Rawmarsh
Rawmarsh, the Town Centre c1965
Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.
Domesday name: Rodemesc;
Rowmareis c.1200; - Red marsh, Old Scand.- rauthr and Old Eng - mersc
Source:A Dictionary of British Place-Names in Names & Places
Named by the Saxons from a cross placed upon wet marshy land near the River Don, probably the site of flooding. William the Conqueror gave the land to Walter D'eincourt one of his captains. It continued in his family until the reign of Henry lV when John Deincourt died seised of a third of the town, leaving it to his son William who was 3 years old. He married but with no issue; his sisters, Margaret, who married Lord Ralph Cromwell, and Alice, married to Lord Lovell, became heirs.
Part of the Lordship was eventually given to the Chapel of St. Mary's, Southwell, Notts.
Camden wrote that it was famous for its earthenware and the white wheat, its fields produce.
Described in 1822, as, a parish-town, in the upper-division of Strafforth and Tickhill, 2 miles N. of Rotherham, 8 from Sheffield, 10 from Barnsley, 46 from York. Population 1,259. The Church is a rectory, dedicated to St. Lawrence, in the deanry of Doncaster, value, £8. 7s. 3½d. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. Here is a small Charity School, founded early in 1600, by one Thomas Wilson, and Edward Goodwin.
Rawmarsh Hall was the home of Rev. William Ellis in 1833. John Maxfield, was master of the Grammar School. George Green , Eliza Hawley , and Thomas Taylor & Co. were listed as Earthenware Manufacturers.
Also included in the parish:
- Kilnhurst
- Lane Head, a farm-house in township and parish of Rawmarsh; 3 miles from Rotherham, 9 from Sheffield
- Parkgate , a single house in the parish of Rawmarsh; 1 mile S. of Rawmarsh
- Rose Hill, the seat of Robert Leighton in the township and parish of Rawmarsh; 3 miles from Rotherham
- Round Wood, a farm-house in the township and parish of Rawmarsh; 2½ miles N. of Rotherham
- Ryecroft, a farm-house in the township and parish of Rawmarsh; 3 miles N. of Rotherham
- Stubbing, a farm-house in the township and parish of Rawmarsh; 3½ miles N. of Rotherham
- Upper Haugh, in the township and parish of Rawmarsh, upper division of Strafforth and Tickhill; 3 miles N. of Rotherham, 9 from Sheffield and Barnsley
Two late 16th century pottery kilns and a clay pit were identified during construction work in Rawmarsh in 1964. Adjacent to Green Lane. In 1970 two post-medieval pottery kilns identified during alterations to the house at 9 Warren Vale, Rawmarsh. The kilns were discovered in the thickness of the south-west gable wall. The earlier kiln comprised an arched cavity 29 inches in width and 48 inches in height. The later kiln cut at an angle across the earlier kiln and measured 20 inches in width and 51 inches in height. Pottery produced included black glazed wares and creamwares. Production appeared to have ceased during the late 18th or early 19th century.
Birch Wood, part of the Warren Vale Local Nature Reserve lies approximately 5 kilometres north of the centre of Rotherham, on the northern edge of Rawmarsh. Directly north of Birch Wood lies the Roman Ridge, built between 450 and 600 AD to defend the Celtic kingdom of Elmet from the advancing Anglo-Saxons. The earliest record of the woodland itself dates from 1776
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