About Hooton Roberts, Rotherham, South Yorkshire with images

Hooton Roberts

Hooton, ‘farmstead on a spur of land’. . From A Dictionary of British Place-Names in Names & Places

Hooton Roberts, recorded in the Domesday Book as Hotun and later known as Hoton Robert during the 13th century after the village owner, Robert

In the court of William de Wyntworth in 1391

The water mill was owned in 1554 by Christopher Mountforth

This hillside village above the River Don has had a church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, since Norman days, and though some of it is modern, there is old walling in the nave, a round Norman arch in the chancel, and a pointed one only a little younger leads to the chapel. The new chancel arch is in the old style. The tower is 15th century. A stone coffin has a lid with a cross and a challice, and in a window with fine old glass are a tiny monk and a big bishop. Robert Burrowes was rector for 53 years of the 17th century, and Charles Eyre served 63, dying in 1860.

St. John's Church, Hooton Roberts, Rotherham
The Church is a rectory,, in the deanry of Doncaster, value, £7. 11s. 8d. Patron, Earl Fitzwilliam.

The Hall-House here was formerly one of the principal seats of the great Earl of Strafford, who was beheaded in the reign of Charles I. It was then the property of Earl Fitzwilliam; and occupied by three Miss Kents. After the death of the first Earl of Strafford, his widow lived in the house by the church until her burial by torchlight in the chancel in 1688. It had always been thought that her husband was buried at Wentworth Woodhouse, where there is a memorial to him, but in 1895, workmen repairing the church, found three skeletons near the altar, one looking as if the head had been cut off, and it is thought possible this may be the earl, his wife and daughter.

Hooton Manor House was built between 1560 and 1630 and altered in the 18th century.

Trades from Baines's Directory and Gazetteer Directory of 1822.

Booth John, blacksmith
Hamby John, shoemaker
Malpus John, victualler, Board

Sourced from The Sheffield Gazetteer 1868
Hooton Roberts, a parish in the S. division of the wapentake of Strafforth, West Riding county York, 4½ miles N.E. of Rotherham, its post town, and 7 S.W. of Doncaster. The village, is small, and is situated on the road from Rotherham to Doncaster. Here are some excellent freestone quarries, which supplied the material for Wentworth House. The soil consists of loam and clay, with subsoil limestone. The tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £255. The living is a rectory in the diocese of York, value £340. The church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is an ancient stone structure, with a square tower containing a clock and three bells. In the interior of the church is a painted window. This is the burial-place of Lady Strafford, whose interment took place by torchlight, it being her wish that no monument should be erected to her memory, nor funeral sermon preached. The countess had resided in this parish several years after the decapitation of her husband in the reign of Charles I. The register dates from 1702. There is a school for both sexes, in which a Sunday-school is also held. Earl Fitzwilliam is lord of the manor and sole landowner

Rev. Reginald Alfred Gatty, eldest son of Alfred Vicar of Ecclesfield, became Rector of Hooton Roberts. He was born in 1844–1914, he acquired a reputation as a field archaeologist and local historian.


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1855 map

Area Information

Google Earth map of Hooton Roberts

Mesolithic-Bronze Age flint implements from Hooton Roberts include 24 leaf-shaped, 1 tranchet, and 14 barbed and tanged arrowheads, also blades, scrapers, borers, and micro-cores are now in the Gatty collection at Sheffield City Museum.

Hooton Roberts

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