NOTE: This is not affiliated with the official council of Quarmby, West Yorkshire.
Quarmby is a district of Huddersfield, my proud home town, in West Yorkshire. It’s a pretty standard, peaceful place with nice houses and people. According to Google, it contains a nursery known as Jack and Jill’s, Roshan Convenience Store and another mystery establishment known as ‘Queen of Paws’. Interestingly, Quarmby Road is very high up; looking down, you can see large parts of the countryside and other areas of Huddersfield.
Quarmby used to be a hamlet in the medieval period. The former manor, under the name Cornebi, is recorded in the Domesday Book as being owned by a noble known as Ilbert de Lacy, who derives his name from the commune of Lassy in Normandy, France. It became “famous” in 1341 after a violent feud broke out between the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir John de Eland, and Sir Hugh Quarmby, resulting in the latter being murdered. In later years, the civil parish of Lindley-cum-Quarmby became an industrial suburb, mainly producing cotton. In 1924 Quarmby became incorporated into Huddersfield and it’s represented by the Labour MP Harpreet Uppal in parliament, who used to be Angela Rayner’s private secretary.
The name ‘Quarmby’ derived from the Old Norse words ‘kvern’, meaning ‘millstone’ or ‘handmill’, and ‘býr’, meaning farmstead. The latter comes from the Proto-Indo-European root ‘*bʰuH-’, which meant to grow or to dwell, and is the origin of many place names ending in -by in England today due to the Vikings.