The far end of Gallows Hill Nature Reserve (see yesterday) is right on the edge of town, where the residential streets give way to fields with flocks of sleepy sheep. At the road, I turned back into Otley town, a short walk of maybe half a mile, as fields become gardens and then an edge of town supermarket, shops and civic buildings.
A boarded-up pub still has a vivid mural of a cyclist. Otley prides itself as a cycling town. Otley born Olympic Silver Medallist, World and National Champion Lizzie Deignan (née Armitstead) is the patron of the local cycling club. The town periodically hosts world class road races too.
Otley has been a market town since 1227 and is a significant centre for surrounding agricultural communities, with regular livestock auctions. It very much retains its 'local' feel, less 'tourist-ified' than many of our small Yorkshire towns. (I'm not sure where all those outdoor-gym-using Otleyans were... certainly not much in evidence around the town centre!)
The market area has an impressive Victorian Jubilee Clock, installed in 1888.
By 1900, the town was reputed to have 30 inns and hostelries, many of them coaching inns and posting houses (where mail coaches stopped). It still seems to have a lot! The Black Bull was reputedly drunk dry by Cromwell's troops on the eve of the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, I suspect it's just folklore - but they won the battle, which was decisive in terms of securing the north of England for the Parliamentarians, against the King.
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