The year 1226 is the earliest date to a building being present on Cottingley, which stands above where Morley beck joined Millshaw beck. The farm was probably a single, stone barn-type building, with wood and reed out-buildings and it was part of Beeston Manor which was first noted in the Domesday Book as 'Bestone' and in charters as 'Beystone' and 'Beiston', which was said to have 'waste wood and pasture land' with two manors, one probably Cad Beeston (Hunslet). The meaning of Cottingley is; Cot=house, Ing=meadow and Ley=field, but in the volume of West Riding Names, it gives the meaning of Cottingley as 'the meadow of the sons of Cota or Cotta'. The area would be wooded and marshy.

The 'De Beston' family were the hereditary Lords of Beeston Manor and in 1311, Sir William of Beeston, a knight had a 'grant of free warren in his demese lands of Cottingley' and he had one third a 'knight's fee in Beeston' held in Pontefract.

In 1411, Anthony de Beeston had 'land tenements and rents in Beeston, Snaith, Cottingley, Churwell, Morley and Ardsley'. Ralph (of Beeston) Lord of the Manor, had a son born in 1490 who lived at Cottingley farm. Robert, popularly known as 'Robert of Cottingley' married Margaret, daughter of Sir William Calverley of Calverley according to Norrison Scratcherd's 'History of Morley'. Robert of Cottingley died at the 'ripe old age' of sixty in 1550.

Around Cottingley farm, there would be some strips of land cultivated, no fences or walls but some open moor and heath, where cattle and sheep would have herd-boys with them as they foraged on the common meadows. West of Cottingley ranged a large forest, later called Farnley Wood. To the east of Cottingley farm, in a valley below Beeston, running from Churwell to Holbeck in the valley is Millshaw beck which worked a corn mill for Beeston village across from the Cottingley estate on it's rising hill. Beeston Manor Hall was sited on present-day Town Street above the Heath estate, near St. Mary's church.