Thornhill is a village on the southern outskirts of

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder, West Yorkshire, River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, ...

Kirklees Kirklees is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. The borough comprises the ten towns of Batley, Birstall, West Yorkshire, Birstall, Cleckheaton, Dewsbury, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Meltham, Mirfield and Slaithwaite. It ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England. Historically part of the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

, Thornhill was absorbed into Dewsbury County Borough in 1910. The village is located on a ridge on the south side of the River Calder. Dewsbury,

Ossett Ossett is a market town in the Wakefield district, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated between Dewsbury, Horbury and Wakefield. At the 2021 census, the town had a po ...

and

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

are close by. Its parish church houses a collection of

Anglo-Saxon cross Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman ...

es.

History

Anglian crosses and other remains indicate that there was a settlement here by the 9th century. A hoard of 27 Roman

denarii The ''denarius'' (; : ''dēnāriī'', ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the ''antoninianus''. It continued to be mi ...

found in Turnip Lane and pottery at the cross indicate a substantially earlier settlement. The tombstone of a high-ranking Anglian, Osberht, was found in the graveyard of Thornhill Parish Church. Some historians claim that the grave bearing the name ''Osbehrt'' is that of

Osberht of Northumbria Osberht (died 21 March 867) was king of Northumbria in the middle of the 9th century. Sources on Northumbrian history in this period are limited. Osberht's descent is not known and the dating of his reign is problematic. Chronicles Osberht becam ...

, who was killed on 21 March 867 while fighting the Viking Great Heathen Army led by

Ivar the Boneless Ivar the Boneless ( ; died ), also known as Ivar Ragnarsson, was a Viking leader who invaded England and Ireland. According to the '' Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok'', he was the son of Aslaug and her husband Ragnar Loðbrok, and was the brother of ...

. The gravestone, among other contemporaneous high-status Anglian gravestones, is displayed in the church. Local place-names, Ludd Well (shown on a 1602 map) and the Combs indicate Celtic settlement. This is reinforced by the dedication of the Parish Church to St Michael, which is typical for churches in high places in formerly Celtic parts of northern England. The Celtic kingdom of

Elmet Elmet (), sometimes Elmed or Elmete, was an independent Brittonic Celtic Cumbric-speaking kingdom between about the 4th century and mid-7th century. The people of Elmet survived as a distinctly recognised Brittonic Celtic group for centuri ...

that covered parts of modern West Yorkshire collapsed in AD 617. Thornhill is mentioned 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as within the ancient

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, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

Agbrigg Agbrigg is a suburb of the city of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. History The village of Agbrigg was historically within the parish of Sandal Magna and a large area of present-day Agbrigg was common land and can be seen on older maps as ...

. In 1320

Edward II Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also known as Edward of Caernarfon or Caernarvon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir to the throne follo ...

granted a charter for a market and a fair. In the reign of Henry III, Thornhill Hall was the seat of the Thornhill family, who intermarried with the De Fixbys and Babthorpes in the reigns of

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 125 ...

and

. In the reign of

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...

, Elizabeth Thornhill, the only child of Simon Thornhill, married Sir Henry Savile. This extinguished the family line of Thornhills of Thornhill which passed its property down the Savile line and Thornhill became the seat of the Savile family. The Saviles intermarried with the Calverley family so that when Sir John Savile died in 1503 in Thornhill, he left provision in his will for his sister Alice, married to Sir William Calverley. Sir William Savile, the third

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

of the family, fortified the hall.

Thornhill Hall

The Saviles remained here until the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

when Thornhill Hall was besieged. A royalist heroine after the siege of

Sheffield Castle Sheffield Castle was a castle in Sheffield, England, constructed at the confluence of the River Sheaf and the River Don, possibly on the site of a former Anglo-Saxon long house, and dominating the early town. A motte and bailey castle had been ...

in 1644, Lady Anne Savile's troops under Capt Thomas Paulden (brother of William Paulden) defended the hall against the Parliamentary forces under Col Sir Thomas Fairfax in August 1648. They were forced to surrender and the hall was destroyed. Some ruins of the hall and the moat remain in Rectory Park. The moat retains water. The Old Rectory survived and was home to several vicars, notably

John Michell John Michell (; 25 December 1724 – 21 April 1793) was an English natural philosopher and clergyman who provided pioneering insights into a wide range of scientific fields including astronomy, geology, optics, and gravitation. Considered "on ...

, who rose to international prominence by developing an understanding of earthquakes, then devised an experiment to accurately determine the mass of planet Earth, but perhaps most intriguingly, attracted

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...

(founding father of the USA),

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, Unitarian, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher, English Separatist, separatist theologian, Linguist, grammarian, multi-subject educator and Classical libera ...

Jan Ingenhousz Jan Ingenhousz FRS (8 December 1730 – 7 September 1799) was a Dutch-British physiologist, biologist and chemist. He is best known for discovering photosynthesis by showing that light is essential to the process by which green plants absorb ...

John Smeaton John Smeaton (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent scholar, who introduced various ...

and others to a scientific meeting and overnight stay in 1771. Benjamin Franklin's stay in Thornhill remained unknown until 2015. Monuments to members of the Thornhill and Savile families are in Thornhill Parish Church.

Industrial Revolution

Thornhill has close ties to

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

. The demand for coal increased due to the development of the

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

. The local population increased as more workers were recruited for the mines. In 1893 an explosion at Combs Pit killed 139 coal miners. Thornhill Colliery resulted from the merging of Inghams and Combs Collieries in 1948 but closed in 1971.

Governance

Historically Thornhill (St Michael) was a large

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

and township in the

of Agbrigg,

which joined the Dewsbury

Poor Law Union A poor law union was a geographical territory, and early local government unit, in Great Britain and Ireland. Poor law unions existed in England and Wales from 1834 to 1930 for the administration of poor relief. Prior to the Poor Law Amendment ...

in 1837. In 1894 Thornhill became an

urban district An urban district is a division generally managed by a local government. It may also refer to a city district, district, urban area or quarter Specific urban districts in some countries include: * Urban districts of Denmark * Districts of Germa ...

. The district contained the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

es of Thornhill and

Whitley Lower Whitley Lower is a village near Thornhill in Kirklees, West Yorkshire England. The parish church, dedicated to St Mary and St Michael, is part of the united benefice of Thornhill and Whitley which also includes Briestfield. The church was Gra ...

. In 1910 it was abolished and merged with Dewsbury County Borough. On 1 April 1925 the parish was abolished and merged with Dewsbury. In 1921 the parish had a population of 11,722.

Geography

Thornhill is situated on a flat-topped ridge to the south and east of the River Calder and the

Calder and Hebble Navigation The Calder and Hebble Navigation is a broad inland waterway, with locks and bridge holes that are suitable for boats, in West Yorkshire, England. Construction to improve the River Calder and the River Hebble began in 1759, and the initial s ...

and north of the Howroyd Beck. The township covered and the underlying rock comprises coal measures. Thornhill encompasses the areas of

Thornhill Lees Thornhill Lees is a district of Thornhill near Dewsbury, in the borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Thornhill Lees is between Thornhill and Dewsbury town centre, in the area between the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigati ...

in the valley by the Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigation, Thornhill Edge, the Edge from the Old English ''ecg'' an escarpment the south-facing scarp slope that overlooks the valley of the Howroyd Beck; Overthorpe, from ''uferra'' and ''þorp'' was the upper outlying farmstead, now a residential area; and Fox Royd.

Schools

The Grade II listed former Thornhill Grammar School was built with money bequeathed by Charles Greenwood, Rector of Thornhill in 1643. A school endowed by Richard Walker dated from 1712. Thornhill has two primary schools: Overthorpe (C of E) Junior and Infants and Thornhill Junior and Infants School.

Thornhill Community Academy Thornhill Community Academy is a coeducational secondary school with academy status situated just outside Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England. The school is on the western side of Kirklees (Huddersfield) and near the M1 and the M62 motorway ...

, the area's secondary school had a

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

pass rate of 84% in 2010, an increase of 22 percentage points from 2009. The school is a

Science College Science Colleges were introduced in 2002 as part of the now defunct Specialist Schools Programme (abolished in 2011) in the United Kingdom. The system enabled secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, science and mathem ...

. Much of the school has been refurbished and modernised. Construction of a sports hall was completed in April 2007 and includes a new Multi-Use Games Area.

Sports

Thornhill Trojans

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

team play (2023) in the National Conference League Division 1. Overthorpe Sports football team play in the West Riding County Amateur League (Premier Division) on Saturdays and Overthorpe Town play in the Heavy Woollen Sunday League (First Division). Thornhill United play at Rectory Park. Thornhill Rugby Club is based in Overthorpe Parks. Community facilities open to the public include a football pitch, rugby pitch and basketball court, a mini rugby pitch frequently used by the rugby club for the under tens junior team and a sports hall with a multi-use games area are at the local secondary school (the Community Science College at Thornhill). The Savile Bowmen archery club shoots at Thornhill Cricket and Bowls Club. Three tennis courts are situated next to Thornhill Cricket and Bowls Club. Thornhill Tennis Club has two teams in the Huddersfield and District Tennis League.

Amenities

There are a number of local shops and

off-licence A liquor store is a retail business that predominantly sells prepackaged alcoholic beverages, including liquors (typically in bottles), wine or beer, usually intended to be consumed off the store's premises. Depending on region and local idiom ...

s in Thornhill and numerous takeaways ranging from traditional English to Italian cuisine. The nearest large supermarkets are in Dewsbury, which is connected by public transport. The area has two post offices with limited services. Overthorpe Post Office has recently undergone building work and is now part of the Onestop franchise. Other shops and services include a florist, dental surgery, beauty salon, a computer repair shop, a tattoo studio, a fish and chip shop and a couple of Indian takeaways.

Survey of English Dialects site

The area was covered by the

Survey of English Dialects The Survey of English Dialects was undertaken between 1950 and 1961 under the direction of Harold Orton of the English department of the University of Leeds. It aimed to collect the full range of speech in England and Wales before local differe ...

in the belief that it was a hotbed of Yorkshire dialect. A 2005 study compared the 1964 Thornhill recording with a recording from nearby Ossett in 1999. St Michael and All Angels%2C Thornhill 2 %284172381068%29

St Michael and All Angels%2C Thornhill 2 %284172381068%29

Notable people

* John Rudd (1498–1579), cartographer and Rector of Thornhill *

Christopher Saxton Christopher Saxton (c. 1540 – c. 1610) was an English cartographer who produced the first county maps of England and Wales. Life and family Saxton was probably born in Sowood, Ossett in the parish of Dewsbury, in the West Riding of Yorkshire ...

(–), cartographer and apprentice to John Rudd *

Sir George Radcliffe Sir George Radcliffe (1599 – May 1657) was an English lawyer and politician. He spent much of his political career in Ireland, where he was a key member of the firm and ruthless Strafford administration. He lived out his last years in exile in ...

(1599–1657), politician and lawyer, born in Thornhill. *

Sir William Savile, 3rd Baronet Sir William Savile, 3rd Baronet of Thornhill (1612 – 24 January 1644) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons between 1640 and 1642. He fought on the Cavaliers, Royalist side in the English Civil ...

(1612–1644), politician and soldier, born in Thornhill *

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, (11 November 1633 – 5 April 1695) was an English statesman and writer who sat in the House of Commons of England in 1660 before ascending to the House of Lords after he was raised to the peerage in 1668 ...

(1633–1695), statesman and writer, born in Thornhill. *

(1724–1793), geologist, astronomer and Rector of Thornhill. *

Sir Francis Sykes, 1st Baronet Sir Francis Sykes, 1st Baronet (1732–1804) was an English country landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1771 and 1804. He was sometime Governor of Cossimbazar in India, being styled an English nabob by his peers ...

(1732–1804), East India Company "Nabob" and politician, born in Thornhill * John Baines (1787–1838), mathematician taught at Thornhill Grammar School *

Barron Kilner Barron Kilner (11 October 1852 – 28 December 1922) was an English rugby union footballer who played in the 1880s, and rugby union administrator of the 1890s. He played at representative level for England, and Yorkshire, and at club level for ...

(1852–1922), rugby union international and a Mayor of Wakefield, born in Thornhill *

Christopher Brooke Christopher Brooke may refer to: * Christopher Brooke (poet) (died 1628), English poet, lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1604 and 1626 * Christopher N. L. Brooke (1927–2015), British medieval historian * Christopher Br ...

(1869–1948) soldier and Conservative MP for Pontefract * Edward J. Thomas (1869–1958) classicist, librarian and writer on the

history of Buddhism The history of Buddhism can be traced back to the 5th century BCE. Buddhism originated from Ancient India, in and around the ancient Kingdom of Magadha (Mahajanapada), Magadha, and is based on the teachings of the renunciate Siddhartha Gautama, ...

. *

Hector Munro Chadwick Hector Munro Chadwick (22 October 1870 – 2 January 1947) was an English philologist. Chadwick was the Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and the founder and head of the Department for Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies at the Un ...

(1870–1947), philologist and historian, born in Thornhill *

Alex Smith Alexander Douglas Smith (born May 7, 1984) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons. He played college football for the Utah Utes, earning first-team All-American ho ...

(born 1947) a former footballer with over 350 club caps

References

External links

* * {{authority control Villages in West Yorkshire Former civil parishes in West Yorkshire Geography of Dewsbury Heavy Woollen District