Great Preston is a small rural village in the

City of Leeds Leeds, also known as the City of Leeds, is a metropolitan borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in West Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Leeds and the towns of Farsley, Gar ...

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distr ...

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 England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It has incorporated the once neighbouring hamlet of Little Preston.

Location

Great Preston is situated 9 miles south east of

Leeds city centre Leeds city centre is the central business district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is roughly bounded by the Leeds Inner Ring Road, Inner Ring Road to the north and the River Aire to the south and can be divided into several quarters. A ...

and is 2 miles south of the town Garforth. The villages of Kippax and

Swillington Swillington is a village and civil parish near Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough. It is situated east from Leeds city centre, north of the River Aire, and is surrounded by streams including Fleaking ...

are also in close proximity, and, due to development of land into housing to the south of the village, Great Preston now borders Allerton Bywater. The village is in the LS26 Leeds postcode area, and forms part of the

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 ...

of Great and Little Preston, which had a population of 1,463 at the 2011 Census.

Etymology

The name of Great Preston is first attested in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, in the form ''Prestun'' and similar variants. The name comes from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

words ''prēost'' ('priest') and ''tūn'' ('farmstead, estate'). Thus it once meant 'estate belonging to a priest'. The name ''Little Preston'', coined to differentiate this settlement from its larger neighbour, is first attested between 1258 and 1265, as ''Preston Luttle''. Meanwhile, the form ''Great Preston'' is first attested in 1488.Harry Parkin, ''Your City's Place-Names: Leeds'', English Place-Name Society City-Names Series, 3 (Nottingham: English Place-Names Society, 2017), p. 50.

Amenities

Great Preston has one pub, a local

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

and football team and a village hall. There is a

C of E C, or c, is the third letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''cee'' (pronounced ), plural ''cees''. History "C ...

primary school based in an old Victorian building with a modern extension.Great Preston Primary School
website St Aidan's church was closed in 1992, and changed into a community centre in 1998. The Working Men's club has also shut down and has been replaced by a snooker club.

Location grid

References

External links