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The History of Ardsley

The earliest written evidence for the existence of Ardsley dates from the 12th century, where it is called Erdeslaia super Dirnam (meaning on the Dearne).  However it is a much older settlement than that.  Indeed a Neolithic flint has been found near the entrance to Horse Carr Wood and a recent aerial survey has recorded what could well be a Romano-British settlement.  
 
Even though Ardsley is not recorded in the Domesday Book, its name derives from the Saxon word “leah”, meaning a forest clearing or meadow, together with the personal name Eored.  Therefore Ardsley means “Eored’s forest clearing”.  There were two fields called “Old Ardsley” situated just south of the Staveley (St. Paul’s Parade) Estate (now almost completely destroyed for the quarrying of clay by the Stairfoot Brick Company) and this was probably the site of the original Saxon village.  The name Hunningley also comes from the same root (Hund’s forest clearing) and this may have been a separate settlement.  There was a row of cottages on Hunningley Lane set back from the road and at the top of Field Lane.  The site of these dates back at least to medieval times and could have been the last visible remains of this settlement.  At this time, Ardsley had three large open fields; the North Field, the South or Dobhill Field and Hunningley Field. 
 
In the medieval period Ardsley was divided into three manors.  One was very small and consisted of nothing much more than a field or two near what is now Wombwell Lane.  The other two were larger and formed two distinct villages.  One was the familiar “street village” which survived until the early 1960s with a back lane (the Croft).  This seems to have been owned in Saxon times by Ailric whose heirs held tenure there for three hundred years, eventually coming to Jordan de Lisle who became one of the greatest landowners in Ardsley (or Erdesley as it was known at the time) after buying all the rights and title to the manor in 1245 for ninety silver marks.
In the time of Edward III (1327-1377), Sir William Scott, the husband of Alice de Lisle, bequeathed the manor to his son, Sir John Scott and also gave 100 marks to found a chantry at Monk Bretton Priory.  In 1380, Sir John Scott settled the whole of his manor of Ardsley on Monk Bretton Priory and on July 10th of that year released all his rights to it in return for the regular prayers by the monks for the souls of himself, his father and one Bartholomew Brianson.  About this time, according to the Poll Tax returns, Ardsley was quite a prosperous village.  Seventy people (above the age of 16 years) paid the tax which raised £1 6s 6d, which was more than that raised in Barnsley or any other part of the neighbourhood apart from Worsbrough and Wombwell.
 
Where the Scott’s manor house was situated is unknown although it could possibly have been near the site of the entrance to the Crematorium, where one of the fields was called Scotch Croft.  This is probably a corruption of Scott’s Croft.  The other manor was held by the Bosville family.  Their manor consisted of a separate village arranged round the village green.  This green stretched from below Ardsley Oaks School to the crossroads at Stairfoot, something almost impossible to envisage nowadays after the building of the railways and the roundabout.  Houses and farms such as Shepherd’s Farm, Home Farm, the houses on Pinfold Hill and Birk House all belonged to this manor.  There was even the traditional blacksmith’s shop on the green, which was demolished when the railway arrived.
 
The Bosvilles lived at New Hall (now Cranford Hall).  However, prior to this they lived in Ardsley proper at the Old Hall.  This moated manor house was situated on the site of the farm buildings at Greenside Farm, which were demolished when the Stairfoot roundabout was built. The last vestige of this site was destroyed when the car park was made for Ardsley Oaks School a few years ago. An interesting story connected with this hall is that of John Nevison.  

John Nevison was a famous highwayman, known as “Swift Nick” and it was he who carried out the famous ride from London to York usually attributed to Dick Turpin.  He came from Carlton but one of his family, Christopher Nevison, lived at the Old Hall and tradition has it that “Swift Nick” could often be seen leading his horse down the village street of Ardsley.  On one of the windows of the hall were carved the initials (according to other accounts) “G.N.”, although this was most probably “C.N.” (for Christopher Nevison).   
 
The Bosvilles had also bequeathed much of their property to Monk Bretton Priory and at the dissolution of the Monasteries the manor passed to Henry VIII.  On June 4th 1543 the Crown conveyed it to Richard Andrews and William Ramsden.  It eventually came into the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury who leased it for 1,000 years to the Bamforth Family of Pule Hill near Thurgoland.  In 1609 John Bamforth divided the manor between himself and two of his sons, John and George.  John Bamforth senior’s portion was acquired by the Mawhood family, who built, or at least re-built the present Manor House.
 
A farm building by the roadside (now demolished) had the date 1639 over the doorway, which was about the time the Mawhoods became Lords of the Manor.  A list of freeholders in 1665 names:
          Richard Mawhood – Gentleman (The Manor House)
          William Baggley – Yeoman (Birk House)
          William Micklethwait – Gentleman (another Manor House, now Top Fold)
This is the first mention of the name Micklethwait in Ardsley.  The family came from Ingbirchworth and they soon became one of the largest landowners in the village.  In the eighteenth century the Micklethwaits made large purchases of land from Charles Mawhood, a gentleman usher to George III.  In 1782 the manor was bequeathed by Benjamin Micklethwait to his nephew Thomas Taylor Esq. who, on becoming Lord of the Manor, built Park House. 
 
Stairfoot gets its name from a house called “the Stares Foot” which stood very close to the Black Bull.  The name is first mentioned in the Quarter Sessions records of 1666.  The original “stair” was probably a stepped causeway built for the packhorses on the salt route from Cheshire to Doncaster (now the main Doncaster Road).  The road leading from Stairfoot crossroads towards Barnsley is very steep at that point, necessitating a “causey” of flagstones to help the laden animals’ hooves to grip in bad weather.  
 
The King’s Highway, which ran from Wakefield via Wath to Doncaster (now Grange Lane and Wombwell Lane), crosses the Doncaster and Saltersbrook Turnpike Road at this point.  Part of the original road is now disused, but passed through Royston, Carlton and Monk Bretton and, it is said, was used regularly by beggars and tramps as they made their way to the various religious houses such as Monk Bretton and Nostell Priory.  In the year 1647 Charles I supposedly travelled this road as a prisoner under heavy guard after he had been given up by the Scots.
 
Hoyle Mill, another hamlet within the Township of Ardsley, is named after “the Hole Mill” a watermill on the River Dearne originally belonging to Monk Bretton Priory.  Yorkshire dialect changed the name “Hole” to “Hoyle”. 
Until relatively recently Ardsley had relied heavily on agriculture but its growth started with the Industrial Revolution and particularly the building of the Dearne and Dove Canal.  This linked the Barnsley Canal at Hoyle Mill with the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation at Swinton and was 9 miles long.  It was started in 1793 and completed in 1804.  Various industries opened up all along its length, particularly at Stairfoot, with a tanyard, lime kilns, bleachcroft and eventually glassworks and coal mines.
 
The initial expansion of the village though came with the linen industry.  Barnsley was the leading light of linen manufacture in the area and villages around the town began to be developed to take advantage of this expanding trade.  A good supply of water was one of the criteria for linen weaving and bleaching and Ardsley fitted the bill perfectly.  By the end of the 18th century property was being bought up by speculators who either built new cottages with weaving sheds underneath, or altered already existing properties to accommodate the looms.
 
An example of this can still be seen in Top Row, where a barn was converted into cottages, each with its weaving shed underneath and a flight of steps to the front door.  We can get an idea of the importance of this industry to Ardsley by a look at the list of men who were called upon to join the militia during the Napoleonic Wars.  
Of the 80 men who are recorded in the returns of 1806, fifteen were labourers, six servants, three tanners, two masons, a blacksmith, a carpenter, a tailor, a tradesman, a yeoman, a constable and all the rest, 48 of them, were weavers.  It was some of these men who joined the Barnsley contingent of the Staincross Volunteers who marched to Hemsworth in 1805 when reports came in that “Boney” and the French had invaded at last.  A warning beacon had been lit.  Unfortunately when they reached Hemsworth (on a very hot day) they discovered it had been a false alarm and what was thought to be a beacon was in fact burning stubble in a field!
Although coal had been mined in the area as early as the seventeenth century or even before (part of the North Field of Ardsley was called Coalpit Hill, just north of where the Flat Tops are in Scar Lane), the shaft of Ardsley Main (later the Oaks) Colliery was sunk in 1841.  When the South Yorkshire Railway arrived ten years later, Ardsley, and particularly Stairfoot, grew at an enormous pace.  Terraces were built to house the huge influx of not only miners, but labourers for Ben Rylands’ newly opened Hope Glassworks.  The extraordinary growth of the place can be seen from the population figures at the time of the census. In 1801 there were 461 inhabitants. By 1851 this had more than trebled to 1,528 and by the end of the century it had reached over 6,000.  Most of this expansion was in Stairfoot and Hoyle Mill.
 
This growth called for amenities such as shops, schools and places of worship.  Ardsley had been a township within the large parish of Darfield, but finally broke away from the mother church in 1841 when Christ Church was built, becoming a parish in its own right in 1843.  A small Wesleyan New Connexion chapel had been built in 1806 for the growing number of religious dissenters.  In the 1850s other denominations followed suit and soon there were Wesleyan Reform and Primitive Methodist chapels too.  A whole array of retail shops appeared facing Barnsley Road (now Doncaster Road) in Stairfoot on what had been Ardsley Common and “Board” schools were built on Pinfold Hill and in Barnsley Road, Hunningley Lane and Hoyle Mill.
On 15th July 1871, gas was first lit in Ardsley.  In 1897 there were three lamps in Barnsley Road (one at Oaks Quarry Lane, one opposite Kendray Hospital and one near Mr. Pitt’s house (Fairholme, by Midland Terrace)), one near the Co-op which was later moved to the end of Oxford Street, one on Pinfold Hill and one between the Chapel and Moxon’s Square.
 
The Ardsley Urban District Council was formed in 1894 to oversee this much expanded community but this came to an end when Ardsley was incorporated into the Borough of Barnsley in 1921.  This really was the beginning of the end for the old village of Ardsley.  Farm land was sold off and the vast Kendray Estate built, and in the 1930s plans were put forward, helped by a subsidy from the Government, to begin slum clearance.
 
This was interrupted because of the Second World War, but began again in earnest in the 1950s. At Christmas 1958, letters were sent out to the residents of Ardsley informing them that the village was to be torn down, partly for so-called slum clearance, and partly for a road-widening scheme.  The main road through Ardsley was very narrow in places and plans had been mooted for a by-pass as early as the 1920s, although this was never followed through.  For some bizarre reason a dual-carriageway was proposed to be driven through the village, causing almost all the remaining houses and farms to be demolished.
 
Although the Squire of Ardsley, Richard Gerald Micklethwait, wanted to build a new village for his tenants further back from the road, he was not allowed to do so, as the Council told him it would “spoil the skyline”.
 
Also in the late 1950s, the old street names disappeared, so gone were Barnsley Road, Pinfold Hill, Rodgers Fold, Church Street, and Lees Hill and the whole was renamed Doncaster Road, causing Ardsley to lose its identity even further.  The village is now almost totally unrecognisable from its earlier form, but the spirit of Ardsley lives on.
Michael Chance 17/10/2010

YOUR PICTURES...


Do you have any pictures of Ardsley you'd like to share with the community to help us remember our village.  We'd love to include them in our gallery (right).  It really is amazing how quickly things change!

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If you want to explore more about the history of Ardsley and the local area, then why not visit:



- Historic Maps from c1895 on the Barnsley Metropolitain Borough Council website
- Stairfoot Station Heritage Park, located on the West boundary of our village
- Barnsley Main Heritage Group, located within a mile to the West of our village
- Monk Bretton Priory, located less than half a mile to the North of our village
- Experience Barnsley Museum, located in Barnsley Town Hall
- View where listed buildings and preservation orders are in place BMBC Planning