Hide

Thornhill, Yorkshire, England. Geographical and Historical information from 1835.

hide
Hide
Hide

THORNHILL:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1835.

"THORNHILL, a parish in the lower division of the wapentake of AGBRIGG, West riding of the county of YORK, comprising the chapelry of Flockton, and the townships of Shitlington, Thornhill, and Lower Whitley, and containing 5458 inhabitants, of which number, 1932 are in the township of Thornhill, 6 miles S.W. from Wakefield. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of York, rated in the king's books at £40. 0. 7., and in the patronage of the Hon. and Rev. J. Lumley Saville. The church, dedicated to St. Michael, is principally in the early style of English architecture. There are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists. The river Calder runs through the parish, amid scenery the most beautiful and picturesque. In the extensive park sloping to the banks of the river, and ornamented with aged woods, stood the castellated mansion of the Thornhills, which was surrounded by a moat, and garrisoned by Sir George Saville, a descendant of that family, for Charles I., but was taken and destroyed by the parliamentarians. Thornhill, though now only a manufacturing village, was formerly a place of considerable importance, indications of which are still discernible. It had a market and a fair, granted by charter of Edward II., in 1320, now discontinued. The manufacture of woollen cloth, plaids, shawls, and thread, is carried on; there are also brass and iron works, at the latter of which bar and sheet iron, anchor-palms, piston-rods, boiler-plates, and various other articles, are made. The Rev. Charles Greenwood, in 1642, bequeathed £500 for erecting and endowing a free grammar school; the income is £20 a year, for which all children of the parish who apply receive an English education. There is also a free school, founded and endowed, about 1712, by Richard Walker, with a residence for the master, and an annual income of £47, which is applied to the instruction of eighty children of both sexes; and the Sunday school is aided by an annuity of £4. 10., the bequest of the same benefactor."


"FLOCKTON, a chapelry comprising Nether Flockton and Over Flockton, in the parish of THORNHILL, lower division of the wapentake of AGBRIGG, West riding of the county of YORK, 6 miles S.E. from Huddersfield, containing 988 inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of York, endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Rector of Thornhill. The Independents have here a place of worship. There is a small sum for the education of children. The chapelry abounds with coal mines."


"LOWER WHITLEY, a township in the parish of THORNHILL, lower division of the wapentake of AGBRIGG, West riding of the county of YORK, 6 miles S.W. from Wakefield, containing 903 inhabitants. There are two scribbling-mills and a tan-yard in the neighbourhood."


"SHITLINGTON, a township in the parish of THORNHILL, lower division of the wapentake of AGBRIGG, West riding of the county of YORK, 5 miles W.S.W. from Wakefield, containing 1635 inhabitants."

[Transcribed by Mel Lockie © from
Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1835]