'A Background History of Oxspring'

Old maps going back two hundred years or more do not mark a village on the site of present day Oxspring. Instead they mark the hamlet of High Oxspring alongside the top road and they show the position of the former Manor House or Lodge, which until recently was marked on Ordnance Survey maps in the special italic letters that are used to indicate something ancient. The original Oxspring undoubtedly lay on the opposite side of the River Don from the present village.

The earliest historical reference to Oxspring is in the Domesday Book of 1086. The meaning of the name is literally "ox spring". The wherebouts of the original settlement is unknown but the most likely site is that of the former Manor House, which occupied a commanding position on an outcrop of shale above the river. For centuries Oxspring consisted of just a few scattered farms and water driven mills. The Domesday Book also records Rough Birchworth, "the enclosure where birch trees grow". Here was a separate manor and a small farming community with all the buildings clustered together. These two manors together formed the township of Oxspring within the old parish of Penistone. The word "township" has fallen out of use, but in Middle Ages it meant the basic unit of local government.

Little is known about the mediaeval lords who used Oxspring as their surname. In 1547 Godfrey Bosville of Gunthwaite Hall bought the manors of Oxspring, Rough Birchworth and Hornthwaite and almost immediately began to erect the building that was described at the beginning of this century as "The Lodge or Old Manor House", and completed by 1580. In that year Godfrey Bosville's will refers to "the bed and bedsteads at my lodge at Oxspring, and tables and forms there, with all harness, crossbows, rack and artillery". Apparantely Bosville used it both as a hunting lodge and as the meeting place of the Oxspring manorial court. As he normally resided at Gunthwaite, the lodge was let to tenant farmers. It became uninhabitable in the late nineteenth century and fell into ruin during the decade before the First World War. Old photographs show that thick stone walls masked a timber-framed building in the post and truss style, which was two and a half storeys high. One room had oak panelling, but elsewhere the timbers were exposed and the gaps between them were filled with well-tempered clay. The staircase wound its way round a newel post with solid oak steps.

The River Don was the source of power to mills in the Middle Ages, and at Oxspring this included the lord's fulling mill or walk mill, where cloth was fulled after it had been woven. In 1306 Robert de Oxspring had granted part of this mill to Henry de Rockley, and further references appear in the records from the sixteenth century onwards. Winterbottom's Wire Works has long occupied the site, but the wooded hillside to the north is still known as Walk Mill Bank. In 1743 John Wood of Oxspring was one of three local fullers who agreed not to full the cloth of any clotheir who did not use the new cloth market at Penistone (now Clark's chemist shop), and the township had at least five clothiers in 1806.

In 1818 a private Act of Parliament authorised the enclosure of the 250 or so acres of common land within the township. The Parish Council possesses a copy of the award and map, which were completed eight years later. Before this it had been possible to walk all the way from Oxspring to Thurlstone over common moorland. The work of the enclosure commissioners is still evident in the regular shaped fields and straight roads that characterise the southern part of the parish. A curious feature resulting from this enclosure is the narrow tongue of land that protrudes from Oxspring parish towards Throstle Nest. No doubt this was designed to allow access to the Hartcliff to Green Moor road, which was part of an important mediaeval highway along which salt was brought from Cheshire to Rotherham. Throstle Nest was a prominent boundary point, known as Bleak Royd in old perambulations, where the township of Oxspring met those of Hunshelf and Langsett.

From "The Early History of Oxspring" by Professor David Hey.

Reminiscences of Oxspring

As one of Oxspring’s older habitants I have witnessed many changes here since my young days. Though I lived in the next parish of Hunself for half a century I am now pleased to be back to the place where I started. During the 1930’s I walked up and down Bower Hill seven times a week. On Sundays we attended morning school then trekked uphill home for dinner, then it was back again for the afternoon session. Oxspring Sunday School flourished at that time under the splendid supervision of Mr Joel Marsh who organised an annual concert and prize-giving for children with good attendances. In summer we had a sing in the village, then, led by the band, we trudged up Bower Hill to sing again at Four Lane Ends. I remember one very hot day when some of the young ones were quite exhausted on reaching the crossroads, but that kind lady Mrs Wray, who kept the shop opposite, had thoughtfully made huge quantities of lemonade from the crystals she kept in her shop. These revived us all before we continued our sing. A tea and sports day event was also organised by the Sunday School at that time.
In the village the Post Office was kept by the Crawshaw family and the Toll Bar shop by Mrs Bower. Across the road from the Toll Bar was Mr Jim Wood’s wooden garage. Here we could buy a ‘pennorth’ or even a ‘harporth’ of sweets from little bags which Mr Wood twisted up himself. When we acquired a wireless set at home we took the batteries to his garage to be recharged on our way to school. Most of Oxspring’s newer residents will remember his son Gordon who kept the newer garage – now also gone to be replaced by housing. Gordon was truly a real gentleman who, no matter how busy he was, would have a cheery greeting for everyone.
Whilst more houses have been built over the years to accommodate a growing population, I still recall some seventeenth-century, whitewashed cottages that were still occupies during my early years. Two of these, inhabited by the Marsh families, were at the top of Manor Lane. A similar old building opposite Travellers Inn was where old Mr Wright lived. Then, part way down Bower Hill was the old, whitewashed ‘Dame School’. Of course, by the’ thirties’ it had ceased to be a school and wasn’t even inhabited. I was assured by my father, however, that it was the place in which his father had received infant education in the early 1860’s, before having to walk to Thurgoland when he was older.

Kindly written by Phyllis Crossland.