St Laurence’s Church, Adwick-le-Street Statement of Significance October 2013 www.adwick-st-laurence.co.uk This is the Statement of Significance for: St Laurence Church, in the Parish of Adwick-le Street in the Benefice of St Laurence, Adwick-le-Street with St Michael and All Angels Skelbrooke in the Diocese of Sheffield Location: Church Lane, Doncaster DN6 7HG South Yorkshire In the Metropolitan District of Doncaster OS Grid Reference: SE5409808601 OS Grid Coordinates: 454098, 408601 Latitude/Longitude: 53.5712, -1.1845 Grade: II* Date Listed: 19 October 1962 English Heritage Building ID: 334873 The church stands in a conservation area and tree preservation orders apply to trees in the churchyard. LOCATION MAP Part I: The church in its urban / rural environment. 1.1 The Setting of the Church St Laurence’s is a well known and well loved landmark. It sits in the village surroundings of Adwick-le- Street opposite the local park which was the site of the home to the Washington family whose tomb is in the church. (The Elizabethan mansion was dismantled in 1864) The mature trees of the churchyard and park provide a picturesque setting and are subject to tree preservation orders. There is the stump of an ancient cross in the churchyard which is also a scheduled ancient monument (Grade II EH reference 334874) The cholera memorial (Grade II EH reference 334875) on the exterior east wall of the church is of considerable interest locally and is also a landmark on the round Britain Motorcycle Rally. A local custom of the “evil eye” associated with the monument is still widely known by generations of Adwick residents. Adwick-le-Street was designated a conservation area in January 1992. The Doncaster Council entry is as follows: “The conservation area is based on the old settlement located around the church of St. Lawrence. It is linear in character and stretches along Village Street with a spur along Church Lane; the latter was the main road to Carcroft before the village centre was bypassed by the building of Doncaster Lane. To either side of the built up areas that make up the 'main street' are two green areas, that to the west being the recreational open space of The Park and to the east is an open field to the mill leat. There are several archaeological sites within these green areas, including the site of Adwick Hall within The Park. Limestone was the traditional material, which is rendered on some buildings, but there is also some brick. Principle roof materials are slate and clay pantiles. Limestone boundary walls are an important and extensive feature of the conservation area. The conservation area is well endowed with mature trees particularly in The Park.” Within the conservation area there are 4 listed structures (St Laurence Church, the Cross remains, the Cholera Memorial and the Watermill on Mill Lane). 1.2 : The living churchyard The churchyard is a pleasant and well kept space where local people enjoy visiting and sitting. The churchyard is closed to burials but has two areas where cremated remains are interred. A new memorial was placed in 2011 to mark the area for cremated remains at the Village Street side of the church. This was commissioned and paid for by church members and the public and the design and carving was done by John Shaw MA FRSA. Within the churchyard there are three war commission graves, two from the first World War and a third from the second World War. 1.3: Social History Adwick-le-Street derives its name from the Great North British Roman routeway, Ermine Street which roughly follows the route of the present A1. The earliest signs of settlement are from Roman times and there is evidence of a Viking settlement but this is long before the church was built. The reference in the Domesday book, dating from around the time the church was built indicates a feudal society of some 12 villagers and 11 small holdings. The reference in the Domesday Book Survey, 1086, which is believed to relate to the village, states: "In Adewinc Sueen and Gluncier and Archil had six carucates of land to be taxed. Roger (de Busli) has now 2 ploughs there, and 12 villeins and 11 bordars with 5 ploughs and 9 acres of meadow and a small wood. Value in Edward's time 40s. now the same." This places Adwick as a small rural community around a manor house with Fulk de Lisours holding the manor as tenant of Roger, together with the manors of Frickley and Marr. No mention is made of a church here in Domesday Book but as the survey was notoriously incomplete on ecclesiastical matters it is by no means certain that a place of worship did not exist at Adwick in Saxon times. Any such church building is likely to have been of wood. The traditional foundation date of the Norman Church is c. 1150, during the troubled reign of King Stephen and within an era of feverish church building which included the Priory at Hampole. St Laurence’s church was used by the Cistercian nuns at Hampole priory. It remained in the possession of the priory until the suppression of religious houses in 1539. The size of the village grew slightly through medieval times. From the seventeenth century, the village had no resident squire, and by the early nineteenth century, Adwick Hall, the seat of the lord of the manor, was in ruins. However, between 1791 and 1795, a new mansion house, Woodlands Hall, was built by Thomas Bradford of Alverley Grange..Throughout the nineteenth century, the population of the parish, (again, like most others in the Doncaster area) had been low and essentially static. The first census of 1801 recorded 284 residents, rising to a high of 434 in 1841. This was followed (yet again a common trend locally) by decline over the next sixty years, reaching 294 by 1901. Like many villages in the Doncaster area, the character of Adwick le Street changed considerably in the early years of the twentieth century following the arrival of coal mining. A small rural community suddenly found itself acquiring a different appearance, a greatly increased population and an altered employment base. A new housing estate, Woodlands, was built by the Brodsworth Main colliery company, an influx of mine workers and their families arrived from other parts of the country and mining replaced agriculture as the main source of employment. The sinking of Brodsworth Main colliery in 1905 began the transformation of the parish. By 1911, Adwick le Street Urban District (a larger area that the old parish) had a population of nearly seven thousand and by 1921 it had grown to nearly twelve thousand. The colliery company created a 'model' village to house its employees, commissioning a pioneering garden suburb from Percy Hufton, a Chesterfield architect. The houses were designed in cottage-style and given in a semi-rural setting of lawns and trees. Its imaginative layout contrasts favourably with the bleak, straight terraces of Denaby Main, a neighbouring colliery village built between the 1870s to the 1900s.The cost was, however, deterred the colliery company from further building of this kind, and at nearby Highfields, its next venture into house- building, the company followed less imaginative plans. Woodlands church was opened in 1913 and the new parish of woodlands made out of the east end of Adwick parish incorporating much of the new housing. In the 1960s to 1980’s the old housing in the north part of Adwick were demolished and new estates were developed around Lutterworth Drive. These were semi- detatched privately owned homes. Further development in the 1990’s formed the estate locally known as the ‘Bird’ estate because of the street names. These are mainly prestigious detatched homes, which are designed to attract commuters due to the closeness of the A1. A significant proportion of the occupants of these newer homes are people with family connections to Adwick. The present day parish boundary includes these newer estates and the traditional terraces of woodlands east. SIGNIFICANT PERSONALITIES AND EVENTS Adwick has been home to some characters of national and international significance. These are stories which need to be told more effectively and widely in the local community. RICHARD ROLLE, Richard Rolle was a hermit and spiritual writer who lived from about 1300 until 1349 and spent the latter years of his life at the priory in Hampole. He is commemorated in the Anglican calendar on 20th.January. The historian, the Revd. Joseph Hunter, in his "History of the Deanery of Doncaster", published in 1828 wrote the following brief summary of the life of the Yorkshire Hermit and mystic, Richard Rolle: "Few persons who have written so much have left so few memorials of themselves. All that appears to be of certainty known respecting him is that sometime about the beginning of the reign of Edward III Richard withdrew himself from a world whose manners he was disgusted by and devoted himself to a life of austerity and divine meditation in a cell not far from the monastery of Hampole and he continued this mode of life till his death in 1349". Richard Rolle is regarded as the first English mystic trying, through prayer and meditation, to bring his soul to fullest communion with God. He was amongst the very first to write in the English Language of his times and was the author of many books on devotional themes. His most famous work "The Fire of Love", written in English prose at a time when most scholars wrote in Latin, gave to ordinary people of his day access to a clearer understanding of God's love.