Monk Bretton - History

History

Monk Bretton has been a settlement since medieval times and was originally known as just 'Bretton'. It is sometimes thought to have taken its name from the twelfth-century Adam fitz Swain de Bretton, whose family owned much land in the area and who also founded Monk Bretton Priory. However, in the Domesday Book of 1086 the area is already known as Brettone, and the name may have originally meant 'Farmstead of the Britons', suggesting that a remnant of the old Romano-British population may have lived here into the Anglo-Saxon period. By 1225 the village was referred to as Munkebretton, ‘munke’ referring to the monks of the nearby Priory.

In 1444, Sir William de Bretton gave to Thomas Haryngton, esquire, and other trustees, lands and tenements in Monk Bretton, which his father and grandfather had leased to the prior and convent for a term of years. More info here

The mediaeval village cross, today known as the ‘Butter Cross’, still survives, standing at the junction of High Street and Cross Street. It may have had a social as well as a religious function, a place to meet and hear news. The village park also shows traces of mediaeval ridge and furrow cultivation.

An act of 1609 gave all freeholders of Monk Bretton manorial rights and, since it was not repealed, technically everyone who owns freehold property or land is a ‘lord’ of the village.

On Burton Bank is a Quaker burial ground dating from the 1650s. Later a small meeting house was erected, which became a focus for local Quakers up until the 19th century.

Although the nearby Priory formed a Christian community (until dissolution by Henry VIII), Monk Bretton did not possess a church until 1838. The village formed part of the extensive parish of Royston. In 1838 the foundation stone for the first church was laid on a site donated by Sir George Wombwell, at the corner of Cross Street and Burton Road. A new chapelry district, separating Monk Bretton (with Cudworth) from Royston parish and enabling 'baptisms, churchings and burials', was created by Queen Victoria by an order in Council on July 22, 1843. The first church was replaced (on the same site) by the present St Paul's Church in 1878. The church, built in the late Decorated style, is now a grade II listed building. The churchyard contains 16 burials from the 1866 Oaks Colliery explosion.

In 1801, Monk Bretton had a population of 480. By the 1870s, this had grown to just over 1900, according to John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales 1870-72. Wilson also stated that besides its church, Monk Bretton had three Methodist chapels, as well as a national school and six alms-houses.

Monk Bretton Colliery opened in 1870, extracting coal from the Barnsley Seam. The colliery was modernised on nationalisation and pit head baths, which still stand today, were opened. A village Miners' Welfare Hall was opened in Cross Street. The colliery was closed in 1968.

Monk Bretton once possessed some of the most historic buildings in the Barnsley area, but these were never preserved. The Manor House and several other interesting structures on Cross Street and High Street disappeared in the 1960s. Also demolished was Monk Bretton 'Castle', a folly on Burton Bank built by a local priest as a look-out tower or observatory and subsequently used for the lighting of beacons on occasions such as royal events and the end of wars. Only Manor Farm remains, and the oldest structure still standing is a 17th century barn at the junction of Cross Street and Westgate, belonging to the farm. The village greatly expanded in the 19th and 20th centuries with the building of new housing estates, so that today Monk Bretton more or less merges into nearby Lundwood, Carlton, Athersley and Smithies.