Royston is a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

an village within the

Metropolitan borough of Barnsley The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England; the main settlement is Barnsley and other notable towns include Penistone, Wombwell and Hoyland. The borough is bisected by the M1 motorway; it is rur ...

, in

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 History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

, the village formed part of the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

, but was incorporated into the Metropolitan borough of Barnsley in 1974 and is now on the border with

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 exi ...

. It is part of the

Barnsley Central Barnsley Central is a constituency in South Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2011 by Dan Jarvis of the Labour Party. Constituency profile Barnsley Central is generally an urban seat and has a large m ...

borough constituency In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by ...

, and has a population of 10,728. It is situated north-east of

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

, and south-east of

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

History

The village is recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

as ''Rorestone'' with the name deriving from ''Hror's'' or ''Roarr's'' farm /settlement (''Hror/Roarr-s-tun''). The village was in the

wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, C ...

of Staincross. Originally a farming village, Royston joined the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

with the construction in the 1790s of the

Barnsley Canal The Barnsley Canal is a canal that ran from Barnby Basin, through Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England to a junction with the Aire and Calder Navigation near Wakefield, West Yorkshire. It was built in the 1790s, to provide a transport link from ...

, and later a branch of the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

. Both are now disused. Royston had a colliery called Monckton Colliery (1878-1966).This was replaced by Royston Drift Mine. There was also, a clay works and brick works but these are all now closed, although a coke works operated until recently on the mine site processing coal brought in by road. Royston Drift Mine opened in 1975 and closed (after a relatively short period in coal mining terms) 14 years later in 1989. The site is now the site of Rabbit Ings Country Park, which is now home to all five species of owls to be found in Britain. A large shirt factory with the brandname ''Valusta'' provided local employment from the 1940s through to the 1980s. Burberrys also had a factory on Midland Road

Geography

Royston lies on the

, and on the intersection of the B6132 and B6428 roads, due north of

Monk Bretton Monk Bretton is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It lies approximately two miles north-east from Barnsley town centre. History Monk Bretton has been a settlement since medieval times and was origin ...

at an elevation of around above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. The

Trans Pennine Trail The Trans Pennine Trail is a long-distance path running from coast to coast across Northern England entirely on surfaced paths and using only gentle gradients (it runs largely along disused railway lines and canal towpaths). It forms part of ...

runs through Royston along the canal bank. The parish is part of the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

Landmarks

The churches in Royston include the

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

of St John the Baptist, Bethel Church, the Royston

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

Church, and Our Lady and St Joseph, a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church. The parish church of St John the Baptist was built about the year 1234 and has a clock, a

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...

, a ring of eight bells and is now

grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The church is a notable location in Royston as it is one of a few churches in England with an

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found pro ...

, and was used a navigational landmark for guiding travellers.

Notable people

Harry ''Shake'' Earnshaw was a miner turned racing cyclist who in 1938 was acclaimed the

British Best All-Rounder The British Best All-Rounder (BBAR) competition, organised by Cycling Time Trials, is an annual British cycle-racing competition. It ranks riders by the average of their average speeds in individual time trials, over 50 and and 12 hours for ...

. The comedian Charlie Williams was born in Royston in 1927. He played football for

Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team compete in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club play their home games at ...

and later found fame as one of the comedians on the TV programme '' The Comedians''. The mountaineer

Andy Cave Andy Cave (born 1966) is a British mountaineer, mountain guide, and motivational speaker. He was nominated for the Piolet d'Or for his first ascent of the North Face of Changabang in 1997, and won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literatu ...

originates from Royston, and was a coal miner until the 1984-85 miners' strike, at which point he dedicated himself to mountaineering. He is also notable for his research into the dialect of Yorkshire

pit village A pit village, colliery village or mining village is a settlement built by colliery owners to house their workers. The villages were built on the coalfields of Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution where new coal mines were developed in ...

s. His 2001 doctorate stated that Royston had a slightly different accent to the surrounding villages, as many of the miners who came to work at Monckton Colliery on its opening travelled from the

Black Country The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its ro ...

, where several mines had closed. This hypothesis was later tested by Kate Burland, who analysed certain vowel sounds in Royston, Wakefield and Barnsley. She found that Wakefield and Barnsley residents had very similar pronunciations for the sounds under consideration, whereas Royston residents had different pronunciations that were more similar to those associated with the Midlands. Yorkshire cricketer Norman Yardley lived in Royston at the Grove, which is now owned by Barnsley MBC

References

External links