Ben Rhydding is a village in the

City of Bradford Bradford (), also known as the City of Bradford, is a metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Bradford, but covers a larger area which includes the towns and villages of Keighley, Shipley, Wes ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England. It is part of the

Ilkley Ilkley is a spa town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, in Northern England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Ilkley civil parish includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding and is a ward within ...

urban area and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

. The village is situated on a north-facing valley side beneath the Cow and Calf rocks and above and to the south of the

River Wharfe The River Wharfe ( ) is a river in Yorkshire, England originating within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. For much of its middle course it is the county boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. Its valley is known as Wharfedale. ...

. It was in the historic

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

History

The village's former name was Wheatley. In the 19th century it was noted for its

hydropathic establishment Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy and also called water cure, is a branch of alternative medicine (particularly naturopathy), occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment. The ter ...

, the Ben Rhydding Hydro, which opened on 29 March 1844 at a cost of £30,000. It was the third major hydropathic establishment in England, "perhaps the most deeply respected and certainly the longest-lived".Price, R. (1981), pp.273-74 ''Ben Rhydding'', the name given to the establishment, also given to the railway station built to serve it and by which the village subsequently became known, is allegedly the ancient name of the uplands above Wheatley. In a 1900 history of Upper Wharfedale, a footnote describes the circumstances, citing Collyer's ''History of Ilkley'':

Amenities

Ben Rhydding is served by a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

, public house, two petrol stations, two churches and local shops but relying on nearby

for shopping and civic facilities.

Sport

Ilkley Town A.F.C. is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club based at Coutances Way, and compete in the

Northern Counties East League The Northern Counties East Football League is a semi-professional English football league. It has two divisions – Premier Division and Division One – which stand at the ninth and tenth levels of the English football pyramid respectively. ...

. Ben Rhydding Hockey Club is a

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

club that is based at Countances Way, and competes in the

Men's England Hockey League The Men's England Hockey League is a field hockey league organised by England Hockey that features men's teams from England and Wales. Format Regular season There are 62 teams in the league, the top tier consists of a Premier Division of ...

, the

Women's England Hockey League The Women's England Hockey League is a field hockey league organised by England Hockey that features women's teams from England. From 2011–2020 it was sponsored by Investec and was referred to as the Investec Women's Hockey League. Format ...

, the North Hockey League and the Yorkshire & North East Hockey League. Ben Rhydding Cricket Club is also based at Coutances Way.

References

External links

Conservation Area Assessment
for Ben Rhydding, dated 2003, from the

Metropolitan District Council *
Memorials from Ben Rhydding
', by

John Pringle Nichol John Pringle Nichol Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE FRAS (13 January 1804 – 19 September 1859) was a Scotland, Scottish educator, phrenologist, astronomer and economist who did much to popularise astronomy in a manner that appe ...

, published by Charles Gilpin, 1852 *
Ben Rhydding: the principles of hydropathy and the compressed air bath
', by 'A graduate of the Edinburgh university', published by Hamilton Adams & Co, 1858
Ben Rhydding
described in ''Black's Picturesque Tourist of Scotland'', 1861, from

Google Book Search Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

''Ben Rhydding: the Asclepia of England''
by Rev. R. Woodrow Thomson, published by John Shuttleworth, 1862 . {{authority control Villages in West Yorkshire Wharfedale Geography of the City of Bradford Ilkley

History

Amenities

Sport

See also

References

External links