URPoint Details
A church is recorded in The Domesday Survey (1086) as belonging to the manor of Gipton and Colton, and as Whitkirk is the only known medieval church in this area of Leeds, it is reasonable to assume that it is Whitkirk church that is being referred to, in which case it must have a late Anglo- Saxon origin at least. The first mention of Whitkirk itself is in 1154-66 in the Early Yorkshire Charters as ‘Witechirche’, meaning ‘white church’. The name has Old English origins, with the ‘chirche’ element subsequently being replaced by the Old Norse ‘kirkja’. It is possible that the church was the focus of settlement activity at this period extending into the later medieval.
The Church of St Mary is Perpendicular in style and has some outstanding monuments one in particular dates from 1688.
Location: 4 miles east of Leeds city centre
- Type:
- Landmark