The Unofficial
Website
Kiveton Park
including Kiveton Bridge
Kiveton Park is situated in the south of the Borough of Rotherham and is a
linear settlement stretching along the B6059 for more than a mile from Kiveton Bridge in the west to Kiveton Park in the east. the railway and the Chesterfield Canal run to the south of
the village.
Kiveton means 'The settlement in the hollow', Anglo-Saxon 'kyfe' meaning dish or hollow vessel and 'ton' meaning village or homestead or stockaded camp. The Domesday book of 1086 recorded its name as Cieutone with the C being pronounced as a present day K. From about 1080 to 1868 Kiveton was a hamlet of the parish of Harthill-with-Woodall, after which it was transferred to Wales Parish Council.
Kiveton is pronounced the old fashioned way with the "e" - Kiv-et-un and not Kaevton. Kiveton was once the site of a stately home - Keeton Hall: the Hall was demolished in 1812 with only the stables remaining, which now form part of Kiveton Hall Farm.
The surname Keeton (i.e. Kiveton in its slovenly pronunciation) is local and has incarnations through history as Keuton (1370 poll tax register), Kayton, Keveton, Kyveton, Keton, Kneton, Keeton and so on and on and on. The land owning Keetons apparently sold their Kyveton estate to the Hewets in about 1580 and interestingly a lot of Keetons appear in the American colonies in the 1600s (as recorded by US genealogical societies).
I know little of the history of Kiveton until fairly recent times but you can be pretty sure that it was a small rural community for most of the time. Kiveton Hall was built for the 1st Duke of Leeds who decided that his Elizabethan house at Thorpe Salvin was not grand or modern enough, and so had a new seat built at Kiveton. Kiveton (aka Keeton) Hall was demolished in 1811, and the Dukes moved to bigger, grander houses. Of course this might have something to do with the creeping industrialisation of the area. The Chesterfield Canal was completed in 1777 allowing development of the stone quarries. Enormous quarries existed in Kiveton Park and between 1840 and 1844 almost half a million tons of locally mined limestone were loaded onto the canal for transportation to London to build the Houses of Parliament. Coal was mined from bell-pits from the Middle Ages. Much later, Kiveton Colliery, a deep mine was sunk but this closed in 1994 and the site is being redeveloped.
The quarries and the colliery are now disused and work is afoot to redevelop them. The former Kiveton Park Colliery site is owned by Renaissance South Yorkshire - part of Yorkshire Forward. There have been several plans for its development most of which have not received public approval for one reason or another. The main reason was that plans did not include reinstatement of the Chesterfield Canal which passes through the site.
After much discussion new plans have been redrawn and local residents are being encouraged to view them. The intention is to restore and reshape the 162 acre site with a mixture of woodland, grassland and recreational areas together with a fishing lake. Renaissance South Yorkshire maintain that they do not have the funds within the project's budget to restore the stretch of the canal through Kiveton Park but appear to have agreed that the line of the canal should be preserved for later work. Plans went before Rotherham Borough Council's Planning Board in 2003. Kiveton Water has opened to fishermen and others June 2006.
Kiveton Pit Head Baths, built by the miners out of their own pockets, has listed status and in 2003 The Kiveton Park Development Trust has submitted a
detailed bid for Lottery Funding for around £5million to turn the baths into a centre for the arts. There is already a studio run by the Redroad Music Project which helps and
encourages young musicians and young people to create and record their own music and learn about production and technology. It is hoped that there will be a cinema and theatre, an
interpretation and heritage centre and a multi-media centre. Early 2007 I have not yet found out how far along these plans are.
Village Links
www.kivetonwaleshistory.co.uk.