Place:Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England

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NameWorksop
Alt namesOsberton Manorsource: manor in parish
TypeTown, Urban district
Located inNottinghamshire, England
See alsoBassetlaw District, Nottinghamshire, Englandadministrative district in which it has been located since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Worksop is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located east-south-east of Sheffield, close to Nottinghamshire's borders with South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, on the River Ryton and not far from the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. Other nearby towns include Chesterfield, Doncaster, Retford, Gainsborough and Mansfield.

Worksop had a population of 41,820 as of the 2011 Census and it is twinned with the German town Garbsen.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman history

Worksop was part of what was called Bernetseatte (burnt lands) in Anglo-Saxon times. The name Worksop is likely of Anglo Saxon origin, deriving from a personal name 'We(o)rc' plus the Anglo-Saxon placename element 'hop' (valley). The first element is interesting because while the masculine name Weorc is unrecorded, the feminine name Werca (Verca) is found in Bede's Life of St Cuthbert. There are a number of other place names recorded that contain this same personal name element.

In the Domesday Book of 1086 Worksop appears as 'Werchesope'. Thoroton states that the Doomesday Book records that before the Norman conquest Werchesope (Worksop) had belonged to Elsi son of Caschin who had "two manors in Werchesope, which paid to the geld as three car". After the conquest, Worksop became part of the extensive lands granted to Roger de Busli. At this time the land "had one car. in demesne, and twenty-two sochm. on twelve bovats of this land, and twenty-four villains, and eight bord. having twenty-two car. and eight acres of meadow, pasture wood two leu. long, three quar. broad." This was valued at 3l in Edward the Confessor's time and 7l in the Domesday Book. De Busli administered this estate from his headquarters in Tickhill.

The manor then passed to William de Lovetot, who established a castle and endowed the Augustinian priory c 1103. After William's death the manor was passed to his eldest son, Richard de Lovetot, who was visited by King Stephen, at Worksop, in 1161. In 1258, a surviving inspeximus charter confirms Matilda de Lovetot's grant of the manor of Worksop to William de Furnival (her son).

Medieval and early modern history

A skirmish occurred in the area during the Wars of the Roses on 16 December 1460, commonly known as the Battle of Worksop.

In 1530, Worksop was visited by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was on his way to Cawood, in Yorkshire. "Then my lord [Wolsey] intending the next day to remove from thence [Newstead Abbey] there resorted to him the Earl of Shrewsbury's keeper, and gentlemen, sent from him, to desire my lord, in their maister's behalf, to hunt in a parke of their maister's, called Worsoppe Parke." (Cavendish's Life of Wolsey)

A surviving (Cotton) manuscript written by Henry VIII nominated Worksop as one of three places in Nottinghamshire (along with Welbeck and Thurgarton) to become "Byshopprykys to be new made". However, nothing was to come of this (White 1875) and the priory later became a victim of the Dissolution of the Monasteries - being closed in 1539, with its Prior and 15 monks pensioned off. All the Priory buildings, except the nave and west towers of the church, were demolished at this time and the stone reused elsewhere.

In 1540, John Leland noted that Worksop castle had all but disappeared saying it was: "clene down and scant knowen wher it was". Leland noted that at that time Worksop was "a praty market of 2 streates and metely well buildid."

In the Hearth tax records of 1674, Worksop is said to have had 176 households, which made it the fourth largest settlement in Nottinghamshire after Nottingham (967 households), Newark (339) and Mansfield (318). At this time the population is estimated to have been around 748 people.

Modern history

By 1743 there were 358 families in Worksop, with a population of around 1,500. This had risen by 1801 to 3,391 and by the end of the 19th century had reached 16,455.

During the 18th and 19th centuries Worksop benefitted from the building of the Chesterfield Canal, which passed through the town in 1777, and the subsequent construction of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in 1849. This led to growth which was further boosted by the discovery of coal seams beneath the town.

Osberton Manor

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

"OSBERTON, a lordship in Worksop parish, Notts; on the river Ryton and the Chesterfield canal, 3 miles E of Worksop. Real property: £1,479. Population: 127. The property belongs to G. S. Foljambe, Esq.
"Osberton Hall, an elegant mansion, is Mr. [Foljambe]'s seat; stands amid beautiful grounds; and contains a valuable museum."

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