Place:Sprotbrough and Cusworth, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

Sprotbrough and Cusworth is a civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. It lies 3 miles (4.8 km) to the north west of Doncaster town centre and is split by the A1(M) motorway. It lies 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Scawsby, and has a population of more than 12,000.

Historically, Sprotbrough was an ecclesiastical parish in the wapentake of Strafforth and Tickhill. From 1894 until 1974, Tanshelf was located in Doncaster Rural District. Cusworth is a hamlet within Sprotborough eccelesiastical parish.

History

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

The name Sprotbrough originates from the Old English sprote ('shoot', 'twig') and burh ('fortification'), as suggested by the Domesday Book entry Sproteburg; the name may reflect the hasty manner in which the fortification was constructed and / or may be a reference to the building material used.

The early parish contained six settlements:

• Sprotbrough (Sproteburg)
• Cadeby (Catebi)
• Wildthorpe (Widentorp)
• Cusworth (Cuzenworde)
• Skinthorpe (Scinestorp)
• Newton, first mentioned in 1379 when it was called New Farmstead

Those early hamlets were ringed by vast areas of agricultural land and many of the open fields still present today have names that can be traced back to early maps of the area.

The area, and almost all of the land around it, was owned by the FitzWilliam family for many years. Sir John Fitzwilliam erected a cross next to the church during the reign of Henry V of England. Into the cross were carved these lines: "Whoso is hungry and lists to eat, Let him come to Sprotburgh for his meat, And for a night and for a day, His horse shall have both corne and hay, And no man shall ask him when he goeth away."^[1]

There are also a number of statues and memorials to the Fitzwilliams and Copleys in the Grade I listed Church of St Mary the Virgin.

Sprotbrough Hall

Part of the village was built on the site of Sprotbrough Hall, a large home built for the Copley family in 1670. The Copley family had married a FitzWilliam heiress and inherited the extensive holdings of the FitzWilliam lords of Sprotborough (older spelling). The family lost three sons in the First World War and the Hall was demolished in the 1920s. Doncaster archives hold a copy of the catalogue of the house contents. Little evidence of the Hall remains except for the old 18th century stable yard, now apartments, and some of the street names. The wrought-iron gate opposite the village shop is from the "Lady's Walk" which was part of the gardens. This has been resited to its present position. Looking up from the towpath by the river, the balustraded viewing area which was directly in front of the Hall can still be seen. Copley Junior School in Sprotbrough village is named after the Copley family.

The Second World War hero Sir Douglas Bader grew up at the Rectory in the village when his step-father was Rector of St Mary's. The Old Rectory, previously a guest house, bears a plaque commemorating Bader's residence. Sir Walter Scott set Ivanhoe in and around the village, which is remembered in the name of the village's pub and a small housing estate off Sprotbrough Road.

Cusworth Hall

Cusworth Hall, which overlooks the parish to the north, was built by William Wrightson between 1740 and 1755 and was the home of the Battie-Wrightson family until 1952. It is now owned by the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster and houses the Museum of South Yorkshire Life. To the South East of the Hall is Richmond Hill.

Town End

The eastern part of Sprotbrough, from where Sprotbrough Road meets the A638 and A19 to the bridge over the A1(M) is known as Lower Sprotbrough, and is more suburban. Town End is located at St Mary's Roundabout near Bentley. It was developed from farm land in around 1926 and was part of Bentley with Arksey Urban District until the formation of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster under the Local Government Act 1972. The church of St Edmund on Anchorage Lane was built in a converted barn on the former farm land when the area was being developed. Close to the church is the scout hut and Area51 Skate and BMX park, the most popular skatepark in the Doncaster Borough, which is currently looking to extend its facilities.

Town End was formerly the home of the Sprotbrough Foundry, opened by the Ministry of Supply in 1943, which among other things provided parts for tanks and other military vehicles. The works closed in the early 1980s and the site is occupied by a housing estate whose roads bear the names of some of the machines that were built there.

Names

From this town of Sprotborough the surname Spreadborough was formed.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Sprotbrough and Cusworth. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Sprotbrough provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Sprotbrough and Cusworth
• A Vision of Britain through Time also provides links to three maps for what is now South Yorkshire, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. These maps all blow up to a scale that will illustrate small villages and large farms or estates.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey West Riding South 1900. The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. (the southern part of Bradford, the southern part of Leeds, the southern part of Tadcaster Rural District, the southern part of Selby, Goole Rural District, and all the divisions of Halifax, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Doncaster, Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield)
• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1944. The urban and rural districts of the whole of the West Riding after the revisions of 1935.