Temple Newsam, 4 ½ miles east from Leeds, is a township in Whitkirk and Leeds parishes, and Hunslet union, partly within the municipal and parliamentary borough of Leeds, and includes the villages of Whitkirk, Halton, Colton and Osmondthorpe, and the hamlets of Newsam Green and Waterside. In “Domesday Book” it is called Newhusum, and acquired its additional appellation from a settlement here of Knights Templars, in 1181. The manor was granted to the Knights Templars by William de Villers in the twelfth century, who founded a preceptory here: after the suppression of the order it was granted by Edward III. to Sir John Darcy, in whose family it remained until the reign of Henry VIII. when Thomas Lord Darcy was beheaded, and his estates forfeited, for aiding the northern insurgents in their attempt to compel the king to restore the dissolved monasteries; it then passed into the hands of Matthew, Earl of Lennox, during whose residence here Henry Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of scots, was born, and was afterwards conferred by James I. on Esme Stuart, Duke of Richmond: the Duke sold the estate to Sir Arthur Ingram, and it is now held by the Hon. Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (widow of Hugo Francis Meynell-Ingram esq.), who resides at the manor house. Temple Newsam, a Late Elizabethan building of red brick situated in aft extensive deer park. The entire area of the township is 4,086 acres, including 973 in Leeds; the rateable value of the whole township is £21,086 7s. 7d.; the entire population of the township in 1871 was 2,113, including 385 in Leeds; area of district ecclesiastically attached to Whitkirk, 2,699 acres; population, 1,728.