Worksop

A Free Public Library and Technical Institute was opened in the Watson Road in 1902.

The Worksop Library in Memorial Ave. is a branch of the Nottingham County Council Library System. It is normally open 7 days each week (verify by phone if you are visiting), but is closed until the summer of 2020 due to recent flooding in Worksop. There is a car park next to the library.

There is also the Balmoral Library on Princess Anne Road, Worksop. This Library was only open 2 days per week.

David MARTIN has a photograph of the Worksop Library on Geo-graph, taken in July, 2017.

• In 1866 a cemetery of 4 acres was laid out next to the churchyard on Prior's Well Road. It had two mortuary chapels.
   
• Steven RUFFLES has a photograph of the Prior's Well Road Cemetery on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2017.
   
• Neil THEASBY has a photograph of a Wall of old gravestones at the Priory graveyard on Geo-graph, taken in February, 2016.
   
• In 1902 a new cemetery of 16 acres was laid out on Retford Road.
   
• J. THOMAS has a photograph of the Cemetery chapel on Retford Road on Geo-graph, taken in March, 2014.
   
• Both cemeteries would be under the control of the Burial Board of the Urban District Council.
   

• The parish was in the Worksop sub-district of the Worksop Registration District. 
   
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known: 
   

• The Priory of Saint Cuthbert and Saint Mary was founded here in 1120.
   
• Richard CROFT has a photograph of the gatehouse at Worksop Priory on Geo-graph, taken in November, 2005.
   
• Richard CROFT has a photograph of the inside of Worksop Priory nave on Geo-graph, taken in August, 2011.
   
• The town had two ecclesiastical parishes within the civil parish: St. Cuthbert and St. John.
   
• St. Cuthbert 's is approached through the Priory gate and was thoroughly restored in 1861.
   
• St. John's parish was formed in 1867 and a church with that dedication was built in 1868 on the east side of Gateford Road in the Early English Style.
   
• St. John's has a western tower with a clock and two bells.
   
• St. John's seats 580.
   
• St. Anne's church was built in 1911 and opened in 1912.
   
• Ann B. has a photograph of St Anne's Church on Geo-graph, taken in January, 2006.
   
• Christ Church is a modern building in the parish of St John, built 1992 on Thievesdale Close and consecrated in January 1993.
   
• St. Paul's Church is a in a parish formed in 1953 from the priory parish. Services began in a wooden hut in 1954. The hut was replaced by a brick church in 1956.
   

• The International Genealogical Index (IGI) includes records from this parish for the period 1558-1857.
   
• The Anglican parish register for St. Cuthbert dates from 1558.
   
• The Anglican parish register for St. John dates from 1868.
   
• The Anglican churches would be in the rural deanery of Worksop.
   
• The United Methodist Free Church was built here in 1837 on Potter Street.
   
• A Catholic chapel was built here on Park Street in 1840. It is dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin.
   
• In 1863 the Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in Bridge Street.
   
• In 1830 the Congregationalist Church was built in Westagte. (this was vacant in 1881).
   
• In 1876 another Congregationalist Church was built to hold 450 persons.
   
• In 1879 the Primitive Methodist chapel was built on Chapel Street.
   

• The parish was in the Worksop sub-district of the Worksop Registration District.
   
• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
   

This market town and parish are 147 miles north of London, 18 miles east of Sheffield, 12 miles north-east of Mansfield and about 5.5 miles west of Retford, on the north edge of Sherwood Forest. The parish indludes the hamlet of Kilton, where the sewage works were built, and covers just under 18,000 acres, making it the largest parish in Nottingham county. Manton and Rayton or Ryton are hamlets just to the east of Worksop. Sparken Hill is a half mile south of Worksop.

Osberton is a Lordship 3 miles to the east within the parish. Gateford is a hamlet and constablewick on the Sheffield Road two miles NNW of Worksop village and still within the parish boundaries. If you are planning a visit:

• By automobile, the town lies on the A57 trunk road, west off of the A1 motorway.
   
• Ben BROOKBANK takes you back in time to 1957 with his photograph of Worksop Station, with train from Nottingham on Geo-graph, taken in June 1957.
   
• Kilton Forest Golf Course is just to the north of the town.
   
• Alan MURRAY-RUST has a photograph of the Worksop Town Sign on Geo-graph, taken in October, 2015.
   

• Geograph
• Flickr

• We have an extract from White's 1853 Directory relating to this parish.

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Worksop to another place.

In the third quarter of 1927, the marriage of Fred BARNES and Labelle TICKLE is registered. Dorothy HARGREAVES tells us that the marriage was at Zion Chapel, John St., Worksop.

• The town has an ancient market cross from 1160. Only the shaft and the steps remain.
   
• King Stephen visited Worksop in 1161.
   
• During the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, the Priory and 15 monks were pensioned off. All the Priory buildings, except the nave and west towers of the church, were demolished.
   
• The town was known for centuries for growing Licorice and continued until around 1750. Timber was an important industry also. Worksop Windsor Chairs were made and exported from here. Hops (for beer-making) were a big crop here in the 1800s, but largely disappeared after 1920.
   
• In 1859 the town was fully sewered and drained at a cost of £6,000.
   
• The discovery of coal meant that by 1900 the majority of the workforce was employed in coal mining, which provided thousands of jobs - both directly and indirectly - in and around Worksop for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.
   
• In 2007, the town was flooded by one of the worst floods in a century. The River Ryton received 72mm (around 3 inches) of rain in 24 hours.
   
• Clumber Park, the seat of the Duke of Newcastle, lies about 2 miles south-east of the town. In 1900, the park covered 4,000 acres with a 100 acre lake.

In 1258, a surviving charter confirms Matilda de LOVETOT's grant of the manor of Worksop to William de FURNIVAL (her son).

Worksop Manor stood about a mile from Worksop village. It burned down in 1759 (several dates have appeared in various records). A high wind was blowing at the time and the place was completed consumed.

In 1904 Sir John ROBINSON resided in the Manor House.

• See our Maps page for additional resources.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SK595788 (Lat/Lon: 53.302816, -1.108619), Worksop which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

• A Dispensary was established in 1867 in Potter Street.
   
• A 5-bed Victoria Hospital founded in 1897 opened here in 1900. It was a memorial of the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. It was enlarged in 1912 to 26 beds. This hospital became part of the NHS in 1948 and was demolished in 1996.
   
• The Bassetlaw District Hospital started out in 1902 as Worksop's Poor Law Infirmary. Parts of this building still exist. In 1984, construction started on a modern Bassetlaw Hospital and finished in 1987. The Hospital joined with Doncaster Hospital as a part of the NHS in 2001.
   
• Hospitals were exempt from archiving laws relating to patient records.
   

• The "Battle of Worksop" in December, 1460, during the War of the Roses, was a skirmish that resulted in a minor Lancastrian victory prior to the battle of Wakefield.
   
• In 1881, G Company of the 2nd Nottinghamshire Rifle Volunteers was here on Hill Street. Captain Edward H. NICHOLSON was Commandant; George F. LAYHE, sergeant-instructor.
   
• In 1904, G Company of the 4th Nottinghamshire Rifle Volunteers was here on Potter Street. Captain E. TYLDEN-WRIGHT was Commandant; John ELLIOT, drill-instructor.
   
• In 1904, C Squadron of the Sherwood Rangers was here. Major H. O. PEACOCK, commanding; Captain the Hon. G. V. A. MONCKTON ARUNDELL second in command; Squadron Serjeant-Major John HOADLEY, drill instructor.
   
• In 1904, Captain Arthur F. CLIFFORD resided in Park Cottage.
   
• John M. has a photograph of the Old Drill Hall on Shaw Street on Geo-graph, taken in May, 2014.
   
• William Henry JOHNSON was awarded a Victoria Cross for bravery in France in World War One. He was wounded in France in 1918 while attacking a German machine gun nest. The brass plaque, which was attached to a stone in Worksop Memorial Park, was stolen on 20 January 2012. Sgt JOHNSON's Victoria Cross is displayed at the Sherwood Foresters Museum at Nottingham Castle. He served in the Home Guard during World War II, but had to withdraw because of poor health. He died on 23 April 1945 of natural causes.
   
• A War Memorial was built in 1920 outside St. Anne's Church to honour the men of Worksop who fell in World War I.  It was dedicated on 7th March 1920.
   
• Jonathan CLITHEROE has a photograph of a Memorial next to St. Anne's Church on Newcastle Avenue on Geo-graph, taken in June, 2016. The web page author is uncertain if this is a War Memorial or simply an ancient preaching cross, but it has all the characteristics of a War Memorial. Documentation tells me it was unveiled in 1920.
   
• Richard CROFT has a photograph of the Worksop War Memorial on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2007.
   
• Christine JOHNSTONE has a different view of the Worksop War Memorial on Geo-graph, taken in October, 2011.
   
• David HALLAM-JONES has a photograph of the Memorial Avenue Gardens on Geo-graph, taken in September, 2016. The gardens were created in 1937 in remembrance of the men of Worksop who died during WWI.
   
• RAF Worksop, otherwise known as RAF Scofton, was a former Royal Air Force station located at Scofton, 2.8 miles (4.5 km) north east of Worksop. It opened in November, 1943 and spent most of its service history as a flight training centre. It is currently farmland.
   

There is a War Memorial in Worksop Priory. These are the names from the Nottinghamshire County Council War Memorial site. You can click on a name there to get more information about that individual:

There is also a War Memorial outside St. Anne's Church. For the list of names on it, see the Nottinghamshire County Council site.

These are the names inscribed on the Worksop Cenotaph war memorial - eastern plaque - above.  These are men whose names were omitted when the town Cenotaph's lists were compiled in the early 1920s.  Names for the memorial were solicited from the townspeople, but some families had left town by then:

• Hilda SIMMS of Worksop is included in a group photo of the WW2 Women's Land Army. ('Our Nottinghamshire' site) 
   
• Lieut. Commander John Lee MACHIN, Royal Navy, was killed in action on 24 May 1941 while serving on HMS Hood. He was born in Worksop, NTT, in 1902. His estate was probated in Nottingham, NTT, in May 1942.

Wikipedia tells us that: Worksop was part of what was called Bernetseatte (burnt lands) in Anglo-Saxon times.

In the 1086 Domesday Book "Worksop" appears as "Werchesope". The name derives from a personal name 'We(o)rc' plus the Anglo-Saxon placename element 'hop' (valley).

Actor Donald Henry PLEASENCE OBE was born in Worksop on 5 October 1919, the son of Alice (née ARMITAGE) and Thomas Stanley PLEASENCE. He was raised in Grimoldby, Lincs. He played RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape (1963), the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). On 31 August 1944, PLEASENCE was flying in an RAF Lancaster Bomber that was shot down. He was captured and held in Stalag Luft I until the war's end. On 2 February 1995, PLEASENCE died at age 75 in France.

• The town had an older newspaper, "Worksop Today", that has merged into the Worksop Guardian newspaper.
   
• You can find local news, obituaries and even nostalgia pieces in the Worksop Guardian.
   
• Jane TAYLOR in Redcar provides this notice from the Derby Mercury of 24 February 1803: "MARRIED: On Monday last at Worksop, Nottinghamshire, Mr. John WEATHERHEAD, of this town (Derby), ironmonger, to Miss PARKER, of the former place."
   

Worksop Life is a magazine about activities and events in Worksop.

• This place was an ancient parish in Nottingham county, and it became a modern Civil Parish when those were established.
   
• The parish was in the Hatfield division of the ancient Bassetlaw Wapentake (Hundred) in the northern division of the county.
   
• In 1894 the town formed an Urban District Council.
   
• There is no local town council. Town civic and political affairs are the venue of the District Council.
   
• District governance is provided by the Bassetlaw District Council.
   

• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Worksop petty session hearings. These were held every other Wednesday at Noon at the police station on Potter Street.
   
• After the Poor Law Amendment Act reforms of 1834, this parish became the heart of the Worksop Poor Law Union.
   

Year	Inhabitants
1801	3,263
1821	4,567
1841	6,197
1851	7,215
1871	10,409
1881	11,625
1891	12,734
1901	16,112
1911	20,387

• A Catholic School was built on Park Street, not far from the Catholic Chapel, in 1840. In 1881, Miss Margaret ENGLAND was the schoolmistress.
   
• In 1881 there was a National School for boys on Potter Street. William Henry JALLAND was the schoolmaster.
   
• In 1881 there was a National School for girls on Prior's Walk Road. Miss Emma DAWBER was the schoolmistress.
   
• In 1881 the "Rectory" was an Infant School on Potter Street. Miss Harriet BUTLER was the schoolmistress.
   
• In 1881 St. John's Boys School was on Dock Road. Anthony COOK was the schoolmaster.
   
• Nathaniel WOODARD founded St Cuthbert's College in 1890. St Cuthbert's College is now Worksop College, located just south of Worksop. Their website is: Worksop College where there are links to the history re the Woodard Trust. The College is paried with Ranby House to offer education from age 5 thru age 18.