Worksop - History

History

Evidence that Worksop existed before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is provided by the Domesday Book of 1086:

"In Werchesope, (Worksop) Elsi (son of Caschin) had three carucates of land to be taxed. Land to eight ploughs. Roger has one plough in the demesne there, and twenty-two sokemen who hold twelve oxgangs of this land, and twenty-four villanes and eight bordars having twenty-two ploughs, and seven acres of meadow. Wood pasture two miles long, and three quarentens broad."

This early period of the town's history was humorously depicted in the children's television show, Maid Marian and her Merry Men, where it was largely portrayed as a mass of mud. This is where the phrase "Worksop Mud People" comes from.

After the conquest, in about 1103, William de Lovetot established a castle and Augustinian priory at Worksop. Subsequently Worksop grew into a market town.

A small skirmish occurred around Worksop during the Wars of the Roses on 16 December 1460, commonly known as the Battle of Worksop.

The building of the Chesterfield Canal in 1777, and the subsequent construction of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in 1849, both of which passed through the settlement, led to a degree of growth. Discovery of sizeable coal seams further increased interest in the area.

The area is becoming increasingly popular with commuters owing to its relative proximity to the nearby cities of Sheffield, Lincoln and Nottingham.

The nearby Welbeck Estate has recently announced the launch of the School of Artisan Food, an independent not-for-profit organisation offering diplomas in artisan food production.

coal mining provided thousands of jobs in and around Worksop for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, but by the 1990s the pits had closed, resulting in high local unemployment. Drug abuse in the area also soared.

Unemployment levels in the area are now lower than the national average, due to large number of distribution and local manufacturing companies, including Premier Foods and Wilkinsons Wilkinson RDS Transport, GD Engineering and Laing O'Rourke.