The Manor of Beeston

Sadly, Beeston's old manor house no longer remains, Frank Goddard takes a brief glance at its history.
In the Domesday Survey Beeston is mentioned as part of Ilbert de Lacy's lands.  Leeds had several manors and presumably Beeston and possibly Cad Beeston were two of these.  In the twelfth century the Manor of Beeston was held in two parts (known as moieties), Cad Beeston being one.
There, the recently re-discovered manor house remains but there was another in Beeston itself.  Until 1936, when it was demolished, Beeston Hall stood where the Oldroyd Estate has been built.  Although subjected to much alteration over the years there seems no doubt that this was the manorial centre of the village.  The building may have contained elements of an original structure at least as old as Cad Beeston Manor House.  The lower storey was of local gritstone to which an upper floor of brickwork surmounted by a slate roof was added in the 18th century.
According to old documents, in early days the Beeston half of the Manor was held by the L'Isle family, then the Rotherfields.  Later a family called de Beeston became under-tenants of an estate which included Cottingley Hall (demolished 1946) and Stank Hall which, with its adjoining New Hall, fortunately remains.  The last of the family, a Captain Beeston, sold out in 1641.  Thus the estate was broken up until 1712 when Thomas Kitchingman, twice mayor of Leeds, reunited the divided parts in a single purchase.
In its final days Beeston Hall was the property of the Low Moor Mining Company of Bradford.  They owned much of the village and so were effectively the Lords of the Manor.  Down the hill, behind the hall, was one of their coal mines, appropriately enough called Hall Pit.  In 1907 they put the house on the market and the Stones family bought it and turned the place into flats.  But decay and lack of finance at last took control and in 1928 it was sold for building development and ultimately demolished in 1936.
For some time the old ornamental lake remained below the Oldroyds and was known as Stone's Pond.  I remember taking a fishing net to the place and dipping - with little success. Now even the pool is now more, which is perhaps as well for such unattended water is a hazard to youngsters.
Some 300 years ago Ralph Thoresby, the Leeds historian, launched into print to complain that "a Gothic arched gateway leading from the street of the village, the last relic of the old manor house, has lately been removed.  Thus an antiquary has the yearly mortification of seeing one vestige of antiquity after another disappear."  And he was only grumbling about the loss of a gateway.  Now there is no manor house at all - Thoresby must have turned in his grave!