Anston is a

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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. ...

, England, formally known as North and South Anston. The parish of Anston consists of the settlements of North Anston and South Anston, divided by the Anston Brook.

History

Anston, first recorded as ''Anestan'' is from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

''āna stān'', meaning "single or solitary stone". 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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

(1086) North and South Anston (''Anestan'' and ''Litelanstan'') were both held by

Roger de Busli Roger de Busli (c. 1038 – c. 1099) was a Norman baron who participated in the conquest of England in 1066. Life Roger de Busli was born in or around 1038. His surname comes from the town now known as Bully (near Neufchâtel-en-Bray, mentioned ...

. South Anston was an

ancient 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. ...

in the

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, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, ...

Strafforth and Tickhill Strafforth and Tickhill , originally known as Strafforth, was the southernmost wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The west of the district, plus a detached area in the east, constituted the Upper Division, while the central a ...

in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

. It was a large parish, also known as Anston cum Membris, which also included North Anston and the

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, ...

of Woodsetts. When civil parishes were created in 1866, Woodsetts became a separate civil parish and the remaining part of the parish became the civil parish of North and South Anston. In 1974 the parish was transferred to the

Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham The Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham is a metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. It is named after its largest town, Rotherham, but also spans the outlying towns of Maltby, South Yorkshire, Maltby, Swinton, South Yorkshire, Swinton, ...

in the new county of South Yorkshire. The original interest for the area (beyond Anston's agricultural uses) was the sandy "''Anstone''"

Magnesian Limestone The Magnesian Limestone is a suite of carbonate rocks in north-east England dating from the Permian period. The outcrop stretches from Nottingham northwards through Yorkshire and into County Durham where it is exposed along the coast between Ha ...

, but the real growth in Anston's population was more due to the sinking of the

Dinnington Main Colliery Dinnington Main Colliery was a coal mine situated in the village of Dinnington, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. Until the coming of the colliery Dinnington was a mainly agricultural village with a small amount of quarrying in the are ...

in the early 20th century.

Anston railway station Anston railway station was situated on the Great Central and Midland Joint Railway line between the villages of North Anston and South Anston near Rotherham and Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Passenger services on the line, which came ...

opened on 20 May 1912 and closed on 2 December 1929. However,

Kiveton Park railway station Kiveton Park railway station serves Kiveton Park in South Yorkshire, England. The original station was opened by the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway in 1849, situated to the east of the level crossing and opened with the line. It was ...

, is on the southern edge of Anston and only takes around five minutes to get to the station from the centre of the village. Strangely, the nearby village of

Kiveton Park Kiveton Park is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, from the Norman conquest to 1868, Kiveton was a hamlet of the parish of Harthill-wi ...

is served by

Kiveton Bridge railway station Kiveton Bridge railway station serves the village of Kiveton Park in South Yorkshire, England. It also served the now closed Kiveton Park Colliery which was adjacent. The station was opened by the London and North Eastern Railway on 8 July 1929 ...

, which is in the centre of the village, but the station which is named after Kiveton Park is actually in South Anston.

North Anston

North Anston is located at about 53° 21' 20" N, 1° 13' W and merges seamlessly into the town of Dinnington to the north. Today, it is largely a commuter base for Sheffield, Worksop and Rotherham, and is mainly made up of suburban housing estates. The picturesque "old village" at the south-east however retains its

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

, and the village

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

s. The surrounding landscape contains several disused quarries: the

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...

s to the east, and Greenlands Park to the west being prime examples. There are currently three pubs in North Anston: the Little Mester on Nursery Road, the Cutler on Woodsetts Road, and Anston Club on Main Street. North Anston is home to the Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife and Falconry Centre, a popular attraction seeing around 80,000 visitors every year. Path Through Anston Stones Wood - geograph

Path Through Anston Stones Wood - geograph

It is also home to the limestone gorge of Anston Stones Wood, a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. Anston stones wood stretches across the border of South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. The wood is believed to be part of a mediaeval smuggling route. Evidence of this has been found in the valley an example of this is Dead Man's Cave at Anston Gorge, a large cave carved out of the limestone used for hiding goods. An 1867 excavation of Dead Man's Cave pointed to

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

occupation, through the discovery of flint tools and a reindeer toe bone.

Public transport

North Anston is on main Rother Valley South bus routes to Dinnington, Worksop and Sheffield with Links to Rotherham too.

Stagecoach East Midlands Stagecoach East Midlands is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the East Midlands, the city of Kingston upon Hull and Lincolnshire. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group. The company is headquartered and ...

(Stagecoach Bassetlaw) 19A & 19 covers services to Rotherham (Main Rotherham service), Worksop and Dinnington.

First South Yorkshire First South Yorkshire is a major bus operator providing bus services within and across South Yorkshire. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup. History In 1989, South Yorkshire Transport introduced the ''Mainline'' brand on certain bus routes aro ...

covers Rotherham, Meadowhall, and Sheffield. The nearest railway station from North and South Anston is

and Kiveton Bridge, X5 (First South Yorkshire) provide a link between Anston and the railway station.

South Anston

South Anston is located at about , and is separated from North Anston by the Anston Brook, the

A57 road The A57 is a major road in England. It runs east from Liverpool to Lincoln via Warrington, Cadishead, Irlam, Patricroft, Eccles, Salford and Manchester, then through the Pennines over the Snake Pass (between the high moorlands of Bleaklow ...

and a freight railway-line. It is more rural than its northern partner. South Anston contains the parish church of St. James, and two Methodist chapels (dating from 1871 and 1935). It also contains Anston's working quarries which continue to mine stone for the building industry. Its location is ideal as it is rural enough for enjoy a range walks from the village yet near enough to Sheffield to enjoy a wealth of infrastructure and transport links. There are two pubs in South Anston: the Loyal Trooper and the Leeds Arms. To the south of the village lies the

Chesterfield Canal The Chesterfield Canal is a narrow canal in the East Midlands of England and it is known locally as 'Cuckoo Dyke'. It was one of the last of the canals designed by James Brindley, who died while it was being constructed. It was opened in 1777 a ...

. It was from a dock just to the south of Dog Kennel Lane that stone taken from quarries in South Anston was transported to London for the rebuilding of the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north b ...

following the fire in the 1830s. The blocks of stone were taken by horse-drawn sled to the canal, then taken down to

West Stockwith West Stockwith is a village within the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 327. it lies on the west bank of the River Trent, north-west of Gainsborough and east of Misterton. West Stockwith ...

where they were transferred to sailing barges for the journey to London.

Governance

North and South Anston is part of Rother Valley Constituency, the current Member of Parliament is Alexander Stafford MP (Conservative). Anston is part of the Anston and Woodsetts

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council. It is represented by Conservative Councillors; COUNCILLOR TIM BAUM-DIXON, COUNCILLOR EMMA MCCLURE and COUNCILLOR TRACEY WILSON .

Sport

Anston Athletic F.C. competed in the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

during the 1920s. Anston Villa are a new Junior Football Club who play their games at Crowgate Park.

References

{{authority control Dinnington, South Yorkshire Villages in South Yorkshire Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham