Harehills is an inner-city area of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is approximately north east of Leeds city centre. Harehills is situated between the A58 (towards Wetherby) and the A64 (towards York). It sits in the Gipton & Harehills ward of Leeds City Council and the Leeds East parliamentary constituency, between Burmantofts and Gipton, and adjacent to Chapeltown. Its boundaries are defined by the city council as "the boundary of Spencer Place to the West, Harehills Avenue to the North, the boundary of Foundry Place to the East and Compton Road and Stanley Road to the South." As the name suggests, it is a hill area, basically a south-facing slope, with many streets of terraced houses on hills. In the middle is Banstead Park, a grassy slope with trees and play areas, giving a view over the city of Leeds. There are two main shopping streets, Harehills Lane and Harehills Road which join at the junction of Roundhay Road (A58 road) leading to Oakwood. Also, heading up Harehills Lane towards the A64 York Road at the junction with Compton Road, is Harehills's other main shopping area. St James' University Hospital is situated in Harehills. Since the 1890s, cheap housing has made it attractive to immigrants, with the result that it has a considerable cultural and ethnic mixture. Harehills has high levels of unemployment in relation to Leeds and the rest of the UK. On the August Bank Holiday the Leeds Carnival is held with a procession through Harehills and Chapeltown. Etymology The name Harehills is first attested in 1576, as Hayr Hylls. Scholars agree that the second element of the name Harehills is the topographic term 'hill'. There has been some debate about the first element, however. Eilert Ekwall, in his influential Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names, thought that the name came from the Old English word hār ('grey'). However, the subsequent research by A. H. Smith for the English Place-Name Society concluded that, as the modern spelling would suggest, the name does originate from hare, and thus originally meant 'hill characterised by the presence of hares'. History In the early 19th century, the area covered by Harehills existed as woods between Leeds and the village of Chapel Allerton. Leeds had developed in the west, north and south but not much to the east. The area began to be developed from the 1820s, when people sought to