The market town of Otley is situated at the foot of The Chevin - a high, tree lined ridge which overshadows the town. It was from the quarry on The Chevin that the foundation stones for the Houses of Parliament were hewn.

Thomas Chippendale
As well as its natural attractions Otley has become a magnet for those interested in the arts and history, Turner, Chippendale and Wesley are among those whose name attracts people to the town Turner having stayed on many an occasion at nearby Farnley Hall to commit the area's natural beauty to canvas.

It is in the Museum that Otley's contribution to the growth of the printing industry is also graphically detailed. There are facilities aplenty for the visitor with cafes, restaurants, inns of historic interest and instant food shops.

Markets
The town is also a hive of activity on Tuesdays and Fridays when the cattle auctions take place. The street market attracts visitors on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays while the town has gained something of a reputation for staging big events which draw the crowds. These include Otley Show the Victorian Day in December and the Carnival in June but at various other times of the year arts and theatre groups are ever willing to stage festivals. The town also attracts many visitors seeking the locations seen in TV productions such as Emmerdale, Heartbeat and Touch of Frost.

Otley Show, the first show on the country's agricultural calendar, is held in May and is one of the oldest surving shows of its kind having first started in 1796. At first it was only a cattle show but now it is a full-scale agricultural show with a range of livestock as well as modern day sideshows. Otley's Carnival is renowned throughout Yorkshire with its splendid parade of decorated lorries and walking tableaux. Virtually the whole town turns out for this event with all the schools and youth groups taking part. The Victorian Fayre - which raises funds for charity - heralds in the Christmas season and an enormous number of people gather in the town - most dressed in Victorian costume. Tens of thousands of visitors pour into the town during the day and again in the evening when steam organs, roast chestnuts and traditional carols add to the atmosphere. The name of the river is probably Celtic in its origin and the Iron Age culture that the Romans found occupying the region when they marched north to create York AD712 has also left other place names that attest to the Celts' long residence in the district.

History
As far as Otley is concerned the most relevant Celtic influence on place names is that of the Chevin. Derived from the Welsh word Cefn meaning a ridge it is sometimes referred to in earliest references as Scefinge or Scefine. Linguistic experts consider the S component to be part of a Welsh preposition meaning below and it is therefore very likely that a Celtic village, or perhaps a Romano-Celtic settlement existed on the site of modern Otley, known appropriately to its inhabitants as the place below the ridge. A number of coins found in the locality attest to at least a limited Roman occupation but Otley as we know it today did not appear until the Anglo Saxon period. There are some impressiove Anglo Saxon stone cross fragments attesting to the importance of the parish in Anglian times. By the time of the Norman Conquest the town had gained the name of Othelai.
After the Norman Conquest the Borough of Otley grew rapidly and was significantly larger than nearby Bradford and by 1265 the area was sending two members to Parliament.
The Fairfax connection may well have been the reason for Otley's Partliamentary leanings during the English Civil War. Denton Hall, close to Otley, was the home of the Fairfax family and the birthplace of Thomas Lord Fairfax the Parliamentary General. Allegiances may have been split for while Roundheads were drinking the town dry in the night proceeding the Battle of Marston Moor legend has it that Prince Rupert's cavalry horses were out to grass on the lower slopes of the Chevin.

The town's Prince Henry's Grammar School was founded by Royal Charter in 1607 later moving from its town centre site - now an architect's offices - to a site north of the river.

At the start of the 19th century Otley had a population of just over 2,000 but this had risen to 9,000 by the end of the century. Connections with the leather, paper and printing machine industries flourished in the Industrial revolution.