Cudworth, Yorkshire

Cudworth
Yorkshire West Riding
Shops on Barnsley Road
Location
Grid reference:	SE388092
Location:	53°34’42"N, 1°24’54"W
Data
Population:	10,977  (2011)
Post town:	Barnsley
Postcode:	S72
Dialling code:	01226
Local Government
Council:	Barnsley
Parliamentary constituency:	Barnsley East

Cudworth is an urban village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, three and a half miles north-east of Barnsley transport interchange. It has a busy shopping area along the Barnsley to Pontefract Road which serves a local population of 10,977.

The village is still surrounded by open space, including green belt, regenerated public open spaces that were formerly part of neighbouring collieries and the remaining agricultural land which still dominates the south and south-east sides of the village.

Cudworth has two distinct historic centres known as Upper or Over Cudworth and Low or Nether Cudworth. Nether Cudworth was the centre of the old Cudworth manor, Upper Cudworth has road links.

History

The Manor of Cudworth was established as part of a knight's fee within the Honour of Pontefract, and the chief manor of the fee was at Darrington close to Pontefract. Darrington, in turn, was part of the Honour of Pontefract, later the Duchy of Lancaster.

The salters represented the chemical industry of the Middle Ages. Everything that used salt was reliant on the carriers that plied their trade on the salter's roads. Without them, the cloth industry would have been without dyes, herbalists without the power to prepare a great number of their products, salt was the major preservative of food and had a host of other uses. The Salter's Brook is a stream that runs down from the direction of the hills between Langsett and the Holme Valley, which forms th border between between Yorkshire and Cheshire. It was where the carriers (usually packhorses) would have crossed the bridge on their trans-Pennine journey from the Cheshire salt mines to Yorkshire. The Doncaster Saltersbrook served the important town of Doncaster, whereas the Salter's lane through Carlton, Cudworth and Shafton ran to Pontefract, in the Middle Ages possibly the most important town in southern Yorkshire.

A railway station served Cudworth between 1840 and 1968.

Churches

The church of St John the Baptist

• Church of England: St John the Baptist
• Methodist:
• Roman Catholic: St Mary Magdelene

Cudworth was anciently a township and a constituent part of the large rural parish of Royston. It became a separate chapelry in 1893 and later a parish on its own. The church, St John the Baptist, was consecrated the chapelry district was created, but before it there was a chapel of ease, occupying the buildings of the charity school near the village pond.

In 1920, a war memorial was erected in the churchyard.

Wesleyan Reform Church in Upper Cudworth

The Methodist traditions have been strong in Cudworth since Charles and John Wesley first set out on their circuits, especially on the Sheffield circuit. The village was the birthplace of John Smith, the Revivalist, in January 1794, his parents lived in Low Cudworth. His father, William or "Billy" was a tailor and lay preacher. John was not an adherent of his father's Methodist ideas; he was reputed to have attended a prize-fight in Barnsley and was returning with his drinking companions to Cudworth when he had a Damascene moment. He was sent for training as a Methodist minister and became successful earning the epithet of "The Revivalist" and a global reputation. There are many anecdotal references to John and Charles Wesley preaching on steps alongside White Cross Road and of Charles Wesley sleeping overnight in a cottage that still stands near the slip road for Low Cudworth Green. The original Methodist chapel was on the side of the High Royd facing White Cross Road above what is today Quarry Vale.

Sports

• Football:
  • Cudworth Village F.C.
  • Cudworth St. Mary's F.C.
  • Dorothy Hyman West End - juniors
  • Cudworth Tykes JFC - juniors

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Cudworth, Yorkshire)