Havercroft is a small village situated on the B6428 in

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England, approximately 6½ miles north-east of Barnsley. It forms part of the

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Havercroft with Cold Hiendley, which has a population of 2,103, increasing to 2,256 at the 2011 Census. In the last 100 years it has grown from a small collection of homes to a thriving village in its own right. For hundreds of years, Havercroft was an agricultural community and the few people who lived here worked in the fields; it does not appear in

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

but it can be traced back on old maps and charters of 1155, when Henry the Second, father of Richard the Lionheart, was King of England. Havercroft now maintains its own school, Havercroft J & I School. The Ryhill & Havercroft Sports Centre is shared with Ryhill as is the local health centre, Rycroft Primary Care Centre. Havercroft also has a 'community hub' known as the Havercroft & Ryhill Community Learning Centre (located in Ryhill) which is also the Havercroft Parish Hall. As well as the Living Hope Community Church established in 1960 at bottom of Cow Lane, which runs a number of community projects. The Havercroft with Cold Hiendley Parish Council meets there and the Centre provides a regular calendar of educational courses & community activities for both Havercroft and its neighbour Ryhill. Havercroft suffered from high unemployment in the 1980s due to local pit closures. Since then the village has become popular with commuters travelling to nearby towns such as

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

, Pontefract and Wakefield. Havercroft is split into two undistinct sections, Newstead - occupying the higher ground of Newstead hill - and the main village of Havercroft. In terms of the built environment Havercroft is co-terminous with its Ryhill neighbour with the boundary of the two civil parishes following along streetside and garden fence rather than across open fields for much of its length. The parish has a parish council, the lowest tier of local government.

References

External links

Ryhill website
at AboutBritain.com
Ryhill and Havercroft Villages fan website
{{authority control Villages in West Yorkshire Geography of the City of Wakefield