Woodsetts Area
Firbeck - Gildingwells - Letwell - Woodsetts
These villages and hamlets are situated in the very east of the borough of Rotherham. The town of Worksop is often mentioned in postal addresses and parts of the are have a Worksop dialling code. They all occur on spring lines where there was a ready supply of water. The springs or 'troughs' were still the main source of water for the villagers up to the middle of the 20th Century. There is scattered evidence in the area of Neolithic man known by his flints and the remains of his knapping. There are scant Roman remains. None of these villages is mentioned in the Domesday Book and it is thought that any settlements here were destroyed during William the Conqueror's harrying of the north.
The names of these village first appear in the 12th and 13th Centuries. For most of their history these settlements were quiet agricultural communities with populations that fluctuated according to the demand for labour on the farms and the trades associated with them.
Useful Information
St Martin's Firbeck. The first record a of a church at Firbeck is from 1482. The church was completely rebuilt in the 1820s. It was further altered and enlarged in 1877 and in 1900 the tower was demolished and rebuilt. In 1971 the tower was renovated again whilst in the 1990s the church was re-roofed and restored.
St Peter's Letwell. There has probably been a church on this site from the Dark Ages. St Peter's was rebuilt substantially in Medieval times but was mostly destroyed by fire in 1867. It was rebuilt with funds supplied by Sir Thomas Woolaston. It only became a parish church in 1841.
Woodsetts Methodist Church opened as the Primitive Methodist Chapel in 1823.