Village of the Week: The Leeds suburb which developed so the rich could escape city smog

The industrial revolution was in full swing and from around the 1830s families started to escape the smog and smoke of Leeds city centre and move to imposing stone villas which had been built to line Headingley Lane and Woodhouse Cliff, but which also captured country air and views.

Headingley enjoyed low taxes, a good water supply of springs, wells and

new underground pipes and an improved transport system.

It was seemingly ‘the’ place to live in the Victorian period and without a doubt, when Headingley came on my own radar more than 20 years ago, nothing had really changed.

Ever since the hazy days of the 1990s, if not before, and the turn of the millennium, when it comes to trendy and popular places to live in Leeds –Headingley is the place that as a teenager leaving home for university or college you want to move to as its status as the student capital of the city is practically folklore.

Nightlife, bars, pubs – you could go to a different place every night of the week. Housing – probably more than long term residents. Location – bus routes straight into the city centre within a few minutes.

Readers of a certain age will recall student days and nights in what was the Arc, Skyrack or Headingley Taps.

A few years back I was delighted to spot a takeaway while I was out running one day, tucked down St Michael’s Road, and still there after all these years. I had completely forgotten about it.

After a night in the above mentioned watering holes in the early 2000s, we would head to Tariq’s for chicken and chips to take home and staff would get us a taxi too. Now that is service.

Now, Headingley is also graced with city centre brands that opened in Leeds when it was experiencing a boom in retail and hospitality development in around 2017 and proved so popular that second branches popped up in Headingley. Manahatta, The BOX and the like.

Over the years the ‘studentification’ of Headingley forced many well-established families to move out and allowed landlords and houses in multiple-occupation to move in.

But, for millennials, Headingley also represents aspirational living and also allows for that transition where you don’t want to to the Otley Run, but do want a nice wine bar or boutique, independent restaurant. You work in the city centre but want a garden or green space. On a weekend you want to venture out and buy fresh artisan bread, read the Saturday morning big papers with a cronut and a barista coffee.

The independent and creative shops and businesses are waiting for you. Think Fika North, Poco, I am Doner, Cafe Lento.

Then there are the big hitters of the Headingley scene and they don’t get much better than this. Italian Salvatore Dammone opened Salvo’s Restaurant on Otley Road in 1976. Some 50 years and three generations later it is still going strong and is one of the most popular restaurants in the whole of Leeds.

Of course, behind the student and nightlife element, Headingley is synonymous with sporting legend and a little slice of quaint culture too.

It is home to cricket and rugby royalty.

In quite an impressive set up, Headingley stadium is in two halves and in the hospitality suite you can see the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club on one side and Leeds Rhinos rugby league club on the other. What nights there have been here over the years.

On a dark autumn or winter night, the floodlights beam out and can be seen for miles and the Headingley rugby roar reverberates while test cricket has been played here since 1899. Remember in 1977 when England won the Ashes?

On the other side of the spectrum, a hidden gem is Cottage Road Cinema. It is the oldest and only independent cinema in Leeds and one of the oldest cinemas in the UK in that it has been continuously showing films since 1912.

Watching a film there is like stepping back in time. Cottage Road started life in 1905 as motor garage and motorcycle assembly shop for nearby Castle Grove, a Victorian mansion built for a wealthy Leeds silk merchant, in far Headingley.

It almost closed in 2005 but in a last minute deal was taken over and became part of the Northern Morris group.

The seats are still covered in red velvet, wooden ticket booths greet you as you walk in and ice-cream is sold in small cartons.

Headingley is vibrant, busy, creative, independent and diverse and has been for so long that it becomes hard to imagine it as anything different.

It was mentioned in The Domesday Book as Hedingelei or Hedingeleia, while a stone coffin found near Beckett Park in 1995 suggests there may have been an earlier settlement in late Roman or post-Roman times.

In 1324 the Manor of Hedingeleia was given to Kirkstall Abbey until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540.

It then passed to the Savile family and then in the 17th century to the Brudenell family, Earls of Cardigan and some of these names are familiar today as street names or venue names.

A map of 1711 shows Headingley as having a chapel, cottages and farmsteads scattered around a triangle of land formed by the merging of routes from north, west and south.

In an 1801 census, Headingley's population was given as 300, now as the ward of Headingley and Hyde Park, it is more than 31,500.