It is a predominantly middle class area with a high proportion of retired residents. Housing is mixed; while most is private, there is council housing situated near Keswick Lane. Facilities include a public house and sports club (with a cricket pitch and two football pitches). Bardsey also has a primary school and an Anglican church.
Etymology
The name of Bardsey is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Berdesei and Bereleseie, situated in the hundred of Skyrack.[1] The second element comes from the Old English word ēg ('island') and the first is agreed to be from a personal name. Exactly what this name was is not certain, but the name Beornrǣd is a plausible candidate. Thus the name probably once meant 'Beornrǣd's island' (or the island of someone of a similar name). Since the site is not in fact an island, it has been suggested that the name was metaphorical, referring to a hill rising, island-like, from flat ground.[2]
Nearby earthworks named Pompocali, in the parish of Scarcroft, are of uncertain origin, but possibly a result of quarrying. A minor Roman road lies alongside it, suggesting that Pompocali results from Roman activity.[3]
A motte-and-bailey castle dates back to the time immediately following the Norman conquest.[4] Bardsey also claims the oldest Anglo-Saxon tower church in England, with the tower of All Hallows church dating back to c. 850–950.[5]
The Bingley Arms is a public house that claims to be England's oldest public house, and to be recorded in the Domesday Book, although these claims are disputed.[6]
^Parkin, Harry (2017). Your City's Place-Names: Leeds. English Place-Name Society City-Names Series, 3. Nottingham: English Place-Names Society. p. 20.
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