The Midgley township, further west near Halifax, is recorded in the Domesday Book and was part of the Wakefield Manor's western division held by the Warrenes, whilst Midgley near Wakefield appears under the "Honour of Pontefract" once held by the De Laci family of Pontefract. One branch of the De Lacis were the FitzWilliams of Sprotbrough near Doncaster who were lords of nearby Emley. Emley was part of the Warrene lands of the Wakefield Manor.
The area around Midgley near Wakefield appears to have been part of the Manor of Cawthorne held at the time of the conquest by an Anglian called Ailric. Ilbert de Laci (of Lassy in Normandy) was granted the Cawthorne estates in 1067, which covered a wide area mainly to the south and east of the Warrene estates of the Wakefield Manor. It would appear that the Calder Valley estates of the former English King were divided between the two families by William I to prevent any ascendancy and power over himself.³ 

Midgley near Wakefield lay within the administrative area known as the Honour of Pontefract, held until 1311 by the De Laci lineage with its centre at Pontefract Castle. Thus both villages with the same name were in separate feudal administrative regions. This seems to be related to the Anglian name derivation for the western Midgley township and the Norman name derivation for the eastern Midgley township of West Yorkshire.

The honour of Pontefract shown in relation to the manor of Wakefield, West Yorkshire     Key:             Purple = The honour of Pontefract                     Blue = The manor of Wakefield

Midgley near Wakefield lies on a geological formation called the Middle Coal Measures where there are seams of coal and  self fluxing ironstone close to the surface which have been worked in the past. There is a large area of at least twenty-one shallow pit iron workings ("bell pits") one mile to the S.W. of Midgley at Woodhouse Farm. Bell pits for mining coal can also be seen in the vicinity of Newhall Farm near Midgley. These bell pits date back to the 1200's before Sheffield was using local iron ores and charcoal from the forested areas to manufacture knives in the 1300's. The iron ore was mined from what is now known as the Tankersley Seam which was interbedded with local coal seams, this iron ore ran in a band of about 35cm in thickness. Wood for preparing the charcoal was used to smelt the ore into iron in local furnaces near Emley.
Wood was taken from Bank Wood [Furnace Grange] between Emley and Midgley and later from Cannon Greve (at nearby Cawthorne) where it was being sold in the 1300's as fuel for smelting iron ore⁵.
The chemical process in the bloomery or furnace involved the following steps:

  1.   2C+ O₂ = 2CO  oxidation of the carbon to carbon monoxide
  2.   CaCO₃ = CaO + CO₂  calcium carbonate is decomposed to calcium oxide
  3.   Fe₂O₃ + 3CO = 2Fe + 3CO₂  reduction of the iron oxide to iron using CO from step 1.
  4.    SiO₂ + CaO = CaSiO₃  formation of slag from silica gangue and calcium oxide formed in 2.

The iron ingots were transported along a packhorse route from Emley down Thorncliffe and Lezzes Lanes to a ford in Bank Wood then through Midgley to the River Calder, across the River Calder to Horbury and York, some travelling by boat down-river to Selby.
This movement of raw iron [pig iron] between Emley and the River Calder probably led to the development of a smithy industry in Midgley, from which originated the production of wrought iron and devices known as caltraps or devil-thorns as used in warfare. Consequently this device became a charge on the Midgley coat of arms.
 

Midgley, as Migelaia, and surrounding villages may owe their presence to the exploitation of these iron ore deposits from the late 1100's. The Bentley Grange and Emley spoil heaps overlie medieval cultivated strips this indicates that the strips pre-date the Domesday Book and belong to the Anglian and Danish settlement patterns of the 800-900's.  It was common before water power to site furnaces on moor-land where the winds would assist their work ["bloomeries"]. The ores from the Tankersley ironstone bed were low in sulfur, unlike the coal, which made them easily smelted, especially where the iron oxides were mixed with calcium carbonate or were present as siderite. The iron ores lead to the appearance of chalybeate springs in the area. Coal was ignored until the 1200's⁴  
Monasteries  such as Byland, Fountains and Rievaulx ran mines in the area. 

ADAM DE  BIRKIN AND THE RIEVAULX ABBEY ENDOWMENTS

Adam was called, and calls himself at different times, de Birkin, de Falthwaite, de Flockton, de Middleton, de Midgley, de Sitlington, and de Stainburgh, for he had interests in all those places, most of which he had received with his wife. [Holmes, Pont. Chart. vol. II, p. 396.] Sometime before 1150/9 Adam FitzPeter, grandson of Essulf, granted a place to build forges on the River Dove at Stainborough, one of the earliest such grants known in England, perhaps the beginning of the iron industry in the Don Valley. (Williams, Cistercians p. 375; History of the Baildons. p.27.) whilst Rievaulx Abbey was given a monopoly for iron working. At about the same time Adam granted a charter to Rievaulx, this included common pasture and the site for a grange with building materials at Sitlington. In addition there were iron ore rights in Sitlington and Flockton and a licence to construct a pool. Land in Sitlington was granted to the monks to build a forge and to make implements for the community’s use. The community was given the right to make iron and use dead wood for charcoal making in Flockton and Sitlington. (Jennings, Yorkshire Monasteries, p. 75.) Charcoal was necessary to help to reduce the oxides of iron into relatively pure iron, coal being too full of impurities and coke, made from coal by dry distillation,  not yet invented.  However Holmes on his Pontefract Chartulary states that the afore-mentioned deed was cancelled in the Rievaulx Chartulary, ........ 'by diagonal lines from each corner meeting in the centre'. [Pont. Chart. p. 345n.] Later Adam added 30 acres to his Rievaulx endowments - 10 in 'Breriroda' [Bank Wood?] and 20 in the wood of Little Midgley [probably today's Stoney Cliffe Wood]. Adam also granted 1/8th of the vill of Midgley to the monks of St. John's in Pontefract.¹⁹

The FitzWilliam lord of Emley gave the Cistercian monks of Byland Abbey [near Thirsk] iron ore and enough fuel to supply one furnace here at Bentley Springs near Woodhouse Farm.¹¹ Indeed, Byland Abbey held lands here from a number of local families. At Bentley Grange, where the Tankersley seam outcrops amongst the shallow coal seams are a large number of circular 'bell pits' [some have been obliterated by later strip mining]. These bell pits were dug by the monks of Byland between the 1100's and 1500's. Fountains Abbey, the Cistercian monastery was no exception running mines here for iron in the 1250's. Given all these endowments to the abbeys from this part of Yorkshire, the benefactors must now all be in heaven!
The area in the 1100-1400's was heavily forested forming part of the great forest which ran north from Nottingham to North Yorkshire. This area was inhabited by charcoal burners, foresters and fugitives who helped to fuel the Robyn Hode ballads. By the 1500's wood supplies were beginning to decline, the great forests were becoming depleted.

In 1515 at Flockton Edge, shallow coal pits (Day Holes* or Dene Holes) now marked by clumps of trees were worked. Others can be found in the vicinity of  New Hall Farm. The coal was taken from pits here where it outcrops on the steep valley sides. The pits are shallow because of the risk of the sides caving in. Some of the pits had short galleries extending out from the base similar to those found at the flint mines at Grimes Graves in Norfolk⁴  By the 1530's the monasteries were being closed and the ownership was being transferred to protestant entrepreneurs. One such was the Kay family who bought lands near Honley from the Crown after the closure of the monasteries. They continued mining the coal that the monks had mined, using it to burn lime for the fields and in a smithy built in 1573⁴ *sufficient to provide a family with coal day by day.

Towards the end of the 1500's coal began to be in greater demand, which was mainly used for making agricultural lime. Adits allowed the water to drain away from mines, but water was a big problem until pumps were available, so that bell-pits and day-holes could no longer be used. During the 1600's the Spencers of Cannon Hall, Cawthorne had iron production occurring at Bank Furnace in the parish of Thornhill.

During the Middle Ages (1100-1500) the village of Midgley became a hostelling point on the North Road [referred to from the 1100's as "The King's Highway"] from Halifax through West Bretton village to Barnsley and Wakefield with a packhorse route lying to the east from the Hathersage area in Derbyshire to Wakefield. No doubt this packhorse route carried many millions of woolpacks, which from the early Middle Ages, England's wealth depended upon.
The North Road or "King's Highway" was a pre-industrial age road running from the North (Hexham), through Barnard Castle, Richmond, Skipton, Keighley, Halifax, Darton, Barnsley, Rotherham, Nottingham and so south to London.

At the i.p.m. of Thomas Wortley in December 1514 one of the manors held was Sitlington, 'alias New-Hall'.²¹ This indicates that New Hall Farm is the site of the original manor house for the manor of Sitlington.

<<<<<<<<<<Click image to see detail of the Bretton iron workings

In 1238 Robert de Everingham inherited land in Midgley ['Miggelay'] through his marriage to Isabel de Birkin, a great granddaughter of Essulf: 

In 1316 the great grandson of Robert de Everingham, Adam de Everingham of Birkin Yorkshire and Laxton Notts. held 'Chylington' identified as Sitlington now Middlestown.¹⁸


Nearby lies West Bretton:
* West Bretton  formerly Brettone in Domesday Book, 1086 and West Bretton  c. 1200 (O.E. Brettas tun or Briton's estate)¹ This is an Anglian name used to describe the indigenous Celtic British who probably continued to live here during the Anglian occupation which occurred around 620 A.D.  This was part of the British Kingdom of  Loidis Elmete which continued to exist during the reign of  the Anglian Northumbrian, Edwin.
The Britons may have been making iron here in bloomeries during the Roman occupation. After the arrival of the Anglians these skilled craftsmen would have been retained by the invaders to produce weapons and implements to supply the occupation.
In the time of Charles I, Bretton was owned by the Wentworth family but prior to this had been owned by the de Brettons and then the de Dronsfields. Bullcliffe near Midgley was also owned by another branch of the Wentworth family.
* Coxley,  from O.E. for Coc + leah, wood or clearing belonging to the cook. This would refer to a cook in the Anglian royal household.
* Emley  from O.E. Em(m)a pers name + leah, woodland clearing of a man called E(m)ma, in the Domesday Book 1086 Ameleie
* Bullcliffe the site of an open cast coal mine now abandoned.

* Nether Midgley (from Old English neotherra or lower), half a mile downhill from Over-Midgley previously Nether Sitlington [now Netherton]
* Over Midgley (from Old English uferra or upper). This is marked on maps as Midgley today.
* Sitlington now Middlestown.
* Over-Sitlington (now Overton) in the township of Middle-Sitlington, parish of Thornhill
* New Hall, described as a farm-house in the township of Sitlington, parish of Thornhill in 1822.
See photographs of New Hall manor moat and the farm buildings
See mudmap of New Hall and Midgley [print off 'landscape'].

In the late 1000's-early 1100's Swein the son of Ailric the Danish-Anglian who held title to the Manor of Cawthorne about the time of Domesday Book held lordship over Newhall ("Newhale") as well as Cawthorne, Kexborough, Gunthwaite, Penistone, Worsborough, Carlton, Brierley, Walton, Mensthorpe, Wrangbrook and Middleton.⁵ Brierley later represented the eastern part of the manor when two grand-daughters of Ailric were made co-heiresses of the estate.  This name would indicate there is an earlier hall, this could conceivably have been in the Danish homelands of Englet. The term "hall" is a particularly Anglian one originally referring to the large and long building used by the lord and for formal gatherings and occasions.
New Hall farm is today defended on its south and eastern sides by a moat which would indicate that it was at one time a moated manor.

On the 12th April 1307 whilst King Edward I was at Carlisle he granted Nicholas de Wortley free warren in all his demesne lands at Sitlington as well as a weekly market and yearly fair at his manor of Wortley, Yorks.²⁰

A ROBERT HOODE FINED FOR NOT ATTENDING EARL WARRENE'S MUSTER

The Wakefield Court Rolls for 1316 [pdf, p. 140.] record a John son of Philip of Schytlyngton fined 6d. along with a Robert Hoode and others fined 3d. for not attending John de Warrene's army muster. This muster had been for the the Scottish campaign of 1314 and the abortive battle of Bannockburn. Indeed, in this part of the country it appears Edward II's request for fighting men was not popular for it is also recorded that no-one from Heptonstall in the western division of the manor of Wakefield, attended the muster.  It is tempting to believe that this Robert Hoode is the basis for the folk hero 'Robin Hood', but I have plenty of evidence that this is not so. It is just one more false trail down which many researchers have met a dead end. 

In the Nomina Villarum for Yorkshire tested at Clipston 5th March 1316, Adam de Everingham held lands at 'Chylington' [Sitlington]. Adam was an adherent of Thomas earl of Lancaster during Lancaster's rebellion against the king. 

The area of the Sitlington manor is known to appear on the following maps:

*Christopher Saxton's map of  Eboracensis (1577) on which Denby Grange, Thornhill, Netherton, Emley Hall and Bretton Hall are mentioned.
* John Speed's map (1610) of the West Riding of Yorkshire, on which are named, Netherton and Bretton Hall.
*Willdey's pre-industrial map with the "Halifax and Barnesley main road"  or "Via Magna"(1715).
*Thomas Moule's The County Maps of Old England (1830) where Thornhill, Flockton and Bretton are shown including railways.

Field Systems
The early field systems appear to have been convincingly obliterated by changes to the Anglian and later feudal  patterns. This has principally occurred since the time of widespread land enclosure during the 1700's when common land and early medieval field systems had large changes imposed upon them.
 See Google Midgley

Field  patterns today between Midgley and Flockton

* Thornhill, stones inscribed with runes and "pot-hook" lettering (a form of debased continental lettering) have been found  from the 800's here. The lettering indicates influence from Hexham at this time⁶. A moated manor had a commanding view here up and down the Calder Valley.
The remains of The Hall  now lie to the North side of the moat. Here at Thornhill Lees was a Norman court formerly the caput of the Thornhill family who from their coat of arms appear to have feudal connections with the Midgley family of Midgley.¹⁴ Thornhill later became the seat of the Savile family. See Thornhill s' of Thornhill

*The National Coal Mining Museum at Overton on the site of Denby Grange Coal pit,
  this is the oldest pit sunk in Yorkshire (1791)
*Denby Grange near Overton which had a hall here in 1577
*Stoneycliffe Wood Nature Reserve which follows a stream north from Midgley to the
  Calder River.
*New Hall Farm, Midgley, a moat survives on the property which once protected a hall and is
likely  to be post 1100. Halls were being established in the late 1500's in the district
e.g. Whitley Lower and Denby Grange both in 1577.
*Hollinhirst to the east of Netherton (O.E. meaning Holly Wood or Holy Wood)
*A sawmill in Midgley which operates at the southern end of Stoneycliffe Wood, Job Earnshaws.
*The "Black Bull" public house, Midgley
* Midgley Lodge Motel

*Stoney Cliffe Wood- a well maintained bridleway-footpath - well worth a hike.
*A colliery in Midgley (closed in the 1980's)
*Bullcliffe Colliery to the east of Midgley which developed between 1961 and 1988.
*Open cast colliery (closed) half a mile to the west of Midgley
*A church or chapel without a tower or spire in Midgley.
*H.M. Female Detention Centre near Flockton Green.
*Horbury Bridge which crosses the river Calder, no longer in use.
*Cemeteries lie between Netherton and Midgley and at Middlestown
*Cold Hiendley, Hiendley meaning in O.E. wood frequented by hinds or does.
*Cumberworth (Upper & Lower), meaning O.E. enclosure of a man called Cumbra or of the Britons O.E. personal name or O.E. Cumbre (compare with Cymry-the Cumbrian Britons and Cymry the primitive Welsh form for "The Welsh")
The manor of Midgley which lay in the parish of Thornhill is recorded by the Historical Manuscripts Commission to have no documents relating to it in any official or private repository. Records of account and Court Rolls for Thornhill Parish are held at the Nottinghamshire Archives¹⁰.
See map of 1855 for Midgley Farm

And later the 1851 Census for Midgley gives some idea of the occupations of the residents⁹:
 

From this it would appear that farming and coal mining were the most common pursuits at this time and iron ore mining had ceased. The hamlet of Midgley had 173 persons resident in 1851, of whom at least 81 were born there.

Midgleys of Cawthorne,  Normanton, Woodhouse and Hambleton

Links:

The Thornhills of Sitlington and Thornhill
New Hall manor moat and the farm buildings
The Savilles' of Thornhill
The Thornhills of Thornhill - at least one origin for the Midgley surname.
Arms of Midgley
West Yorkshire Arms
Early Yorkshire families
Anglian Life

Home

Sources:
  1. Dictionary of English Place Names. A.D. Mills, O.U.P. 1997
  2. Dictionary of Place Names, 1822.
  3. History of Cawthorne, Rev. C.T. Pratt, 1883.
  4. Mining. Hugh Bodey, B.T. Batsford, London.
  5. History of Cawthorne, Revd. Charles Tiplady Pratt,  I. W. Davis, Barnsley,1882.
  6. Huddersfield in Roman Times, I.A. Richmond 1925.
  7. Local Factors influencing industrial location, E. Charlesworth, 1938.
  8. Geographical Essays, Fowler.
  9. Index to 1851 Census, volume 39, W.D.F.H.S.
10. Account Roll 1360-1361, Savile DDSR/B11/42, NRA 6119 Savile.
11. Hunter, Joseph, South Yorkshire: The History & Topography of the Deanery of  Doncaster vol. 2, 1831.
12. Faull, M.L., & Moorhouse, S.A., (Eds.), An Archaeological Survey to A.D. 1500, W.Y.A.S., Wakefield, 1981.
13. Faull, M.L., & M. Stinson (Eds.), Domesday Book for Yorkshire, Phillimore, Chichester, 1986.
14. Email communication from a claimant to the Lordship of Laxton, Notts. January 2004
15. Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Yorkshire Deeds, vol. V,  West Bretton pp. 6 - 9.
16. Nomina Villarum, 1867, p.352.        
17.  Ibid.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

18. Nomina Villarum, 1867, p. 352.

19. Burton, Janet E. The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215,  p. 212.

20. Chart. Cal. Rolls. 1300-1326, p. 100.

21.  Hunter, Joseph, South Yorkshire: The History & Topography of the Deanery of  Doncaster vol. 2, 1831, p. 314.

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