Burton Leonard

Burton Leonard is mentioned in the Domesday Book as having 30 ploughlands and belonging to King William.[4] The name of Burton derives from the Old English of Burh-Tūn (a fortified manor) and the name of Leonard, in this case, the dedication of the local church.[5][6]

The Church of St Leonard, is a grade II listed structure that was built in 1878, replacing an earlier structure.[7][8] Although the current dedication is for St Leonard, as was the dedication in the Late Middle Ages, the former church was dedicated to St Helen.[9][10] The parish was formerly a peculiar, though now it is in the Diocese of Leeds.[11][12] The primary school is the Burton Leonard Church of England Primary School, which was rated as outstanding by Ofsted in October 2019.[13]

Burton Leonard has just one pub, the Royal Oak,[14][15] after the Hare and Hounds closed in 2017 and it was demolished to make way for new housing.[16]

Station lane in the village leads westwards to the hamlet of Wormald Green, where the nearest railway station was.[17] This closed in 1962, and now the nearest railway station is in Knaresborough, 4 miles (6.4 km) to the south.[18][19] The village has a limited bus service between Ripon and Knaresborough.[20] The A61 road is to the north and the A1(M) motorway, is 5.6 miles (9 km) to the east at Boroughbridge.[8][21]

The underlying geology of the area is magnesian limestone, which many of the older buildings in the village are constructed of.[22] South of the village is Burton Leonard Lime Quarries SSSI, a 9.9-acre (4-hectare) site which supplied lime and building stone up until 1941.[23]

• David Nobbs, comedy writer, creator of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, lived in the village.[24]