Bingley St Ives 3.98

Bingley St. Ives, or St. Ives Estate is a 550acre country park and former estate between Bingley and Harden in West Yorkshire, England now owned by Bradford Council. The park has Grade II listing in the English Heritage National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Interest. The park has been given Accredited Country Park status by Natural England.As well as being a public country park the property is also used by Bingley St Ives Golf Club, the Sports Turf Research Institute, Bradford Independent Care Group, Bingley Angling Club, and Aire Valley Archers. Some 300,000 people per year visit the country park.HistoryThe St. Ives area is known to have been inhabited from at least the neolithic or Bronze Age from artifacts left behind. Up until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 the land was divided between the monks of Rievaulx Abbey and Drax Priory. In 1540 the land was purchased by a Walter Paslew and was subsequently owned by the Laycock and Milner families and the St. Ives mansion house was built in 1616. In 1635 the Ferrands purchased St. Ives at the time known as Harden Grange, and it was in 1858 that the names of Harden Grange and the local St. Ives were interchanged. There are stories of a local connection with General Fairfax and the Civil War, regrettably little is known with certainty. Sarah Busfeild (née Ferrand) inherited St. Ives from her uncle and she and her son William changed their family name to Ferrand and, when she died in 1854 her son William Busfeild Ferrand inherited the property. The estate and mansion were bought by Bingley Urban District Council in 1929.