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Facts: Knottingley Origins & Development |
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[INDEX]
Knottingley Origins & Development, Page 1
6th Century Saxon Settlement
The
township of Knottingley, situated three miles north-east of Pontefract in
the Wapentake of Osgoldcross, developed from a 6th century Saxon
settlement in a forest clearing on the south bank of the river Aire. By
the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066 the settlement had acquired the
status of a manorial vill.
First Documentation
The
first documentation concerning the settlement of Knottingley is an entry in the Domesday
Book of 1086 which reveals that Baret, a Saxon thane, had been dismissed as
the manorial head and replaced by the Norman, Ranolf, a sub tenant of the
de Lacy’s, Tenants in Chief to William I and lords of the honour of
Pontefract of which Knottingley was a constituent part.
Crown Land
With
the death of Henry de Lacy in 1311 the lordship of Pontefract became the
fiefdom of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who inherited the holding through
his marriage to Alice, daughter of Henry de Lacy. Thereafter Knottingley
was to remain a manor of the Lancasters’ and following the seizure of
the crown by Henry Bolingbroke in 1399, the manorial vill became Crown
land.
Manor of Knottingley
The
dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 made large tracts of land available
to the Crown which from the sixteenth century was sold to subsidise the
extravagant lifestyle of the impecunious Tudor and early Stuart monarchs.
The manor of Knottingley was held by the Wildbore family from whom it
eventually passed to one Grimsditch who had married the daughter of
Richard Wildbore.
Sir Arthur Ingram
In
1637 Sir Arthur Ingram, a nouveau rich capitalist of a type engendered by
the spirit of that era, having financial interests in the township and its
vicinity, purchased the manorial rights at Knottingley and installed his
nephew and namesake in a newly built manor house at Hill Top, close to the
mansion of the Wildbores’ which stood adjacent to St. Botolph’s Church.
Ingram Family Descendants
For
150 years from 1637, the manor of Knottingley was in the possession of the
Ingrams and their descendants but following the demise of the Rev.
Gooderick Ingram in 1787 the manor was again sub divided and at the time
of the enclosure survey in 1795 the manorial lands were held by the
families of Frank, Wasney, Poole and Thompson.
Inland River Port
The erection of a mill on the river bank to the west of the
manorial demesne necessitated the construction of a weir across
the waterway to provide the motive power to drive the mill
wheel. Consequently, navigation of the waterway above the mill
dam was curtailed, necessitating the transhipment of all goods
and materials below that point. As a result, the manor of
Knottingley became an important inland river port having a dual
capacity as the port which serviced the hinterland of the West
Riding of Yorkshire and also as the base from which the nearby
fortress of Pontefract Castle was victualled.
Shipbuilding
The rise of Knottingley as a significant river port involved
with the coastal and inland trade from the fourteenth century
also encouraged the introduction of local shipbuilding and
allied trades as a corollary to the maritime activity. Thus, by
the beginning of the nineteenth century the place was a hive of
activity with the potential for further industrial and
commercial development stimulated by the rapid progress of the
Industrial Revolution.
Limestone Extraction
The
limestone extraction industry, whilst long established within and around
the township of Knottingley, developed rapidly from the mid-eighteenth
century stimulating land purchase. As a result, by the first decade of the
nineteenth century much of the manorial land, particularly within the
former open field to the south of the town, had been acquired by limestone
merchants such as Edward Gaggs, William Moorhouse and Benjamin Atkinson.
[INDEX]
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