Marsden's Monument in Holbeck Cemetery. Henry Rowland Marsden was born in 1823 in Holbeck. He was a local benefactor, founded the Leeds Music Festival and was twice Lord Mayor of Leeds.
Image copyright of Leeds Library and Information Services
Hunslet remembered
These are some of the dialect words we used regularly. Admittedly, they aren't all peculiar to Hunslet, or even Leeds. What do you think? Can you add any more?

Black-bright (= very dirty)
Blackclocks (=big, black beetles)
Brass (=money)
Bray (=smack,hit)
Britches (=trousers)
Buggerlugs (=cheeky person)

Calling (Two meanings: =chatting, especially with neighbours: pronounced with a short "a" as in "pal". = being called bad or naughty names: pronounced with a long "a" as in "fall")
Chelp (= to answer someone back cheekily or aggressively)
Chumping (= collecting wood for the bonfire in the days before November 5th)
Chunter (= to grumble under one's breath)
Coal ole (= hole in the bottom of an outside wall, covered by a metal plate, down which the coal was delivered to the cellar)
Corser edge (= edge of the pavement next to the gutter)

Flags (= stone slabs forming pavement)
Flit (= move house)
Frame yourself (= get moving/working)
Fratch (= to argue,fight)

Ginnels
They were all over - alongside houses, or cutting between factories and streets, letting you make a short cut.
Carrie Stocks

I don't know if I'm on this earth or Fullers (= I'm harrassed/confused)

Gab (= to chat)
Gawp (= to stare)
Gollop (= to bolt your food down)
Gormless (= stupid)
Gorm ("Don't take any gorm of him) (= ignore him)

Hollows
Areas of waste land sparsely covered with grass. Used for ballgames, illicit gambling like pitch and toss, and betting slip collections. There were three near Penny Hill, one near Geo. Ward’s on Jack Lane, one on Grove Road, one  near the steelworks and one near the beck on Midland Road.
Carrie Stocks

Hoss work (= hard manual work)

Jiggered (= extremely tired)

Kali (=sherbet. Pronounced "kay-lie". Sold in a paper bag with a stick of licorice.)

Laking (=playing)
Lannigans ("She's having Lannigans")(= having a good time, perhaps at someone else's expense)
Ligging/lolling about (= lazily lying about the house)
Lops (=fleas)
Losing ("Fotherby's are losing")
(=factory workers emerging at the end of the shift)

Marsden's monument ("don't stand around like Marsden's
monument")(= do something). See photo on right








Maungy (= uncheerful/sullen)
Midden (=communal area in front of the toilets where rubbish was placed in the days before the council issued bins. Subsequently used to refer to the bin itself)
Mingy (=mean; will not share)
Mi sen (= myself)
Osses (=horses)

Peebeds (=dandelions)
Playing 'amlet (Hamlet) with someone (=complaining loudly/scolding)
Playing pop (=your parents telling you off)
Pop (=soft drinks)
Pictures (=cinema)

Reight chuffed (= very happy/pleased)
Roaring (=crying)
Running wick (= lots of insects/bugs in the house)

Siden t' table (= clear the table)
Spanish (=liquorice)
Spice (= sweets)
Spuggies (=sparrows. Some people also called them "spadgers")
Starving/starved
(=cold) e.g. It's starving outside. Also, hungry, of course
Stonkers (=the game of marbles, or "taws" as it was also termed in Hunslet)
Swill
("have a swill") (= wash face and hands, especially other than in the
morning and last thing at night)

Think on (= consider what I've just told you; remember)
Traipsing (= walking somewhere, especially reluctantly)

Waff off (= go away)
Watter (=water)
Winteredge (= a wooden clothes horse. Long ago, washing used to be dried by laying it on the privet hedge in summer. A "Winter Hedge" was used when the
weather prevented this.)

Yorp (= to sing sing loudly; to complain or moan, to the irritation of the listener)
 
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There are several explanations of the origin of the word.  Maybe we will never know the answer.

Hun's stream
or
Dog houses. Dogs were kept by farmers to scare off wild beasts from their crops or flocks, or were kept for hunts.
(Hunde=dog, Slet= a house)
or
Dog houses - large dogs kept to guard travellers from wolves.
or
The town in which the royal dog-house was kept when the king's court came to Leeds.


Geoff Tebbutt believes the name Hunslet (according to whoever wrote the Wikipedia content) means Huns inlet and is Anglo-Saxon. Does anyone know the name for a person born in Hunslet- a Hunsletonian, a Hunsletian, surely not a Hun!

Why Dialect
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                  Live in Hunslet ... travel the world
Let's start with Yorkshire. We had Ripon, Ledsham, Arthington, Craven, Dewsbury, Leathley, Fryston and Maltby.  Moving outside the county we could travel to Sussex, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Wiltshire, Windsor, Balmoral, Ashbourne, Newport, Barmouth, Leek, Elgin, Derby, Hertford, Norwich, Dartmouth, Stafford, Yarmouth, Gloucester, Norfolk, Burton, Brighton, Ely, Bedford and Flint. Finally, let's go abroad to Turkey, Plevna, Waterloo, Jericho, Sardinia, Sweden, Palermo, and Denmark.

When I was young my ambition was to be a geography teacher. I'm sure that this was because, living in the Peppers, I was so close to Warwickshire, Sussex, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Wiltshire.
                                  
Chris Tebbutt


                      
Street names around Pearson Street
William Street (the King), Peel Street (the Prime Minister), Ashley Street (Lord Ashley, who become the great social reformer Lord Shaftesbury), Brougham Street and Vaux Street (Lord Brougham of Vaux, the Home Sectetary), Ripon Street (the then new diocese of Ripon)
John Livingstone was an assistant priest at Hunslet Parish Church from 1955-60. He now lives in France.

              
                                      
Benjamin Ingham
From Leeds, he made a fortune from Marsala wine in Palermo, Sicily. His profits were put mainly into American railroads but some were used to build houses in Hunslet. He gave the names to Ingham, Vine, Grape and Palermo Streets. His sisters helped fund the building of the parish church spire. Read "Princes under the volcano" by Raleigh Trevelyan.
                                  
John Livingstone