Woodsetts
A sett is where badgers live so Woodsetts means the sett in the woods. Another version is the settlement or fold in the woods. The first time Woodsetts is mentioned is in an inquisition from 1342. The poll tax of 1378 lists 26 taxable inhabitants paying 6d or 4d each. The village remained an isolated settlement mentioned only occasionally in records up to the 18th Century.
In 1771 Woodsetts first appeared on a map as a cluster of cottages on Lindrick Road with a few more dwellings near Cotterell Woods and the isolated farm called 'Audzus' (Hoades Farm). The Sheffield-Worksop turnpike road by-passed the village to the south with only a narrow cart track connecting the road to Woodsetts. By the early 19th century, Sir Thomas White of Wallingwells was lord of the manor but the major landowners were the Duke of Leeds and the Wright family. The Census of 1841 states that the population of Woodsetts was 175 including 8 farmers, 3 carpenters, 1 blacksmith, 1 tea dealer, 1 publican, and 2 ladies of independent means. The remainder of the population were employed as agricultural labourers or servants.
Woodsetts was a township within the parish of Anston and the distance from the parish church was obviously a problem to the inhabitants. A number of early 19th century directories list the hamlet as lying in the parish of Laughton and it is probable that the inhabitants found it easier to attend church at Laughton. A campaign was started to create a separate parish which culminated in May 1841 in the separation of Woodsetts from Anston and of Gildingwells from Throapham St. John. The two hamlets were joined with the extra-parochial hamlet of Wallingwells to form the new parish of Woodsetts. The church, St George's was built in 1841 and in 1847 Woodsetts became a separate ecclesiastical parish. The village at this time was mainly agricultural but as the century progressed mining and quarrying took place in the surrounding area.
Whilst the other villages in the area remained small, agrarian communities Woodsetts became home to a slightly larger population including miners, quarry workers, a wheel wright, a shoemaker and a carpenter. By 1871 there were 2 grocers, 2 general traders, 2 dressmakers, 1 tea dealer and 1 publican at the Butchers Arms. The new vicarage was completed in 1871. In 1891 when a golf course was established on Lindrick Common. In 1896 the Methodists moved from services in a private house to a new chapel on Gildingwells Road. A Church Institute was erected in 1913 at a cost of £600. From 1923 population expanded: the school had grown to such an extent that the infants class had to be held in the Institute and the original church was rebuilt with a new chancel, apse and porch were added in 1924. Woodsetts got a recreation ground in 1926.
In 1939 a Home Guard detachment nicknamed 'Gullick's Gurkhas' was set up at in Woodsetts with the main strongpoint and observation post was on the 13th green at the golf course. The club house at the golf course was used as a maternity home during the War.
After the war Woodsetts was the centre of much house building with the development of council houses, old folk's bungalows and private housing. More private estates built during the 1970s brought great changes to the village as the population increased to 1,819 by 1991. A new school was opened in 1972 to cater for the growing numbers of children in the villages of Woodsetts, Firbeck, Letwell and Gildingwells.