Place:Ecclesfield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Ecclesfield from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"ECCLESFIELD, a township, a [registration] sub-district, and a parish in Wortley [registration] district, [West Riding of] Yorkshire. The township lies 2 miles NE of Wadsley Bridge [railway] station, and 5 N of Sheffield. It contains the hamlets of Aldwark, Bellhouses, Birley Carr, Bruckenhill, Burncross, Butterthwaite, Chapeltown, Elm Greenside, Hesley, High Green, Hirst, Mortomley, Potters Hill, Shire Green, Nether Shire, Skewhill, Southey, Thompson Hill, Wadsley, Wadsley Bridge, Whitley, Wincobank and Wisewood, and part of the village of Owlerton; and has a post office under Sheffield. Acres: 9,810. Real property: £38,943; of which £2,150 are in mines, and £1,050 in ironworks. Population in 1851: 10,005; in 1861: 12,479. Houses: 2,493. The manor was known at Domesday as Eclesfelt, and belongs now to the Duke of Norfolk. Vestiges exist of a Roman fortification, with a deep trench, vulgarly termed the Devil's ditch. An alien Benedictine priory, a cell to the abbey of St. Wandragisilus in Normandy, stood at Ecclesfield; and was given, by Richard II, to the Carthusian monastery of St. Anne at Coventry. Many of the inhabitants are employed in mining, in file-cutting, and in the cutlery trade. The sub-district is conterminate with the township.

"The parish contains also the township of Bradfield. Acres: 43,540. Real property: £55,394. Population: 21,568. Houses: 4,189. The property is much subdivided.

"The living is a vicarage in the diocese of York. Value: £573. Patron: the Duke of Norfolk. The church belonged to the ancient priory; bore formerly the name of Minster of the Moors; shows architectural characters which assign it to the latter half of the 15th century; possesses beautiful features; and was recently restored. The chapelries of Midhope, Chapeltown, Stannington, Wadsley, Oughtibridge, Bradfield, and Bolsterstone are separate benefices. There are several dissenting chapels. Sylvester's hospital has £104 from endowment; schools have £69; and other charities have £280. Two work-houses, for Wortley district, are in respectively Ecclesfield and Bradfield townships."

Research Tips

• Sheffield City Archives and Local Studies Library includes archives for the whole of the area now in Sheffield Metropolitan Borough

Address: 52 Shoreham Street, Sheffield S1 4SP

Telephone: +44(0)1142 039395

Email: [email protected]

• The subsection of Sheffield Metropolitan Borough article titled "Subdivisions of Sheffield Metropolitian Borough" leads back to Wikipedia pages on the present divisions of Sheffield. Ecclesfield makes up more than one division.
• British History Online (Victoria County Histories) do not cover the West Riding of Yorkshire
• GENUKI has a page on all three ridings of Yorkshire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical parishes in the county. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. The list is based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and there may have been a number of alterations to the parish setup since then. However, it is worthwhile information for the pre civil registration era. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and the submitter is very firm about his copyright. This should not stop anyone from reading the material.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Yorkshire West Riding, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72.

• Map of the West Riding divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of West Riding divisions in 1917 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. In other counties, the map for 1900 has been used, but it is not coming up in Vision of Britain's list.
• Map of West Riding divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time

• The above three maps indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
• Yorkshire has a large number of family history and genealogical societies. A list of the societies will be found on the Yorkshire, England page.
• In March 2018 Ancestry announced that its file entitled "Yorkshire, England: Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1873" has been expanded to include another 94 parishes (across the three ridings) and expected it to be expanded further during the year. The entries are taken from previously printed parish registers.

Finding maps of the Sheffield area has been difficult. The town of Sheffield covered a very large area very early. Whereas in other places settlements became individual parishes, around Sheffield the settlements were all merged into a single urban area. A website produced by the Rootsweb part of Ancestry has a couple of maps that may help.

• A map of the Sheffield area circa 1990 without boundaries, but indicating many of the smaller places surrounding Sheffield itself.
• Another indicating parish boundaries as far north as Ecclesfield and as far west as Upper Hallam may also be helpful.

Wikipedia has produced a "book" which is a compilation of all its articles about Sheffield.