Religious Mapping of Burley and 'Hyde Park'
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University of Leeds Department of Theology and Religious Studies Religious Mapping of Burley and ‘Hyde Park’ 2004 Anna Bradley, Michelle Chamroo, Chloe Gallagher, Claire Lipshaw, James Manning, Katie McChrystal, Katie McManamon, Emma Waters, David Yallop CONTENTS Introduction 3 Methods and Issues 4 Burley and Hyde Park 6 The Faith Communities of Burley and Hyde Park 11 The Local Community 18 Interfaith – a Look at Race and Faith within LS6 22 Local Students and their Impact 25 Conclusion 31 Directory of Places of Worship 33 Appendices 47 Bibliography 53 2 INTRODUCTION The city of Leeds is one of the most diverse in the UK. It draws people of all different nationalities and faiths due to several universities and specialist colleges. At the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds, religion and locality has been one of the disciplines studied by staff and students. The Religious Mapping of Leeds module has been offered since 1994 and since then, Moortown, Armley, Leeds City Centre, Beeston and the University have all been mapped. This involves exploring the religious context of a particular area. This year, eight final year students and a master’s student have undertaken the challenge to map the area which is known to most locally as ‘Hyde Park’. It borders Headingley, Burley, Woodhouse and the Leeds University campus. Hyde Park is an urban area, just north of Leeds city centre. The original area we located for the project proved to be too large; we originally planned to map areas in Headingley, Burley and Hyde Park. However, due to time restraints and the density of the area, we decided it would be better to look only at Hyde Park, which itself had a variety of different religions. Our area therefore ranges from Hyde Park Road to Cardigan Lane and across from Headingley Lane to Kirkstall Road incorporating a large majority of the LS6 and LS4 postcodes. We decided that we were going to attend a religious gathering at each place of worship within the mapped area. We also wanted to obtain interviews with religious specialists and congregation members. From this, we hoped to obtain a picture of religious life in Hyde Park. Hyde Park consists of a number of different places of worship; there are seven churches, four mosques, one Hindu Temple and one religious community. Within the area, there are also a number of other faith traditions, ranging from Buddhist, to Rastafarians and Hare Krishnas. However, these traditions do not have a specific place of worship, thus limiting their inclusion in the report. The seven churches include Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Independent. When looking at the area, we identified certain themes that we decided to explore in more depth. These included students and inter-faith. These are pertinent issues in our area, as the population consists largely of student dwellers, who have had some impact on religiosity in Hyde Park. There is also a large ethnic community which contributes to the wide variety of religions available in the area. We are hoping to discover to what extent students and multi-faith matters affect the community both socially and religiously. From these studies, we predict that because of the high number of students in the area relations with local residents may be strained and we do not expect there to be a high student attendance at religious services. With regards to multi-faith, we assume, because of the number of different faiths, there would be high integration between different denominations and traditions. We think that we will discover a close-knit community among the different religious institutions of Hyde Park. We look forward in anticipation to the completion of this project, as it will bring a new light and understanding to an area which we know well and which is loved by many. 3 METHODS AND ISSUES Despite being called ‘Religious Mapping’, to complete a full and in-depth report we have gone beyond the sphere of religion, to gain a variety of external points of view on an area that is so diverse. We used several methods and most were quite successful. To begin we visited the Leeds University Chaplaincy, after having identified the significant student body prominent in our designated area. They helped us highlight what Christian religious buildings were enclosed in the area and gave us contact details for them. We knew from a previous ‘walking tour’ led by Professor Knott, that there were at least three mosques and one Hindu temple that we would also have to contact. We attempted to contact all the institutions by various means. Some contact details (for the Leeds Grand Mosque, for example) were found on the Internet, whilst others were found by asking members of the Department or from the Chaplaincy material. Our aim was to set up a time when two of our team could go and visit the places of worship and community centres, and speak to those who ran them and those who attended them. Once these meetings were set up1 the team devised questionnaires and interview schedules (see appendix). All the questions answered have contributed to our findings and in most instances proved a very useful way of understanding the community and the type of agency we were visiting (whether it was religious or non). The ways that we contacted the groups were mainly by the phone and email; sometimes a follow up was required if our initial response was not successful. For the non-religious agencies (such as Burley Lodge Community centre) we approached them directly by going in and speaking to them. People in most of the places we visited were helpful and were willing to assist in whatever ways they could. Other parties we focused on were local residents and students. To obtain information from the latter we again devised a questionnaire to ascertain where they lived, their religious inclinations and the reasons for those persuasions. Also, we were keen to know their opinions of the area of Hyde Park/Burley, as one of our key themes was the relation between students and residents. Members of our team approached students on the main road outside the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and by the University Union. Public officials that we approached (councillors and the Police) were all very helpful and told us numerous things about the area’s history and modern context within the city of Leeds. 1 This was not always so simple-see ‘Problems Encountered’. 4 ‘Problems Encountered’ We did encounter a few problems during the research process. • Our original issue actually arose with our area being too large for us to map in depth. It was originally meant to encompass Headingley and all of Burley and Hyde Park. However time restraints and the density of the area meant we decided to focus only on Hyde Park and most of Burley. • Secondly, we had problems with our terminology as although the local community calls the area that we mapped ‘Hyde Park’ it is officially classed as ‘Headingley’. This meant for both our Census and history information we could not find results for ‘Hyde Park’, rather we had to use the location of ‘Headingley’ to obtain the information required. • Our third issue was with contacting and sustaining contact with certain institutions. An issue arose with one Mosque, which told one of our team members who was female that she would not be allowed to enter. It was Ramadan when we conducted the study and that posed the problem that certain residents who were observing the fast were not available in the café where we chose to conduct our resident questionnaires. • The fourth problem encountered was that there seemed to be a language barrier at certain places. In hindsight the team now feels it may have been easier to contact members of ethnic minority faiths by letters rather than phone calls. However when we did email members of the religious communities we sometimes found their response less than immediate and multiple attempts had to be made. Even when we arrived at places the members of the community we were meant to meet were not always there. This was due to things such as double booked schedules, prayer times clashing with our arrival and miscommunication about meeting times and places. • A further problem was encountered when attempting to obtain information from the City library. Information required often no longer existed when the reference did, for example, when using the micro-file – articles had removed from the newspapers prior to them being placed on micro-file. • Finally the team felt that their status as students seemed to place an unspoken barrier between them and some residents or congregants. Possibly the fear of offending us by speaking directly about the ‘student’ issues meant some people were maybe not as truthful as they may have been had the interviewer been a non-student. Even some students we approached were particularly challenging when approached to do the questionnaires, but nothing that a bit of persistence by the team couldn’t fix. Overall the methods provided an interesting and diverse way of looking at the community of Hyde Park and Burley. 5 BURLEY AND HYDE PARK Hyde Park has a large student population who live in the many ‘back-to-back’ and terraced houses alongside a substantial ethnic community. It is a densely populated area with many amenities and local businesses geared towards serving the local residents such as the International Supermarket, cafes and a variety of takeaways. There are also leisure facilities including a variety of pubs, social clubs and the popular Hyde Park Picture House.