Gipton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gipton is an early twentieth-century council estate between Harehills and Seacroft in north-east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It suffers from serious social problems and has long been wrongly considered one of the city's worst districts, but never being treated as a no-go area by the police or other services. Gipton is still home to many decent people who's parents had moved out of the slums in the 1930's/40's.
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[edit] Roads & transport
The main roads that run through the area are Oakwood Drive, Oak Tree Drive and Amberton Road. Two of these are single-carriageway roads, while one is a dual carriageway (albeit as a residential road) - the road that has this status is Oak Tree Drive or, in local terms, Fairway Hill as the Fairway public house can be located at the top of this hill.
[edit] Housing
Gipton is mainly comprised of semi-detached and terraced houses, with some high-rise flats: these are common around this area of Leeds, as they are in Seacroft and Swarcliffe.
[edit] Etymology of place-name
Gipton derives from Old English: the first element is a personal name: in this case, it is Gippa (same as in Ipswich, although almost certainly not the same man!) and tun "village, settlement, farm" (here, it refers to a village). The town's name was recorded as Cepetun, suggesting village with a market, suggesting a trading-town, or residence of the traders, as with Market Weighton. The first element of the name in the Domesday Book record wrongly suggests Old English ceap "market, trading-place", but it was a corruption of the personal name, Gippa. However, a record from 1018 as Gipentune proves that the first element is a personal name, not a noun.
[edit] Trivia
In local parlance, those that live in or originate from Gipton are known as Giptoners, or more recently... youths have adopted the term 'Giptonites' [Like Kryptonite] [citation needed]
The large Church of the Epiphany located on Beech Lane was constructed in 1936-1938 by NF Cachemaille-Day, and is a Grade I listed building.
St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Primary School, on St Wilfrid's Circus, was opened in 1975 after the old school, off Harehills Road, ran into a dilapidated state. The first Headteacher at the new school was Mrs. Fleming. The school was once again re-built in 1993 after a fire destroyed the whole building early one morning in 1990.
