An area of the Broad Lane and Bell Lane areas.

No one seems to know how this colloquial name originated but looking at the last syllable first, and assuming this was derived from the ancient (probably Anglo Saxon) word of ‘ton’, meaning town, perhaps this might give us a clue.  Another favourite Saxon word was, ‘ham’ or home.  In an earlier article you may well remember we were talking about the Saxon lord ‘Bram’, who possibly gave his name to the area in which we now live, ‘ley’ meaning field.   Bramham could well, and loosely translated, simply have been ‘Bram’s Home’ or ‘the Home of Bram’.  We can see in many of our cities, towns and villages how these two words have been used time and again.

Unfortunately the use of the word Cat, is not clear, but Babble is generally associated with noise of some sort or another, which leads to one school of thought on the subject.

Hearsay has it that many years ago in what is now known as the Bell Lane area, stood a chapel, which had a bell.

A brand new photograph of St.Catherine's Mill, originally built in the 19th century and sitting to the side of Broad Lane. This stands on land originally called "Cat Babbleton". The area to the right of the Mill was also known as such. There were small stone-built cottages here, some of which formed yet another of Bramley's famous 'yards'.

In the days before houses blocked the view of Kirkstall Abbey, one would have been able to see over the whole of Bell Lane, Broad Lane and the land between there and Leeds & Bradford Road and beyond to Kirkstall Abbey, and beyond.  It is believed that when travellers approached the point where the chapel and bell stood, the bell would be rung to alert the Monks and Friars to let them know that potential visitors were on their way to the Abbey.  They in turn would doubtless have provided them with food and shelter before continuing on their journey.

‘Babble’ and ‘ton’ put together gives the loosely transcribed name of ‘Noisytown’.  Quite a good name for a place, which rang its bell loudly and maybe fairly frequently.

Cat Babbleton was located easily by walking down Waterloo Lane from Town Street in Bramley, to where it junctions with Broad Lane, at which point you would actually be standing in the area.  Again with your back facing the Town Street area there now stands St. Catherine’s Mill (still standing today) slightly to your left.  The land upon which this mill was built in the 19th century, was part of the Cat Babbleton area on which a group of houses, built along the lines of the ‘Yards’, stood.  There were three sides to this generally four-sided construction of houses, and one of those sides actually faced onto Broad Lane itself.  It is likely these houses were pulled down at some time, possibly just before or even during the Second World War.

2006