Mosborough is a village in the

City of Sheffield The City of Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Sheffield, the town of Stocksbridge and larger village of Chapeltown and part of the Peak D ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

, England. Historically part of Derbyshire, the village was named after

The Moss The Moss is a brook in North East Derbyshire, England. When Rother Valley Country Park was built in the 1980s, constructors used water from The Moss to fill the lakes. Name The name of the river derives from ''Moss Beck'', which means 'strea ...

river which flows through the village. During the late 19th century and 20th century, the village was noted for its

steelmaking Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and carbon/or scrap. In steelmaking, impurities such as nitrogen, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur and excess carbon (the most important impurity) are removed from the sourced iron, an ...

, with Hutton & Co.

Sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ...

works being based at nearby Ridgeway. The village expanded and due to developments in nearby Owlthorpe, Westfields and Waterthorpe. Mosborough which was a

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

at the time was transferred from Derbyshire to the West Riding of Yorkshire as part of Sheffield. The village features a number of schools, including the Mosborough Primary School and Westfield School. Today, much of the village has seen much development in terms of housing, due to its proximity to both the Derbyshire and South Yorkshire border.

History

The first mention of the village comes from 9th century

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wi ...

records of

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nort ...

land owners. The village was then known as Moresburgh, which gradually evolved into Mosburg and later Moresborowe. The then hamlet stood on the edges of the 'Great Forest' which stood in the area where the Rother Valley Country Park stands today and extended to areas of

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The tradition ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exis ...

and

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

. Today the only remnants of the 'Great Forest' is

Sherwood Forest Sherwood Forest is a royal forest in Nottinghamshire, England, famous because of its historic association with the legend of Robin Hood. The area has been wooded since the end of the Last Glacial Period (as attested by pollen sampling co ...

. The area was settled by the British invaders known as the

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ...

. The invasions took place at the end of the Romanic period around 500AD. Prior to these invasions the area was part of the

Kingdom of Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , y ...

, the local Shire Brook formed the border with the neighbouring kingdom of

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

. Being so close to the border meant the hamlet was prone to invasions. The Sheffield Museum contains a number of bones and flint tools unearthed in the area during the 19th century, dating back to the

Neolithic period The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...

, this shows the area was inhabited long before the Angles settled. Mosborough Hall was built during the 17th century, once notably being owned by William Carey, today the building is operated as a hotel, and is Grade-II listed. In later centuries, the village became part of Eckington parish, with the nearby St Peter and St Paul's Church serving the local area. The Sitwell baronets of nearby

Renishaw Hall Renishaw Hall is a country house in Renishaw in the parish of Eckington in Derbyshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building and has been the home of the Sitwell family for nearly 400 years. The hall is southeast of Sheffield, and north of ...

served as the

Lords of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seigno ...

for centuries. From the late 16th century, the area was known for its

and

Scythe A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor ...

smithing industry, with Hutton & Co's being founded in 1760, and operating the neatby Phoenix Works. The business existed until 1988, becoming one of the last traditional garden tool smithing works to exist in the United Kingdom. The nearby Thomas Staniforth & Co. at

Hackenthorpe Hackenthorpe is a village 5 miles south east of Sheffield’s city centre, now classed as a historic township of the city. Due to much expansion, the village became a part of Sheffield city during the 1950s. During much of the late 19th and 20t ...

also provided employment. The village has a number of

public houses A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

including the British Oak, The George & Dragon, The Alma and the Queen Hotel. A number of pubs have operated in the original village over the years including the Fitzwilliam and the Duke William. High Street, Mosborough, Nr Sheffield

References

{{Sheffield Villages of the metropolitan borough of Sheffield