About Wath-on-Dearne, Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Wath-upon-Dearne

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Domesday name: Wade

Wath ‘the ford’, Old Scand. vath; Source A Dictionary of British Place-Names in Names & Places

Map of wath

It was a son of this area who helped speed up the business world. William Addy, a pioneer of shorthand was author of a shorthand bible published about 1687.

On 26 November, 1558, Thomas Forster of Moreton, Staffordshire, assigned to George, Lord Talbot, the reversion of a Lease of the Parsonage of Wath, formerly the property of St. Oswald's Priory, and Sir Henry Savell

The school was built in 1663 by £30 given by Rev Thomas Wombwell, it was endowed by Anthony Sowdrie in 1647 with land worth £13 a year, out of which £2 10s. 0d, was paid for apprenticing one poor boy, annually. The schoolmaster, has 20s. left by John Skiers in 1668.

Wath Mill On 25th March 1829, Samuel Simpson Flower and John Worsley, both of Wath Mill, Flax-Spinners, conveyed and assigned all their estate and effects to James Twibill Wilde, of Wath-upon-Dearne, Grocer, and John Bishop, of the same place, Druggist. Source

In 1833, Wath village, was seated on a pleasant declivity near the Dearn and Dove canal. It presents all the appearance and bustle of a small market town, being well built, having several good shops and houses of public entertain ment, and in the surrounding neighbourhood a large population employed chiefly in the pot teries, ironworks, and coal mines, for which this district has long famed. The manor was given by the Conqueror to Roger de Busli, from whose family it passed to the Flemmings. It subsequently passed to the Wentworths, and from them, after the death of the last Marquis of Rockingham, to Earl Fitzwilliam. In a wood near the village,are evident marks of a Roman road, though it is not noted either by Leland or Camden. The church is a large ancient structure, with a tower and spire and six bells. It is a vicarage in the gift of the dean and chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, who are also appropriators of the rectorial tithes, by a grant of Henry VIII. It was anciently in three moities, but was united by Walter Grey, Archbishop of York, who in 1410 founded the vicarage and gave the rectory to the Hospital of St. Nicholas, in Pontefract, from which it passed to Nostell Abbey, and remained with that monastery till the dissolution.

Described in Robson's Birmingham and Sheffield Directory, 1839 as a large and well built village with several good shops and public houses. In its vicinity are several extensive potteries and coal and iron works. It's Parish comprises the townships of

Wath. Wath township contains 1495 souls and 1687 acres.
Brampton Bierlow. Township contains 1741 inhabitants and 3150 acres of land, and the hamlets of Brampton, Hoober, Newhill, part of Elsecar, Coley Lane, Cortwood and West Melton.
Nether Hoyland. The township comprises 2912 souls and 2030 acres of land, divided into hamlets of High and Low Hoyland and comprising most of Elsecar village.
Swinton. Swinton has a Railway Station and is celebrated as the chief seat of the China and Earthenware manufacture in the North of England. Its township is a chapelry and comprises a scattered village, 1817 inhabitants and 1628 acres of land, including part of Kilnhurst and the hamlet of Birdwell Flatts. The extensive pottery the Rockingham works, was commenced in 1745, and the Don Pottery in 1801. The Church of St. Margaret was rebuilt in 1816. Here is a National School. The Midland Railway crosses the parish near the Dearne and Dove Canal.
Wentworth. A large village near the western verge of Wentworth Park, has its own chapelry, 1566 souls and 2830 acres of fertile land, including most of the village of Thorpe Hesley, and the hamlets of Barrow, Barley Hole and Hood Hill. The church, a neat structure containing several handsome monuments in memory of the Earl Fitzwilliam's ancestors. The perpetual curacy is held by Rev. J.B.Upton. The school was founded by Thomas Wentworth in 1716. A girls national school was built by Earl Fitzwilliam in 1837.

The Parish of Wath-upon Dearne contains 11,120 acres of land and 9321 inhabitants, all are in Rotherham Union, apart from Nether Hoyland, which is in Barnsley Union.

Earl Fitzwilliam, whose princely seat, Wentworth House, is in the heart of the Parish, is Lord of the Manors and owner of most of the land.

The church is a vicarage with the perpetual curacy of Adwick-upon-Dearne annexed to it in the gift of Christ Church, Oxford and incumbency of Rev.Henry Partington M.A. Rev. Partington was vicar at All Saints for 64 years. He married at Ashby de la Zouche in 1848 to Sarah Roby

Here is a Wesleyan Reform Chapel, built in 1852.

A Monthly Magazine was published from January 1831 until December, 1833. Called the Village Magazine, price 4d. conducted by a committee of twelve, with Mr. L. Langley, F.L.S.of Brampton, as the editor. This was the only village periodical in the country, at this time.

The Gas Works were constructed in 1844 at a cost of £1800 raised in £6 shares.

In 1745 a young man calling himself John Blakey arrived in Wath-on-Dearne and obtained work as a labourer. His background was a mystery except that he had quarrelled with his relations and resolved never to have anything more to do with them. He married and had five sons, all of whom started work in the coal pits of South Yorkshire, but eventually left to better themselves. Two of the sons went into the file trade and one other went to London to work as a barber. A grandson of John Blakey, with two others, started a business as typefounders in 1819, which eventually became known as Stephenson Blake. This was one of the many businesses in South Yorkshire, on which some families flourished greatly in the 19th century and well into the 20th century. The book 'A South Yorkshire Family of Type Founders', records the background of one such family, and, although written by a member of it, it is by one who was, nevertheless, an outsider as far as the family business was concerned.

« St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on Doncaster Road was designed by Hadfield's of Sheffield and funded by The Cadman and Nicholson families of Wath.

Church House belonged to All Saints Parish Church. It is now a Wetherspoons public house. It was a Sunday School and used for church functions.

I have seen pictures with the writing above advertising Whitbreads bottled stouts, then Mackesons and latterly, Gough of Wath, who was a builder.

Francis Trickett, blacksmith, was a church warden in 1726. He probably married Elizabeth Hewit in 1749.

We seem to think it holds the bodies of the Payne family who owned Newhill Hall which was built where Newhill Park is, but it is no longer there.

The Payne family had lived at Newhill Hall since it was built in 1785 by Richard Payne.

Richard Payne was a well known breeder of polo ponies, and hunters, and one of the best sportsmen in the country. He was a solicitor and won numerous prizes at shows for his horses and ponies.

Parts of this church were built in 1150, sections have been knocked down and rebuilt in the 1100's and 1200's. Roger de Pocklington was rector 1280 to 1322. The top storey of the tower and spire were added sometime between 1350 and 1410. There were bells in existence sometime during the sixteenth century. The oldest was the tenor bell, first cast in 1583. The large font was given in 1874 in memory of William Cadman.

The church tower had a clock as early as 1714, with a fourteen foot pendulum. The ornaments in the church were believed to have been plundered in the Civil War and most of the present ornaments were given in the 18th century, and some in 1909.The church was fully restored in 1868 when plaster and lime were removed from the inside walls, and the walls were re-pointed.

On 16th August, 1917, there was a fire which gutted the vestry, destroyed most of the chancel roof and organ and burned the altar rail.

The lock-up has now been converted into a home with the bedroom downstairs and living accomodation upstairs.