreed to make a permanent arrangement with him provided he found the passengers. This success led him to start his own business running rail excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage of the railway tickets.

Leicester railway station - this was built between 1892 and 1894 to replace, largely on the same site, Campbell Street station, the origin for many of Cook's early tours.

On 4 August 1845 he arranged accommodation for a party to travel from Leicester to Liverpool. In 1846, he took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland, however his lack of commercial ability led him to bankruptcy. He persisted and found success when he claimed that he arranged for over 165,000 people to attend the Great Exhibition in London. Four years later, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took a group from Leicester to Calais to coincide with the Paris Exhibition. The following year he started his 'grand circular tours' of Europe. During the 1860s he took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and United States. Cook established 'inclusive independent travel', whereby the traveller went independently but his agency charged for travel, food and accommodation for a fixed period over any chosen route. Such was his success that the Scottish railway companies withdrew their support between 1862 and 1863 to try the excursion business for themselves.

With John A Mason Cook, he formed a partnership and renamed the travel agency as Thomas Cook and Son. They acquired business premises on Fleet Street, London. By this time, Cook had stopped personal tours and became an agent for foreign or domestic travel. The office also contained a shop which sold essential travel accessories including guide books, luggage, telescopes and footwear. Thomas saw his venture as both religious and social service; his son provided the commercial expertise that allowed the company to expand. In accordance with his beliefs, he and his wife also ran a small temperance hotel above the office. Their business model was refined by the introduction of the 'hotel coupon' in 1866. Detachable coupons in a counterfoil book were issued to the traveller. These were valid for either a restaurant meal or an overnight hotel stay provided they were on Cook's list.

In 1865, the agency organised tours of the United States, picking up passengers from several departure points. John Mason Cook led the excursion which included tours of several Civil War battlefields. A brief but bitter partnership was formed with an American businessman in 1871 called Cook, Son and Jenkins; however after an acrimonious split the agency reverted back to its original name. A round the world tour started in 1872, which for 200 guineas, included a steamship across the Atlantic, a stage coach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan, and an overland journey across China and India, lasting 222 days.

In 1874, Thomas Cook introduced 'circular notes', a product that later became better known by American Express's brand, 'traveller's cheques'.^[3]

Conflicts of interest between father and son were resolved when the son persuaded his father, Thomas Cook, to retire in 1879. He moved back to Leicestershire and lived quietly until his death. The firm's growth was consolidated by John Mason Cook and his two sons, especially by its involvement with military transport and postal services for Britain and Egypt during the 1880s when Cook began organising tours to the Middle East. By 1888, the company had established offices around the world, including three in Australia and one in Auckland, New Zealand, and in 1890, the company sold over 3.25 million tickets.^[4] John Mason Cook promoted, and even led, excursions to, for example, the Middle East where he was described as "the second-greatest man in Egypt".^[4] However, while arranging for the German Emperor Wilhelm II to visit Palestine in 1898, he contracted dysentery and died the following year.

Statue of Thomas Cook near Leicester railway station.

Non-family ownership[link]

John Mason Cook's sons, Frank Henry, Thomas Albert and Ernest Edward, were not nearly as successful as their father and grandfather at running the business. Despite opening a new headquarters in Berkeley Square, London in 1926, ownership of Thomas Cook and Son only remained with the family until 1928, when it was sold to the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. During the 1930s the travel agency changed its focus from tours to Egypt and Palestine. Indeed the company was a principal employer in Egypt, involved in shipping, transport and touring operations. After the outbreak of World War II the Paris headquarters of the Wagons-Lits company was seized by the occupying forces, and the British assets requisitioned by the British government. In 1941, the centenary of the company, Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. was sold to the four major railway companies with the aim of expanding it further.

The company was nationalised in 1948 as part of the British Transport Commission. In the early 1950s the company began promoting 'foreign holidays' (particularly Italy, Spain and Switzerland) by showing information films at town halls throughout Britain. However they did not sell cheap package holidays, which included transport and accommodation, a decision costly to the company. The company went further into decline, and was rescued by a consortium of Trust House Forte, Midland Bank and the Automobile Association that bought the company from the British Government on 26 May 1972.^[5] Midland Bank acquired sole control in 1977. U.S. banking laws prohibited any national banks from owning travel agencies, so the U.S. operations were sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 1975.

After restructuring the company and re-entering the traveller's cheque business the company prospered again. During the 1980s Thomas Cook had its most visible business presence in the U.S., including robust travellers cheque sales to regional U.S. banks. The company had enough business critical mass to set up a computer centre near Princeton, New Jersey. Robert Gaffney and Samuel Malek were two of the notable decision-makers in that era. Robert Maxwell bought substantial holdings in the company in 1988. He was expected to sell his holdings quickly as he was a publisher rather than a travel agent. However, when Crimson/Heritage purchased the U.S. division of Thomas Cook for US$1.3 billion in 1989,^[6] he still maintained a substantial interest in the company until his death.

In June 1992, following the acquisition of Midland Bank by HSBC, Thomas Cook was sold to the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) and the charter airline LTU Group for £200 million.

In September 1994 American Express (Amex) bought the corporate travel interests of Thomas Cook Travel Inc. which represented about ten percent of the British company's total revenue. However Amex was not able to buy the venerable Thomas Cook name; an American Express affiliate, Cook Travel Inc. had been operating under that name since 1991 in the United States.

Due to contractual difficulties LTU Group sold its 10% shares to WestLB in May 1995. During 1996 the company bought short-haul operator Sunworld and European city-breaks tour group Time Off. Within three years the company had combined Sunworld, Sunset, Inspirations, Flying Colours and Caledonian Airways into the JMC (for John Mason Cook) brand.

Thomas Cook logo, 1999

A modern Thomas Cook travel agency in Leeds.

On 2 February 1999 the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a holding company owned by West LB, Carlson Inc and Preussag Aktiengesellschaft ("Preussag").^[7] However, in mid-2000 Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its majority 50.1% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities.

In March 2001 the Financial Services division was sold to Travelex, who retained the right to use the Thomas Cook brand on Traveller's Cheques for 5 years. In 2002 Thomas Cook was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic AG, which later changed its name to Thomas Cook AG. The group is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Karstadt.

In 2007 Thomas Cook announced a merger with competitor MyTravel, with the new group to be called Thomas Cook Group plc and listed on the London Stock Exchange. The transaction was completed in June 2007 following competition authority clearance. The new group was 51% owned by Arcandor (new name of Karstadt).

Thomas Cook made a controversial business move in 2008, buying out Canadian travel wholesaler IFS Voyages (including Fun Sun Vacations, Intair, Exotik Tours, Boomerang Tours, etc.).

In March 2011 Thomas Cook acquired the UK travel insurance and airport parking provider Essential Travel and launched Thomas Cook Essentials. This was followed by a merger with The Co-operative Travel group on 8 October 2011 to create the UK's largest retail travel network.

At the 2011 AGM Thomas Cook shareholders mounted a "revolt" over executive bonuses, with only 53.2 percent voting in favour of the remuneration report.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Cook

• Thomas Cook Biography
• Article about Thomas Cook