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On the completion of the first Volume of the History of the WAPENTAKE, the author thereof would take this opportunity of thanking his numerous friends and correspondents for the many favours which they have conferred on him. This he would beg to do generally, leaving to a subsequent occasion the pleasing task of a more circumstantial detail.

To carry fully into effect any topographical inquiry, much must depend on the resident gentry of the district. Patience, perseverance, and industry, together with a sedulous research among the documentary matter, yet existing in the public archives of the country, is calculated to bring before the public a vast mass of useful and interesting information, wholly new. To most of these, the author is glad to say, that he has had the freest access afforded him; but it remains with the chief landed proprietors, the clergy in general, the representatives of old families, &c., to add a finishing hand, to give accuracy and a stamp of authority to the whole. Of this highly interesting class of residents in the WAPENTAKE and neighbourhood, the author would therefore crave to ask assistance, assuring them, that no improper use will be made of such intelligence as they may feel disposed to communicate.

Hitherto, whenever the author has found it requisite to apply to gentlemen for information, he has not often been disappointed; but there are cases in which it has been studiously withheld. To pry into the secrets of family history, or record domestic feuds, was never the object pursued by the author. These, with the causes that gave them birth, cannot be too soon forgotten. His is a more honourable task, and adapted, he hopes, to promote the interest of letters; the restoration of decayed

intelligence, and the amor patria, so magnificently displayed in the lives and actions of our early ancestors. These are the ends at which he aims, and which cannot fail to interest the general reader, and call into action the reminiscence of the scholar and the veneration of the sage.

On the publication of the first Part, the author promised, that, with the second, would be given the remainder of the soke of Doncaster; the history of Conisbrough, with its Saxon dependencies; and so much of the Builli fee, as the pages assigned to each part would admit. In these particulars he has not been able to redeem his pledge. Not willing to suppress useful information, the author has been induced to dwell longer on important subjects than at first he felt inclined to do. Eventually, however, by slightly touching the history of the hamlets, he hopes to be enabled to comprise all that is worth knowing in the two succeeding parts; the first of which is now in progress of printing.

INTRODUCTION.

ON laying before the public the following memorials relating to the ancient state of the Wapentake of STRAFFORD and TICKHILL, it may probably not be deemed amiss, if we introduce a particular by a general description of its former condition, together with its topographical aspect in the British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman ages; its boundaries and extent; its navigable and other streams; with a brief account of the rise, progress, orders, and dissolution of monastic and other religious institutions, whose houses, possessions, and privileges, constitute so prominent a feature in the annals of early times; with a survey of several other matters, of a general and local nature, worthy of the observation of all such as admire relics, institutes, and observances, long since ingulfed by the rapacious jaws of all-destroying time.

To attempt to dive into the original cause, or to name the precise era, of the division and subdivision of nations, empires, and kingdoms, into a multiplicity of portions, as diversified as they are numerous, would be an herculean task. The universality of the system shows the necessity, and its general adoption the importance of the scheme; we shall, therefore, wholly confine ourselves to the theatre of our present exertions, and leave to abler hands, such things as exceed our grasp, and defy our feeble power.

On the south, this wapentake is bounded by the county of Derby, on the north and north-west by the wapentake of Osgoldcross, on the west by those of Stain cross and Agbridge, while its eastern and north-eastern limits are circumscribed by the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham.

At a more early period, its internal part was subdivided into a number of smaller portions, which the lapse of time, and the revolution of ages, have now hurled into the abyss of oblivion. Amongst these, we may reckon the liberties of the castles of Sheffield, Tickhill, and Conisbrough; the shire of Hallam, the soke of Doncaster, &c.,

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