The settlement of Ilkley is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Skyrack in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Skyrack

The Meaning of the Name

The name Ilkley is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word lēah, a woodland clearing or glade. The first element is most likely a personal name or an early descriptive term, now difficult to recover with certainty. Taken together the name probably meant something close to ‘a clearing’.

Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Ilkley.

Listed Buildings Near Ilkley

Historic England records 52 listed buildings within about a mile of Ilkley. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

3 Stone Crosses South of the Church of All Saints - 0.34 km

Grade II*

Church of St Margaret - 0.25 km

Grade II

United Reformed Church - 0.12 km
Railings and Gates of Front Gardens of West View (Numbers 3 and 4) to North, South and West and Between the Gardens - 0.22 km
West View - 0.23 km
Winter Garden - 0.23 km
Railings and Gate to Front Garden of West View (Numbers 6 and 7) to the West and North - 0.24 km
Ilkley Station - 0.24 km
West View - 0.25 km
Town Hall (Including Public Library) - 0.27 km
Gate piers, gates, railings and steps, Ilkley Memorial Gardens - 0.29 km
First World War memorial, Ilkley Memorial Gardens - 0.3 km
West View - 0.3 km
Railings to Front Garden of West View (Number 12) on North, South and West - 0.3 km
Crescent Hotel - 0.31 km
Second World War memorial and associated pavilion shelters, Ilkley Memorial Gardens - 0.32 km
Moor Cottage - 0.32 km
Lister’s Arms Hotel - 0.32 km
Former Stables of Lister’s Arms Hotel - 0.32 km
Box Tree - 0.32 km
19 and 21, Church Street - 0.32 km
4-6, Church Street - 0.34 km
Outbuilding of Crescent Hotel to the East - 0.34 km
7 Headstones Grouped South West of Church of All Saints - 0.34 km

…and 28 more listed structures in the area.

Scheduled Monuments Near Ilkley

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 35 lie within roughly a mile of Ilkley:

Three carved rocks opposite St Margaret’s Church - 0.23 km
Site of Roman Fort, Ilkley. - 0.41 km
Old Bridge - 0.74 km
Carved rock next to the drive of Overdale Nursing Home - 0.8 km
Carved rock in wall of grounds of Overdale Nursing Home - 0.85 km
Large carved boulder on eminence between two streams east of Barmishaw Well - 0.89 km
Cup marked rock lying 200m south of and above White Wells - 0.93 km
Rock with three cupmarks west of West Rock and 225m south of White Wells - 0.95 km
Carved rock known as Pepperpot Rock and adjacent small carved rock west of West Rock and 215m south of White Wells - 0.95 km
Cup marked rock 230m south of and above White Wells - 0.97 km

…and 25 more.

Ilkley Today

Today Ilkley lies within the administrative area of Bradford, and the settlement recorded a population of 15,035 at the 2021 census. Nine and a half centuries separate that figure from the small rural community the Domesday survey recorded here in 1086.

Read more about modern Ilkley on Wikipedia .