Ackworth in 1927

Ackworth in 1927

From Kelly’s Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire

 

Ackworth is a township, parish and large village, on rising ground near the source of the river Went. 3 miles from Hemsworth station on a branch of the London and North Eastern railway from Doncaster to Wakefield, 3 south from Pontefract, 2 from the Featherstone station on the Wakefield and Goole branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, and 1 mile from the Ackworth station on the Swinton and Knottingley branch of the London, Midland and Scottish and London and North Eastern railways. Ackworth consists of the hamlets of High and Low Ackworth, Moor Top and Brackenhill, the two latter being from 1 to 2 miles south; it is in the Hemsworth division of the Riding, upper division of Osgoldcross wapentake, petty sessional division of Upper Osgoldcross, Pontefract county court district, Hemsworth union, rural deanery and archdeaconry of Pontefract and diocese of Wakefield.

The church of St. Cuthbert is a building of stone in the Early Decorated style, consisting of chancel with aisle, nave, aisles and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 6 bells, two of which are of pre-Reformation date, and one was recast in 1882 at the cost of Mrs. William Peel, of Ackworth Park: the church is adorned with thirteen stained windows and is rich in carved oak: the ancient font bears the following inscription, "Baptisterium bello Phanaticorum dirutum, denuo erectum, Tho. Bradley D.D. rectore: H.A.; T.C. Gardianis 1663:" There are monuments to the Lowther family, of Ackworth Park (1720); to Robert Gully, son of John Gully, of Ackworth Park, who with 300 others was barbarously murdered by the Chinses in the town of Ty Wan Foo in 1842; and in the vestry is a memorial to Frances, daughter of the Right Hon. John, 1st Baron Savile, of Pontefract, and wife of Thomas Bradley D.D. prebendary of York, rector of this church and chaplain to Charles II (1663); there are sittings for 506 persons. The register dates from the year 1558 and is in excellent condition. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £536, including 120 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and held since 1910 by the Rev. John Lowther Bouch M.A. of Trinity College, Oxford. The rectory house was repaired and enlarged in 1892 at a cost of about £850, partly defrayed by voluntary subscriptions.

The church of All Saints, Moor Top, erected in 1889-91, at a cost of £2,400, as a chapel of ease to St. Cuthbert’s, is in the Early English style and consists of chancel, nave, north porch and a turret containing one bell: connected with this church is a Mission hall, erected in 1910 at a cost of about £450.

There are also a Wesleyan chapel, a meeting house for the Society of Friends at Low Ackworth, and a Primitive Methodist chapel at Moor Top.

The charities amount to about £150 yearly.

The Society of Friends’ school here, built in 1758 for the Foundling Hospital, was purchased in 1777 by Dr. John Fothergill, a member of that society, and refounded for its present purpose; here were educated Jeremiah Holmes Wiffin, the poet (1792-1836), Bernard Barton, the poet (1784-1849), William Howitt, the well-known writer of historical and topographical works and books for the young (1795-1879), and the Rt. Hon. John Bright M.P., D.C.L. orator and statesman, d. 1889. The Flounders’ Institute, established here in 1848 by Benjamin Flounders, of Yarm, for training young men to be teachers in the Society of Friends, was closed in 1896, and the students transferred to Leeds.

Ackworth Park is the property of the trustees of the late Henry Hill esq. but has for some time remained unoccupied: the mansion, standing on an eminence in the centre of a park of about 200 acres, is a handsome building of stone: north of the house are the conservatory, greenhouse and peach houses; the grounds are tastefully laid out in terraces and lawns planted with evergreens. Hundhill Hall, the residence of Miss Neilson M.B.E. is in East Hardwick for ecclesiastical purposes only, and otherwise is regarded as part of Ackworth.

The Ackworth Adult School Social Club, built in 1907 at a cost of about £500, has 120 members.

The trustees of the late Henry Hill esq. are the chief landowners. The manorial rights are vested in six freeholders in trust for the parishioners.

At Moor Top and Brackenhill are several large quarries, from which great quantities of stone are sent to all parts of England and abroad.

The soil is clay and gravel; subsoil, various. The area is 2,641 acres of land and 4 of water; rateable value £19,743; the population in 1921 was 4,831 in the civil and 4,746 in the ecclesiastical parish, including 345 in the Society of Friends’ School.

Ackworth Grange, the seat of Wilfrid Francis Tempest esq. J.P. is about three-quarters of a mile from the village, in the ecclesiastical district of East Hardwick.

The Roman Catholic church, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and attached to the Grange, was erected in 1840, and is a building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, north porch and a belfry containing one bell: all the windows are stained, and there is a finely carved stone altar and tomb, designed by Pugin: in the church are brasses to Stephen and Elizabeth Tempest (1814), John Tempest (1831) and Mary Coulthurst (1836); a memorial tablet in Caen stone and black marble to Agnes Mary Tempest (1885); also a brass tablet to the memory of Wilfred Norman Tempest, 2nd Batt. King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, killed in France, Sept. 25, 1916: the church is now closed for public services.

The Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of Lourdes was established on June 6th, 1920, by the Rev. John Broderick, to satisfy the needs of Roman Catholics of Ackworth: the chancel contains a high altar, and two side altars dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and the Sacred Heart; also four stained windows representing the Ecce Homo, Mary Magdalen, St. Joseph and St. Patrick: the nave is beautifully decorated, and from its walls hang the 14 stations or ways of the Cross. A Roman Catholic Parish Hall was opened in 1927.

The kennels of the celebrated Badsworth hounds are in this parish, 1 mile from the village; Pontefract, Doncaster and Wakefield are convenient places for hunting visitors.

Brackenhill is a hamlet of this parish about 1 ½ miles south-west from the village, in the midst and inhabited chiefly by the men employed in the stone quarries and the Hemsworth colliery. The Ackworth Moor Top Working Men’s Club and Institute was built in 1907 at a cost of £1,750.

Parish Clerk, Fred Lindsay.

 

Post, M.O., T. & T.E.D. Office, Ackworth – Mrs. Emma Alice Asquith, sub-postmistress. Letters from Pontefract

Post, M.O. & Telephone Call Office, Ackworth Moor Top – Henry Hawley, sub-postmaster. Ackworth, 1 mile distant, is the nearest telegraph office

Post Office, Brackenhill – Mrs. Rose Hannah Penn, sub-postmistress. Ackworth Moor Top is the nearest money order office & Ackworth the nearest telegraph office

 

Schools.

Society of Friends’, Ackworth, has about 340 scholars; Gerald Kenway Hibbert M.A., B.D., J.P. supt

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Public Elementary, High Ackworth (infants), enlarged in 1880, for 137 children; Miss Catherine Paley, infants’ mistress

Miss Rachel Howard’s (endowed) (girls & infants), Low Ackworth, erected in 1830, for 98 children; Miss Alice Paley, mistress

Public Elementary, Moor Top (mixed & infants), erected in 1896, for 420 children; T.J. Bedford, head master; Miss Towler, infants’ mistress

Public Elementary, Brackenhill (mixed & infants), erected in 1908, for 420 children; J. Swinbank, head master

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Police Stations, Sergeant Harold Barker, High Ackworth; George Henry Smith, constable, Low Ackworth; Joseph Edward Rance, constable, Moor Top

Conveyance – motor omnibuses run constantly to Pontefract, Wakefield, Leeds & Barnsley

Ackworth Station (telegrams are received & despatched from here, but not delivered); William Scarth, station master

 

High Ackworth

Private Residents

Alexander Alexander
Arundel Maj. Walter Brown (coroner for Pontefract)
Bagley Stanley Bertram J.P. The Lodge
Bouch Rev. John Lowther M.A. (rector) The Rectory
Broderick Rev. John P.P. (Roman Catholic), Parochial house
Graham Miss, Rylstone house
Hinchcliff John J.P.
Hinchcliff John Bernard, Wayside
Neilson Miss Katherine Helen M.B.E. Hundhill hall
Neville Mrs. The Grove
Oyston William Fletcher M.B.E., M.B. Elm house
Simpson Misses, Westbank

Commercial

Marked thus o farm 150 acres or over

Asquith Emma (Mrs.), stationer, Post office
Barclays Bank Ltd. (open tues. 10.30 to 11.30 a.m.; fri. 10.30 to 11.30 a.m.); head office, 54 Lombard st. London EC3
Beetham Wm. Hy. grocer
Booth Arth. Farm bailiff to Miss Neilson M.B.E. Hundhill Hall farm
Cuttle Bros. grocers, Grove pl
Devine Jn. plumber
Freeman Jas. newsagent
Fryer Geo. A. & Clifford, wheelwrights
Hall Chas. Wood, saddler
Hallett Nellie (Mrs.), shopkeeper
Harrison George Newton, butcher
Harrison H. dentist (attends wednesdays & fridays)
Harrison Harry, shopkeeper
Harrison Thomas, farmer, Potwells
Hawley Henry, shopkeeper
High Ackworth Working Men’s Club and Institute (J. Croft, sec)
Hillaby Edith (Mrs.), draper
Hirst George Haggas, tailor
Lamprey J. & Sons, nurserymen
Oyston & Hime, physicians & surgeons, Elm ho
Oyston Wm. Fletcher M.B.E., M.B., Ch.B.Vict. (firm, Oyston & Hime), physician & surgeon & medical officer & public vaccinator No. 2 district, Hemsworth union, Elm ho
Pearson Thomas, greengrocer
Robinson John, blacksmith, & member of National Master Farriers’ & Blacksmiths’ Association & mechanical engineer
Simpson Elizabeth Ann (Mrs.), farmer
Stephenson Harry, cattle dealer, Priory house
O Todd Basil, farmer, Castlesykes
Wagstaff Jas. Cyril, Brown Cow inn. T N 35
Waites Wm. Jackson, butcher
Wakefield & West Riding Permanent Building Society, Doncaster rd
Walker Charles Lewis, farmer, Hundhill farm
Williams George, greengrocer
O Wood Wm. farmer, Manor farm

 

Low Ackworth

Private Residents

(For T N’s see general list of Private Residents at end of book.)

Clayton-Smith Guy, The Hawthorns
Cullingworth Miss E. Ackworth court
Fearnley Robert William, The Mount
Gardiner Mrs. Went view
Hibbert Gerald Kenway M.A., B.D., J.P. (supt. & head master of Friends’ school)
Ruttledge Thomas Wilson M.B.
Tempest Wilfrid Francis J.P. (chairman of West Riding Quarter Sessions & County Magistrates, Upper Osgoldcross), Ackworth grange
Turvey Norman, School terrace

Commercial

Marked thus o farm 150 acres or over.

Badsworth Kennels (Ned Friend, huntsman; Wm. Preston, head groom)
Coltart Kathleen Lorna & Greta (misses), confectioners
Fearnley Robert William, land agent, The Mount
Grace David, slater
Harrison Harry, dentist
Hough Mary (Miss), grocer
Johnson Fred, farmer. T N 45
Knivett Walter, blacksmith, Prospect pl
Lee George & Frank, farmers, Town End farm
O Lee Wm. Fred & Frank, farmers
Lee William Frederick, butcher, Town End farm
London, Midland & Scottish Railway Parcels Receiving Office (Jn. Herbt. Briggs, agt)
Morton Harry Ernest, grocer
Moxon Rebecca (Miss) shopkeeper
Norton James, boot maker
Ruttledge Thomas Wilson M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O., D.P.H. physician, & district tuberculosis officer
Scott & Spink, grocers
Seal Frank, grocer
Shaw Thomas Ibbatson, farmer
Simpson Wm. joiner, Prospect pl
Smith Harry, cabinet maker, Park villas
Spink Edith (Mrs.), grocer, see Scott & Spink
Waterfall Arthur W. temperance htl
Wilson Arth. builder
Yorkshire Penny Bank (H.E. Smith, actuary)

 

Moor Top

Private Residents

(For T N’s see general list of Private Residents at end of book.)

Beach Thomas, Birran
Bentley William, Rhyddings house
Boothman Mrs. Elmwood
Hime Edward Maurice M.B., Ch.B. Leeds, Rhyddings house
Nelstrop Joseph, Westeria cottage

Commercial

Ackworth Adult School Social Club (E. Whitehead, sec)
Adams Walter Porter, draper
Ball Geo. joiner
Banham Clarence, motor engineer T N Ackworth 26
Barclays Bank Ltd. (sub-branch to Pontefract) (open fri 1 to 3 p.m.); head office, 54 Lombard st. London EC3
Bland Harry, fried fish dealer
Blowman W.W. Limited, grindstone manufacturers. T N 6 Ackworth
Bowman Llewellyn, farmer
Briggs Selina (Miss), shopkeeper
Camplin Ethel (Miss), pastrycook
Clarkson & Wigglesworth, greengrocers
Crookes, Fredk. threshing machine owner
Davies Mary Ann (Mrs.), shopkeeper
Discharged Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Club & Institute (C.H. Pickering, sec)
Doughty W. & Sons, garage proprietors
England Claude L. shoe maker
Fox Joseph, farmer, Rhyddings farm
Fox Thos. Boot & Shoe inn
Frankland Mark Towler, motor garage. T N Ackworth 18
Greaves Benj. blacksmith
Griffin Bros. farmers
Guest George Ernest, chemist
Hardaker William & Sons, quarry owners. T N 5 Ackworth
Hawley Hy. grocer, & post office
Heald Harvey, boot repairer
Hiley Edgar, beer retailer
Hime Edwd. Maurice M.B., Ch.B. physician (firm, Oyston & Hime)
Hinchcliffe Ltd. grocers
Hinchcliffe Harry, shopkeeper
Hornby Chas. painter
Iddon Tom M.P.S. chemist
Jukes Leonard, shopkeeper
Leyden Jsph. Hairdresser
Meadow Dairy Co. Limited, grocers
Metcalfe Jn. Gibson, draper
Midland Bank Ltd. (sub-branch) (open fri 1 to 3 p.m.); head office, 5 Threadneedle st. London EC2
North John, butcher
North Wm. shopkeeper
Parker Donald, fruiterer. T N Ackworth 32
Pickering Wilfred, picture frame maker
Pontefract Industrial Co-operative Society Limited
Pycock Wm. M. farmer
Rawlinson Jn. fried fish dealer
Robinson Job & Sons, grindstone manufacturers
Robinson & Sons, jam manufacturers
Robinson Henry, joiner
Seal Saml. & Sons (including Camplin Sons), quarry owners. T N Ackworth 8
Seal Tom, shopkeeper
Smith Mary Emma (Mrs.), cab proprietor
Vere Wm. Hy. market gardener
Watkins Emma (Mrs.), draper
Wigglesworth Harry, boot repairer
 
Brackenhill
 
Commercial

Ackworth Moor Top Working Men’s Club & Institute (R. Vallance, sec)
Ackworth Stone Co. Ltd. grindstone manufacturers. T N Ackworth 30
Blackburn Chas. grocer
Blakey Walt. Angel inn
Brown Fred, butcher
Camplin Brothers, grindstone makers & stone merchants, Brackenhill quarries. T N 1 Ackworth
Greenfield Thos. Rd. builder
Horbury Jn. grocer
Meays Thomas B. butcher
Parker Elizabeth (Mrs.), grocer
Parker Harold, grindstone manufacturer
Penn Rose Hannah (Mrs.), shopkeeper & post office
Rhodes Ellen (Mrs.), confectioner
Roberts Jsph. grindstone maker, Brackenhill quarries. T N Ackworth 47
Smith Brothers (established over 100 years), quarry owners
Thompson Rd. butcher
Underwood John William, shopkeeper
 

Ackworth in 1822

 

© Angela Petyt 2001. All rights reserved.

 Permission is granted for all free personal and non-commercial uses.

Commercial use of any portion contained herein is expressly prohibited.

 

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