Village Focus: The rise and fall of Hickleton Hall which brought grandeur to a small South Yorkshire village

But this was the situation of Hickleton Hall – once one of the grandest houses in South Yorkshire.

Even more so that the village it was built in, nestled between Doncaster and Barnsley, has for decades, if not centuries, had a population of no more than 300 people.

As with many houses of the time, Hickleton Hall was built as a way of showing off the owner’s wealth and and social standing for all to see.

Hickleton Hall stands in what was also a colliery and farming village and its long line of owners and custodians tells us a lot more about the history of the village of Hickleton – which actually goes back to The Dark Ages.

In the 16th century a previous property had stood on the site and was known as Hickleton Palace. It had been built for Judge Francis Rodes, who was an English judge.

A Hearth Tax of 1672 shows it having 32 hearths, third only in South Yorkshire to Wentworth Woodhouse with 43 and Sheffield manor house with 52. This indicates a building of grand proportions and would have been a spectacular sight as you approached it through the village.

The house we see today was built for Godfrey Wentworth of Woolley, another colliery village on the opposite side of Barnsley. He had bought the estate in about 1730 and was said to be well-off but tired of being cold in his timber house.

Hickleton Hall was built between 1745 and 1748 and at that time it is thought the house was just the main block without the wings.

The Window Tax document for Hickleton in 1769 lists Godfrey Wentworth paying tax on 81 windows. A count of the remaining windows on the central block is 78 including three blind or blocked windows.

The following list of inhabitants is like a list of the who’s who of politics and law.

Godfrey Wentworth died in 1789 and the Hall was inherited by his grandson, Godfrey Wentworth Armytage, who changed his name to Godfrey Wentworth Wentworth. He was appointed High Sheriff of Yorkshire for 1796–97.

However, when his banking business failed he was forced to sell the property.

It was bought in 1828 by political influencer, Sir Francis Lindley Wood, the 2nd Baronet of Hemsworth and Garrowby. When he died in 1846 Hickleton Hall passed to his son Charles Wood, 3rd Baronet (1800–85).

He was an MP for Grimsby, Wareham, Halifax and Ripon, Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1846 and 1852 and created Viscount Halifax in 1866.

Wood died in 1885 at the Hall, which was then inherited by his son Charles Lindley Wood (1839–1934) who had two stints as president of the English Church Union and was also a Deputy Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Upon his death the mantle was taken on by Edward Wood, the 3rd Viscount Halifax, who was Viceroy of India from 1926 to 1929, Foreign Secretary from 1938 to 1940 and created Earl of Halifax in 1944.

During the Second World War the house was occupied by the British Army and afterwards it became that the family preferred their estate at Garrowby to Hickleton and in 1947 sold the contents of Hickleton Hall and leased the premises as a girls' school run by members of the Order of the Holy Paraclete Convent.

From 1961 to 2012, Hickleton Hall was run as a Sue Ryder care home and put up for sale in 2015.

It was from here that the once grandest of homes began to fall into a state of disrepair.

Last year it was reported that the house had been bought by a Buckinghamshire based businessman.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Hickleton, a much more working class existence was the norm.

Hickleton Main Colliery was a coal mine in the neighbouring village of Thurnscoe from 1892 to 1988. In 1933 it employed 2,560 people underground and 500 on the surface.

But in the time that it was open, 161 miners died while working there. There is now a granite memorial in the local cemetery in tribute to them.

There has been a church at Hickleton since, at least, Norman times as indicated by the chancel arch and font.

St Wilfrid’s is a large building compared with the size of the parish, possibly reflecting the creation of wealth, from wool, under the influence of the Priory of Monk Bretton over three centuries.

There was also flamboyant and lavish restoration of the church overseen by the Halifax family.

Hickleton as a village never grew larger than its Anglo-Saxon origin, peaking in size before the Black Death in 1349.

The sand coloured cottages on the main road through the village with their traditional red rooves are from the 1800s.

The main road was said to have been a Roman Road and to this day is still a commuter thoroughfare.

A little further up are some cross-roads that local word has it are haunted by the Hickleton ghost – a man on horseback dressed in cloak and tricorn hat, and reputed to have been seen twice in recent years, near the area.

A school was opened in 1965, but, like many other small village schools, was considered uneconomic and was closed in 1981.

It wasn’t until the 1960s onwards that modern housing was built and even now remains very sought after – there is currently just one property listed for sale.

Village life today is occupied by a golf course and club, parish council and a village hall and private members social club which is the only watering hole in the village.