Brampton & Brampton Bierlow
The villages of Brampton & Brampton Bierlow are in the extreme north west of the Borough of Rotherham where it abuts the Borough of Barnsley and were for along time part of the town of Wath upon Dearne. Brampton is Old English for a steep enclosure or area covered in brambles. Bierlow is Old Norse for township law which was a settlement with a measure of self government or one where the law was administered. This would have been an important centre for the area, very probably with a fort or castle but I know of no remains there. Although my map shows Brampton Bierlow as a small village to the south of the bigger village of Brampton, both names seem to be used and interchangeable. Brampton Bierlow is often used to distinguish the village from Brampton-en-le-Morthen which another settlement entirely.
According to the Domesday book published in 1086 Arnthorr the Priest held lands at Brampton and at West Melton with arable land for five plough teams before 1066. Under the Norman William The Conqueror he retained some of his land whilst the King had kept some land in Brampton and West Melton for himself.
In the reign of king Edward I one half of Brampton was held by William Fleming and the other half appears to have belonged to the Honour of Tickhill and was held by the FitzSwein family. Adam FitzSwein, founder of the abbey at Monk Bretton, gave the abbey all his estate at Brampton. The Poll Tax Return for 1379 seems to indicate that the village, then called 'Brampton juxta Wath' was almost as large a settlement as Wath as there are 96 tax payers listed at Brampton whilst there were 114 at Wath. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the abbey estates passed to the Wentworth family who also obtained the Fleming half of the manor.
For many centuries life in Brampton and similar villages moved slowly along at the pace of the agricultural year. The Dearne and Dove Canal arrived just to the north in the 1800s although this was never a very profitable canal and seems to have had little impact on village life. Then along came King Coal and the area changed massively. There were a number of small pits in the area, then the first shaft of Cortonwood Colliery was sunk in 1873. Housing for the miners was built and the village changed forever. Cortonwood colliery closed in 1985 - see The Town of Wath-upon-Dearne – Cortonwood.
The closure of the pits had a devastating effect causing great unemployment and depression all over the area. The development of the old Cortonwood pit site after coal washing and reclamation has brought new jobs and new hope to many.
Brampton Hall
Brampton Bierlow
In the later medieval period Brampton Hall appears to have been held by the Brome family, a John Brome of Brampton occurring in a quitclaim of 1413 with the prior of Monk Bretton, John de Brome, of the parish of Wath, is recorded in 1465 and a third John Brome of Brampton in 1502 and 1503. Stephen Brome of Brampton, gentleman, is referred to in 1588.
The earliest reference to the house itself is in 1609 when Henry Brome of Carlton [Counton], Nottinghamshire and his son Thomas Brome of Brampton sold the capital messuage of Brampton Hall along with two cottages, meadow and common lands in Brampton and two beast gates on the in pasture of Wath-upon-Dearne, to Thomas Waynewright, of Lee Hall, Wath-upon-Dearne for £800. In 1613 Waynewright sold Brampton Hall, described as being in the separate occupation of Lawrence Hickes and Elizabeth Wildsmith, to John Ellis of Barnsley. The Ellis family held the hall for some years.
Dr George Ellis [1627 – 1712], nephew of Sir George Ellis, was one of Brampton’s most notable inhabitants, lived as the squire of Brampton Hall. George Ellis was well known as a local benefactor to charitable causes, he founded the Brampton Ellis School which later became the Junior School and the Brampton Ellis Trust, which to this day, owns 70% of the land in Brampton. In 1711, the year before his death, George Ellis devised to seven trustees at Brampton certain lands out of rents.
Details from the will of George Ellis of Brampton (Yorkshire), gentleman:–
- Estate at Brampton Bierly in parish of Wath in trust to pay: £20 p.a. to an afternoon lecturer at Wath £5 p.a. to vicar of Darfield if resident.
- £6.13s. 4d. p.a. to school at Brampton, or Wath (as trustees choose) to teach 20 poorest boys and girls of the parish, with 20s. for books, 50s. for apprenticing, 10s. for coals and 1s. p. week for bread; and 20s. for 1 poor widow to live in a room in the schoolhouse.
- £6.13s. 4d. to school at Barnsley, with 20s., 50s. and 10s. as above, and 20s. to curate for catechising.
- £10 p.a. to charity school at Rotherham
Should any above school fail, money to go to charity schools at Leeds, York or Hull, or to charitable uses trustees think fit.
The Trust, which has now been running for nearly 300 years, still supports the aged, the schools, the church and the development of Brampton. George Ellis is buried in Wath-upon-Dearne Parish Church.
The house was still known as Brampton Hall in 1930. In recent years, when owned by the Fitzwilliam Estates at Wentworth, and split into two properties, it was usually referred to as no.s 2 and 2a Manor Lane.
In 1982 Brampton Hall was rebuilt and opened as a public house. I t looked as if it was open last time I passed by.