Mosborough is a village in the

City of Sheffield The City of Sheffield is a metropolitan borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in South Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Sheffield, the town of Stocksbridge and the larger ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, England. Historically part of Derbyshire, its name being a linguistic blend of 'moor' and 'borough'. During the late 19th century and 20th century, the village was noted for its

steelmaking Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and/or scrap. Steel has been made for millennia, and was commercialized on a massive scale in the 1850s and 1860s, using the Bessemer process, Bessemer and open hearth furnace, Siemens-M ...

, with Hutton & Co.

Sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feedi ...

works being based at nearby Ridgeway. The village expanded due to developments in nearby Owlthorpe, Westfields and Waterthorpe. Mosborough, which was a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

at the time, was transferred from Derbyshire to the West Riding of Yorkshire as part of Sheffield. The village has a number of schools, including the Mosborough Primary School and Westfield School. Today, there has been a lot of development of housing, due to its proximity to the Derbyshire and to the South Yorkshire border.

History

The first mention of the village comes from 9th century

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Ge ...

records of

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

land owners. The village was then known as Moresburgh, which gradually evolved into Mosburg and later Moresborowe. The then hamlet stood on the edges of the 'Great Forest' which stood in the area where the Rother Valley Country Park stands today and extended to areas of

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

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 ...

and

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

. Today the only remnants of the 'Great Forest' is

Sherwood Forest Sherwood Forest is the remnants of an ancient royal forest, Royal Forest in Nottinghamshire, within the East Midlands region in England. It has association with the legend of Robin Hood. The forest was proclaimed by William the Conqueror and ...

. The area was settled by the

Angles Angles most commonly refers to: *Angles (tribe), a Germanic-speaking people that took their name from the Angeln cultural region in Germany *Angle, a geometric figure formed by two rays meeting at a common point Angles may also refer to: Places ...

. The invasions took place at the end of the Romanic period around 500AD. Prior to these invasions the area was part of the

Kingdom of Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

, the local Shire Brook formed the border with the neighbouring kingdom of

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

. Being so close to the border meant the hamlet was prone to invasions. The Sheffield Museum contains a number of bones and flint tools unearthed in the area during the 19th century, dating back to the

Neolithic period The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wid ...

, this shows the area was inhabited long before the Angles settled. Mosborough Hall was built during the 17th century, once notably being owned by William Carey, today the building is operated as a hotel, and is Grade-II listed. In later centuries, the village became part of Eckington parish, with the nearby St Peter and St Paul's Church serving the local area. The Sitwell baronets of nearby Renishaw Hall served as the

Lords of the Manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

for centuries. From the late 16th century, the area was known for its

and

Scythe A scythe (, rhyming with ''writhe'') is an agriculture, agricultural hand-tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It was historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains before they underwent the process of ...

smithing industry, with Hutton & Co's being founded in 1760, and operating the neatby Phoenix Works. The business existed until 1988, becoming one of the last traditional garden tool smithing works to exist in the United Kingdom. The nearby Thomas Staniforth & Co. at

Hackenthorpe Hackenthorpe is a village 5 miles south east of Sheffield’s city centre, now classed as a historic township of the city. Due to much expansion, the village became a part of Sheffield city during the 1950s. During much of the late 19th and 20t ...

also provided employment. The village has a number of

public houses A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

including the British Oak, The George & Dragon, The Alma and the Queen Hotel. A number of pubs have operated in the original village over the years including the Fitzwilliam and the Duke William.

References

{{Sheffield Villages of the metropolitan borough of Sheffield