Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman history

Worksop was part of what was called Bernetseatte (burnt lands) in Anglo-Saxon times.^[3] 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. A number of other recorded place names contain this same personal name element.^[4][5]

In the Domesday Book of 1086, Worksop appears as "Werchesope". Thoroton^[6] 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 around 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.^[7] 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", but 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."

Worksop Manor became a prison for Mary, Queen of Scots in 1568. In 1580s the new house was built on the same site for George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. He was the husband of Elizabeth Talbot, Bess of Hardwick.

Worksop Manor

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

Potter Street

By 1743, 358 families were in Worksop, with a population 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 that was further boosted by the discovery of coal seams beneath the town.

Worksop and area surrounding are known as the "Gateway to the Dukeries" due to the former ducal seats of Clumber House, Thoresby Hall, Welbeck Abbey, and Worksop Manor either owned by the Dukes of Newcastle, Portland and Kingston.^[8]

Waterways

Chesterfield canal, near Worksop

Worksop is connected to the UK Inland Waterways network by the Chesterfield Canal. It was built to export coal, limestone and lead from Derbyshire; iron from Chesterfield; and corn, deals, timber, groceries and general merchandise into Derbyshire. Today, the canal is used for leisure purposes together with the adjacent Sandhill Lake.^[9]

Railway

Worksop station

Worksop lies on the Sheffield-Lincoln line and the Robin Hood line. Northern services run between Sheffield, Lincoln and Leeds;^[10] East Midlands Railway services from Nottingham, via Mansfield, terminate at the station.^[11]

Roads

Worksop lies on the A57 and A60, with links to the A1 and M1. The A57 Worksop bypass was opened on Thursday 1 May 1986, by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Michael Spicer and the Chairman of Bassetlaw council. The bypass had been due to open in October 1986 and was built by A.F. Budge of Retford;^[12] as part of the contract, a small part of the A60, Turner Road, was opened on Monday 29 September 1986, three months early.^[13]

Cycling

National Cycle Route 6, a waymarked route between London and the Lake District, passes through the town.^[9]

Buses

Stagecoach East Midlands operates bus services in and around the town, with destinations including Doncaster, Rotherham, Chesterfield and Nottingham.^[14]

Primary

Secondary

• Outwood Academy Portland
• Outwood Academy Valley
• Worksop College

Further education

• North Nottinghamshire College
• Outwood Post-16 centre

Current economy

The local economy in Worksop is dominated by service industries, manufacturing, and distribution. Unemployment levels in the area are now lower than the national average, owing to large number of distribution and local manufacturing companies, including Premier Foods, RDS Transport, Pandrol UK Ltd, and Laing O'Rourke.

Major employers in the area include Premier Foods (Worksop Factory), Greencore, RDS Transport (the Flying Fridge), B&Q, MAKE polymers,^[15] OCG Cacao, part of Cargill, Pandrol, GCHQ, and the National Health Service (Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Trust).

Gateford Road, Worksop near St John's Church

Agricultural and forestry

John Harrison's survey of Worksop for the Earl of Arundel reveals that at that time, most people earned their living from the land. A tenant farmer, Henry Cole, farmed 200 acres of land, grazing his sheep on "Manton sheepwalk". This survey also described a corn-grinding water mill (Bracebridge mill) and Manor Mill situated near to Castle Hill, with a kiln and a malthouse.

One unusual crop associated with Worksop is liquorice. This was originally grown in the priory gardens for medicinal purposes but continued until around 1750. William Camden records in Britannia that the town was famous for growing liquorice. John Speed noted: "In the west, near Worksop, groweth plenty of Liquorice, very delicious and good". White says the liquorice gardens were "principally situated on the eastern margin of the park, near the present 'Slack Walk'." He notes that the last plant was dug up about "fifty years ago" and that this last garden had been planted by "the person after whom the 'Brompton stock' is named". A pub in Worksop is now named after this former industry.^[16]

Additionally, with much of the area being heavily forested, timber was always an important industry, supplying railway sleepers to the North Midland Railway, timber for the construction of railway carriages, and packing cases for the Sheffield cutlery industry. The town also became notable for the manufacture of Worksop Windsor chairs. Timber firms in the town included Benjamin Garside's woodyard and Godley and Goulding, situated between Eastgate and the railway.^[17]

Brewing and malting

The malting trade began in Retford, but gradually moved to Worksop, where it became an important trade, though it never employed many people. In 1852, Clinton malt kilns were built. Worksop has a strong tradition of brewing, including being the site of the historic Worksop and Retford Brewery. This brewery had previously been known as Garside and Alderson and Prior Well Brewery.

The brewing tradition is continued by a number of local independent breweries in and around the town, including Welbeck Abbey Brewery.^[18]

Former Mining

At the start of the 19th century, Worksop had a largely agricultural economy with malting, corn milling, and timber working being principal industries. However, 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.

The first coal mine was Shireoaks Colliery, which by 1861 employed over 200 men, which rose to 600 men by 1871. Steetley Colliery started producing coal in 1876, and in Worksop a mine was developed on land to the south-east, owned by Henry Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle. This mine was fully operational in around 1907, with three shafts, and was named Manton Colliery.

The closure in the 1990s of the pits, compounding the earlier decline of the timber trade and other local industry, resulted in high unemployment in parts of the Worksop area, as well as other social problems.^[19]

Textiles

In John Harrison's survey of Worksop for the Earl of Arundel, a dye house and a tenter green (where lengths of cloth were stretched out to dry) indicates a small cloth industry was present in Worksop. Late attempts during the Industrial Revolution to introduce textile manufacturing saw two mills constructed, one at Bridge Place and the other somewhere near Mansfield Road. Both enterprises failed and closed within three years. They were converted to milling corn.