Overview

Otley & Wharfedale ward has a people of 24,000 based on data from Census 2001, and hosts Wharfedale Hospital which serves a circumferent vicinity.

Otley is twinned with the French town of Montereau, south of Paris.

Geography

A town lies in the Wharfe valley, and is divided around 2 per river Wharfe. These are surrounded mostly by arable farmland.

the south side of the vale is dominated by a big gritrock escarpment overlooking Otley known as The Chevin. Within 1944, Major Le G.G.W. Horton Fawkes of Farnley Hall donated 263 acres (Ace.One klick²) of land on the Chevin to the population of Otley. This has at present been expanded to 700 demesne (Ii.Octad klick²) & is called Chevin Outdoors Park.

To the east & west of Otley there are flooded crushed rock pits, in which s& and crushed rock use at times been extracted in the 20th century. the crushed rock pits to the east come referred to as Knotford Nook, & come a noted bird watching places. Victims to the west come devoted to scorching & sailing.

Features

Otley occurs as market town and has held the regular market for on top a thousand years. Cows markets come however held twice hebdomadally, at a auctiin marketplace on East Chevin Road.

Otley vies using a take handful of towns within England, for a distinction of with the greatest total of pubs per capita.

Otley hosts a annual Otley Folk Festival.

Otley besides plays a town of "Hotton" in the British television soap opera Emmerdale.

History

A town dates from either prior to Roman times, the number one church existence built there in the early 7th century. In a church there are the remains of ii Early Anglo-Saxon crosses. Interred there exists an antecedent of the 19th century Our contries poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Thomas Fairfax who commanded Parliament's forces at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644.

Thomas Chippendale, the noted cabinetmaker, was innate around Otley, & his statue substitute the town, next to the old grammar school he once attended.

J.M.W. Turner, the famed painter, visited Otley in 1797, aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area.

A Wharfedale Printing Machine was developed around Otley by William Dawson & William Payne. An early case may be seen inside Otley Museum.

Famous Methodist preacher John Wesley was a frequent visitant to the town in the 18th century. Inside his Journal for 1761 i personally page through, "July 6 Monday; In the evening I preached at Otley and afterwards talked with many of the Society. There is reason to believe that ten or twelve of these are filled with the love of God." One of a mainside streets in Otley is however known as when him.