Hackenthorpe is a village 5 miles south east of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...

’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 20th centuries 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, and alloy ...

, with the Thomas Staniforth & 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 plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...

works being based at Main Street. Another prominent feature of the village is the 17th century Hackenthorpe Hall, built by John Newbould for the Hounsfield family, with James Hounsfield being a prominent land owner. The building is today used as a nursery. The Hackenthorpe Infant School provided education to the local children in the village during the 20th century, this was demolished in 1999 and today local children attend the Rainbow Forge school. Today the village has seen much development in terms of housing, however the former sickle works, estates and post office still remain in the village and are a reminder of its industrial past. Hackenthope was once a part of Derbyshire in the parish of Beighton but is now part of South Yorkshire.

Early 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 nor ...

land owners. The village was then known as Eckingthorp, meaning 'The hamlet of Eck's people'. The then hamlet stood on the edges of the 'Great Forest' which stood in the area where the

Rother Valley Country Park The Rother Valley Country Park is a country park in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, close to Rotherham's border with Sheffield and Derbyshire. It covers 3 square kilometres (740 acres), has four artificial lakes, recre ...

stands today and extended to areas of Derbyshire,

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 trad ...

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 ...

and

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, 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-we ...

. 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 cor ...

. Eckingthorp 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, the local

Shire Brook Shire Brook is a small stream in the south eastern part of the City of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It rises in the suburb of Gleadless Townend and flows in a general easterly direction for to its confluence with the River Rother bet ...

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 parts ...

, this shows the area was inhabited long before the Angles settled. Greenside, Hackenthorpe

In later centuries the hamlet consisted of farmlands, with the

serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...

spending time cultivating plots while also spending time working on the local lordships domains. As well as farming the area was found to be rich in

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

and

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the ...

which provided income to many residents. In 1653, John and Alice Newbould, wealthy landowners from Woodhouse built the Hackenthorpe Hall on Main Street, a sign of increasing wealth in the hamlet. By the turn of the 18th century Hackenthorpe began to develop into an industrial site, with coal mines, quarries and mills found throughout the area between Hackenthorpe and

Birley Birley ward — which includes the districts of Base Green, Birley Estate, Charnock, Frecheville, Scowerdons and part of Hackenthorpe — is one of the 28 electoral wards in City of Sheffield, England. It is located in the southeastern part ...

. A remnant of this time period can still be found on Main Street, the Staniforth Works dating from 1743, originally built for scythe making can still be found on the street, complete with the smithy pond in the yard. Some of the old forge dams used for smithing during this time period can also be found throughout the local Shire Brook Valley Local Nature Reserve, most notably Carr Forge. The 19th century saw significant growth in the area, and the small hamlet was now a village. A chapel was built in 1813 across from Hackenthorpe Hall, this would later be replaced by a new church in 1899 known as Christ church at the end of Sheffield road. In 1820 steam power began to be used by the local scythe makers and by 1840 the

Sheffield Coal Company The Sheffield Coal Company was a colliery owning and coal selling company with its head office situated in South Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Formation The Sheffield Coal Company was one of the oldest colliery companies in Sh ...

had several mines throughout the area. At this time the Beighton railway station was in use by people entering and exiting the area on the Midland line from

Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

. 1855 saw the opening of the National school in the Beighton parish which served the area until 1880, when Lord Manvers allowed for a second school to be built serving the Hackenthorpe village. By 1877 the first of the

Birley Collieries The Birley Collieries were a group of coal mines set in the Shire Brook Valley in south-east Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. They were connected to the railway system by a branch line from the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway ...

was opened, and saw a daily output of 500 tons of coal. Throughout the remainder of the 19th and 20th centuries the collieries were a large source of employment for residents of the village.

20th century

With coal mining playing a large role on the village, the colliery owners began building terraced housing for local workers. It was around this time that development began on the

Frecheville Frecheville is a suburb south-east of Sheffield’s city centre. The estate was built in the 1930s when the area was in Derbyshire. However, due to expansion, Frecheville and a number of surrounding villages became part of the city of Sheffie ...

estates, which had until this time been known as Birley Moor, a mostly rural region. Following the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, housing was in short supply in

and the land between the city and Hackenthorpe saw prolific development causing the village to be incorporated into the city limits on 1 April 1967. This also saw the village leave the county of

for

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

. Development continued into the 1970s, with the areas around

Mosborough Mosborough is a village in the City of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of Derbyshire, the village was named after The Moss river which flows through the village. During the late 19th century and 20th century, the villa ...

village being developed and incorporated into the city. By this stage the coal mining industry had ceased, with the closure of the

the area saw a drastic change.

21st century

Today the village is a shadow of its former self, with many of the old terraced housing demolished and replaced with modern housing. The Staniforth Works remain, now used to house small businesses, as a reminder of the villages industrial past. The Hackenthorpe Hall can still be found on Main Street and is now used as a nursery. Other older buildings include the post office, and the blacksmiths now used as a veterinary office. Shops at Hackenthorpe

Development has been focused along the Birley Moor region, with a shopping district now found at the junction between Main Street and Birley Spa Lane, new housing estates were also built in this area with much of the rural farmland now gone. Hackenthorpe Public House

Name origin

As is the case with a number of towns and settlements in the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...

, Hackenthorpe gets its name from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

, meaning 'Hachen's outlying farmstead'. For many years the village was simply split between the parishes of Beighton and

, however during the 14th century the modern spelling of Hackenthorpe emerged when local dialects began to have an influence on placenames.

References

External links

Hackenthorpe local history - Sheffield City CouncilHackenthorpe History on the Christchurch website
{{Sheffield Villages of the metropolitan borough of Sheffield