Laughton en le Morthen is a village and
civil parish in the
Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham lying to the south of
Rotherham,
South Yorkshire, England, and its main attraction is the All Saints Church with its tower and
spire of 185 feet. The village had a population of 1,241 at the 2011 Census.
The parish also includes the hamlets of
Carr,
Slade Hooton
Slade Hooton is a hamlet in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the hamlet was moved into South Yorkshire in April 1974.
History
Slade Hooton is recorded in the Dom ...
and
Brookhouse.
History
In the mid 11th century,
Edwin, Earl of Mercia is believed to have built a
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
hall in the village.
[ David Hey, ''Medieval South Yorkshire''] But following the
Norman conquest of England
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...
after 1066, the village and its lands were given by
William the Conqueror to
Roger de Busli (c. 1038 – c. 1099), a
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
baron
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...
who had been a
loyal supporter of William's claim to the English throne. Busli was also given feudal manors in
Nottinghamshire,
Derbyshire and the
Strafforth wapentake of
Yorkshire.
To enforce his rule, Laughton castle was among a number that Busli had built in the late 11th century. The
motte and bailey
A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortification ...
with a high mound with a by
inner bailey was surrounded by large
earthworks
Earthworks may refer to:
Construction
*Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour
* Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil
*Earthworks (military), m ...
and an outer ditch. An
outer bailey
An outer bailey or outer ward is the defended outer enclosure of a castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It protects the inner bailey and usually contains those ancillary bui ...
, which is now the churchyard of the 14th century All Saints parish church, also had substantial earth ramparts and a dry ditch. It's believed that Busli built his castle on the site of the
Saxon hall by Mercian Earl, Edwin.
By the time of the
Domesday survey in 1085, Busli's extensive feudal landholdings, which Laughton-en-le-Morthen was part of, was known as the "Honour of Blythe" because it included 86 manors in Nottinghamshire, 46 in Yorkshire, and others in
Derbyshire,
Lincolnshire and
Leicestershire
Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
, as well as one in
Devon. He also controlled castles at
Tickhill,
Kimberworth
Kimberworth is a suburb of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It is located in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, about 2.2 miles (3.5 km) north-west of Rotherham town centre and 4.7 miles (7.6 km) north-east of the City of Sh ...
, and
Mexborough.
Modern
Laughton has two schools, the council-run Laughton Junior and Infant School, and the Laughton Church of England School, which is situated directly opposite All Saints Church, whose distinctive spire is visible from Lincolnshire on a clear day, and is a local landmark dominating the area from the hill. The spire is high.
There were also two public houses in the village, the ''St Leger Arms'' (named after local landowners the
St. Leger family) which like many other village pubs closed in 2009, and is now a residential property, and the ''Hatfeild Arms'', also named after a well known local family, which closed in 2018 and remains an empty building.
The village sits on the main bus route from Worksop to Rotherham (19 operated by Stagecoach) and the Dinnington to Doncaster service (18 operated by Powells buses).
In the Second World War, a German bomber on his way back from a raid on Sheffield dropped an unused bomb on the village, which failed to go off; local farmer Henry Turner, whose family recently still lived in the village, towed the bomb to safety across his fields.
Sport
The village was represented in the
FA Cup by Laughton Common F.C. during the 1920s.
See also
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Listed buildings in Laughton en le Morthen
Laughton en le Morthen is a civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The parish contains 27 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade& ...
References
External links
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{{authority control
Villages in South Yorkshire
Civil parishes in South Yorkshire
Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham