Staincross Wapentake

Staincross was a Wapentake (Hundred), which is an administrative division (or ancient district),[1] in the historic county of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It consisted of seven parishes, and included the towns of Barnsley and Penistone

Wapentakes of the West Riding. Staincross is labelled 12 on the map.

History

Staincross was named after the village of Staincross and also included the parishes of Cawthorne, Darton, Felkirk, Hemsworth, High Hoyland, Penistone, Royston,[note 1] Silkstone (including Barnsley) and Tankersley and parts of Darfield.[2][3] Of the nine wapentakes in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Staincross typically had the lowest population density, which was recorded in 1867 as 27,089.[4]

The original meeting place of the wapentake is believed to have been in, or near, to the village of Staincross, similar to the wapentakes at Ewcross and Osgoldcross.[5] The name derives from the Old Norse of stein-kross, literally, stone cross.[6]

Originally located in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the majority of area within Staincross Wapentake is now within South Yorkshire, with Hemsworth and surrounding villages today a part of the Wakefield Metropolitan District, within West Yorkshire.[7] The original boundaries nestled against the wapentakes of Agbrigg to the north, Osgoldcross to the east and Strafforth to the south and south east.[8] On the western edge, the wapentake bordered the Hamestan Hundred of Cheshire. It was estimated to have covered an area of 130 square miles (340 km2), although, according to Domesday records, a smaller portion, geographically removed from the rest of the wapentake, was located at the village of Adlingfleet where the rivers Ouse and Trent converge.[9]

Although some distance from the village of Staincross, the Church of All Saints, Silkstone, was sometimes known as the "Mother Church" of the Staincross Wapentake.[10]

Notes
  1. Sometimes spelt as Roystone

References
  1. "Hallikeld Wap through time | Census tables with data for the Ancient District". www.visionofbritain.org.uk. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  2. "Staincross | As described in John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887)". www.visionofbritain.org.uk. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  3. "The West Riding Divided". Huddersfield Chronicle. No. 590. Column A. 6 July 1881. p. 5.
  4. "The Triple Division of the West Riding". Huddersfield Chronicle. No. 897. Column A. 29 June 1867. p. 7.
  5. Smith, A H (1961). The place-names of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 261. OCLC 871561411.
  6. Ekwall, Eilert (1947). The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names (3 ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 415. OCLC 12542596.
  7. Chrystal, Paul (2017). The Place Names of Yorkshire; Cities, Towns, Villages, Rivers and Dales, some Pubs too, in Praise of Yorkshire Ales (1 ed.). Catrine: Stenlake. p. 100. ISBN 9781840337532.
  8. Langdale, Thomas (1822). A Topographical Dictionary of Yorkshire. Northallerton: J Langdale. p. 418. OCLC 5211910.
  9. Skinner, Alexis (2014). "Impact and change: assembly practices in the Northern Danelaw" (PDF). etheses.dur.ac.uk. p. 449. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  10. Bower, Jane (9 November 2015). "Wonderfully Made in Yorkshire comes to Barnsley church | The Diocese of Leeds, Church of England". www.leeds.anglican.org. Retrieved 4 March 2020.

53.5742°N 1.5031°W / 53.5742; -1.5031

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