Local Hamlets Part One - Shaftholme

View south west from Shaftholme Lane

Shaftholme

There are many hamlets in the north Doncaster area, mostly made up of farming communities. They usually consist of a few farms and maybe a few houses, but usually there are no public amenities and are often without a bus service. 

Arksey has four satellite hamlets, Shaftholme, Tilts, Almholme and Stockbridge. All these places came under the enumeration district of Bentley-with-Arksey, along with some others which satellite Bentley.

This first part in a series of four articles focuses on Shaftholme. The second part being about Tilts, the third about Almholme, and the final part about Stockbridge, see bottom of page for links.

Contents

• Locating Shaftholme
• Early Place-Names
• Early History
• The Farms
• Shaftholme House
• Shaftholme Farm
• Shaftholme Grange, aka The Drum and Monkey
• The Drum and Monkey
• Cottage Farm
• The Railway and Workers Cottages
• Railway Cottages
• Bentley Community Woodland

Locating Shaftholme

Shaftholme aerial view

Shaftholme is reached by leaving Arksey via Marsh Lane and Shaftholme Road, past the Willowgarth fishing pond and over the Daw Lane level crossing on Shaftholme Road. 

Photo courtesy of Keith Wilburn

There are just three roads in the hamlet, Shaftholme Lane which starts at the level crossing and runs northwest, ending at the Tilts/Hall Villa Lane junction. Marsh Lane, which runs southwest and ends abruptly after a few hundred yards at the gated entrance to Bentley Community Woodland. Lastly there is Tilts Lane, which begins near the level crossing and stretches north into farm land. There is no access up Tilts Lane now, being barred by a farm gate. 

Modern map of Shaftholme

Early Place-Names

The earliest recorded inhabitants in this marshy area were the Scandinavians in the tenth century. It is where many of these small places get their names from. The 'Holme' element describes an area of flat land prone to flooding, leaving areas of dry land, or islands in their wake.

The word 'Holme' is where we get the name 'Holmstead' from, meaning 'Holme Farm'.

Early History

Shaftholme does not appear in the Domesday book, but was in existence by the early thirteenth century.

The name of Shaftholme first appears in the Poll Tax of 1379 as Schaftholm. The name means 'Water-meadow marked by a pole' or 'one where poles were obtained'. This probably came about because poles were often used as markers in marshland. 

The Poll Tax of 1379 mentions a Johannes Schaftholme and Richardus de Schaftholme. Shaftholme seems to have consisted of only four properties during its early history. Families mentioned in the parish registers between 1572 and 1598 are: 

• Wilson
• Adwicke
• Greenwoode
• Marshall
• Barghe

The first survey of Shaftholme was carried out for Hearth Tax purposes in 1672 and four properties were listed in Shaftholme. These included Shaftholme Farm, with four hearths, which was owned by John Read. William Tyrwhitt at Shaftholme House, owned three hearths. Then there were two cottages, Ralph Clay had one of them with one hearth. Widow Butler, in the other cottage also had one hearth, but was listed as 'Poore, CED', meaning she held an exemption certificate, and didn't have to pay the tax.

Arksey, Shaftholme and Tilts, pre-railway in 1772

The Farms

There were still only a few properties in Shaftholme by the time the first census was taken in 1841. 

Shaftholme Farm and Shaftholme House had been joined by Shaftholme Grange; Shaftholme Cottages were still there too. Census records and the Electoral Registers can give insight to who occupied the properties over time, and each property is examined below.

Potato picking in Shaftholme Lane 1940's

Shaftholme House

Shaftholme House (Google Earth image)

The history of Shaftholme House can be traced back to the seventeenth century, when the Tyrwhitts lived in a previous building to the present one from around 1610 to 1740.  

The present Shaftholme House was built around 1848. It is one of three almost identical properties in the area, known as the 'Three Sisters', the others being Brookhouse Farm at Arksey and Low Farm at Almholme. 

Described as an affluent house with servants, there were servants bells in the scullery which connected to most rooms in the house, these bells were still present in the house in the 1960's.

The house was in the occupation of William Smith when the present house was built. He and his wife Elizabeth (nee Grant), daughter of the previous owner George Grant, lived there until around 1878. 

The next occupier was William Asquith, and he held the property until his death in 1906.

William's daughter Emma married William Mawson in 1890. The Mawson's lived in and helped run the farm following the marriage, and when Emma's father died in 1906 William Mawson took over as the tenant farmer. 

William and his wife Emma brought up a family at Shaftholme House, with son Reginald Asquith Mawson (born 1911) eventually joining his father on the farm. 

Reginald bought Shaftholme Grange and twelve acres of land from the Mottishaws following the death of Herbert Mottishaw in 1938. He rented it out to various tenants while continuing to live and work at Shaftholme House.

Following William's death in Scarborough in June 1951 at the age of seventy nine, the running of the farm passed to Reginald and his wife Rene. Although, by this time the farm was owned by the National Coal Board with Reginald as tenant farmer. 

In the late 1960's Reginald exchanged his Shaftholme Grange buildings for some of the NCB land near the level crossing. This was the former site of a cottage belonging to the Mawson's former farm foreman Len Myatt. The cottage was demolished and Reginald had a bungalow built there. 

When Reginald retired in the mid 1970's the farm was handed back to the NCB and he and Rene moved into the bungalow.

The NCB rented the farm out to someone else, but eventually it would pass to a private owner as the NCB sold off property prior to it's demise. 

Shaftholme House is still a working farm and stables to this day.



With thanks to Dave Wright.

Shaftholme Farm

From a Bentley Library publication

The only real survivor from the seventeenth century is Shaftholme Farm; restored and renovated into a comfortable home, extensive research was carried out into the history of this building by the Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society in 1995. The findings were published in a booklet for Bentley Library some years ago. 

The farm is the only property on Marsh Lane, a non-through road which ends at the entrance to the Bentley Community Woodland. 

The gated end of Marsh Lane with the Bentley Community Woodland beyond

Shaftholme Farm is first recorded in a 'fine' dated 20 January 1679/80, and related to a farm called Shaftholme in the village of Shaftholme near Arksey, which was held by John Read. Other owners since then have included Mary Cartledge from at least 1841, after which her daughter (also Mary Cartledge) took it over after her mother's death in 1859. By 1871 Mary had left and it is not clear from the census records who owned it next, but by 1891 the Lister family had taken up residence and stayed there until 1931 before moving to Manor Farm at Cantley. When research on the building was carried out in 1995 a Mrs Ellen Wood lived there, she and her husband Bernard had rented the property from the National Coal Board in 1955.

The house itself is built of stone with a pitched roof. An external staircase leads to a door into what was an apple store. There were stone built stables on the left, with a brick dove-cote above, and a stone built barn set at right angles to the right side. A later wing was added to the back of the house.

Shaftholme Farm after renovations

The house is entered by a main door which opens into a 'baffle', a kind of lobby against a large chimney stack. Doors open left and right into two rooms, the one to the left being the kitchen area, and the one to the right being the main living area. Dividing the two rooms is an enormous chimney stack with back-to-back fireplaces. A third room lies off the main living area, to the right. This too has a fireplace, and along with another upstairs, forms the four hearths present in 1672. Next to the third room is the old dairy building, under the apple store.

The huge walk-in fireplace, dividing the living and kitchen areas would have originally been open, but has since been panelled over, a large stove occupying the kitchen side. There used to be a window next to the fireplace, providing a view into the next room. This was discovered during alterations. 

There is a bread oven to the side of the kitchen fireplace, it is partly obscured by the new brick fireplace which has been inserted. The bread oven is dome shaped, and brick built. It lies under a stone staircase to the side of the fireplace.

The house had three staircases when the Woods moved in; the stone one beside the fireplace which gave access to all the upper rooms in the west side, a wooden staircase in the wing, and another wooden one in the main living room, which led to the room above. When Mr Wood visited as a boy, this staircase was just a wooden ladder.

Upstairs, original timber framing has survived, some of the walling between the timber uprights consists of reeds with plaster laid over the top. It is possible that the building was originally half-timber framed, and left in-situ behind the later, seventeenth century stone built around it.

Remnants of mullioned windows have been found after modern, Coal Board ones were taken out. According to Mrs Wood, the house was de-listed after the Coal Board put modern windows in.

The farm originally had around 95 acres of land, and supported a large dairy herd, but was squeezed out by the encroaching pit spoil-heaps, until there were only two acres left by the time the Woods bought the property.

The outbuildings have now been rebuilt and converted into separate dwellings, along with a brick barn at the opposite side of the farmyard.



With thanks to Colin Hardisty.

Shaftholme Grange, aka The Drum and Monkey

Location of Shaftholme Grange 1854

Shaftholme Grange was set apart from the rest of the properties in Shaftholme, lying at the top end of Tilts Lane (see map above). 

The property was built before 1841, when the first written record appears in the census of that year; 1841 being the first census to name all occupants of the household. It was described as a large square, red brick building with stables and cowsheds at the back and a well in the front garden.

Occupants of the Grange date can be tracked through census records and electoral registers from 1841 to 1962. The first record shows that George Jenkins, his wife Harriet and their three children were living at the Grange in 1841. 

Map of 1928

There followed a succession of six more families at the Grange between 1861 and 1915 including: 

• William Crowcroft
• Richard Jennings
• Albert Mawson

It is said that the next recorded family at the Grange went by the name of 'Lovely'. They had a few cows and used to deliver milk to Arksey and Bentley. If this is true then they must have been at the Grange in the years 1916 and 1917 when there is a gap in the electoral registers available. No trace of them can be found in the other records either.

The Drum and Monkey

The Grange's alter ego as The Drum and Monkey public house has always been a bit of an enigma, plenty of people have heard of it, but hardly anyone knew anything about it.

Having obtained a small newspaper cutting on the place, and having looked at the Register of Electors, I have been able to tie them to my earlier research on Shaftholme, and can now add a little more to the story. 

Herbert and Mary Alice Gunn occupied the property in 1918, and this is the first time we see written evidence of The Drum and Monkey as a public house, and not just a farm. Whether it was Herbert Gunn who actually converted the property to a hostelry, we'll probably never know, but with railway cottages nearby it made sense to provide the railway workers with somewhere to socialize. 

The Drum and Monkey as listed in the 1918 electoral register

The Gunn's had four girls and two boys who all attended Arksey School. They had a milk round and used to deliver by horse and float. By October 1924 they had moved to Sutton near Askern. Following their departure The Drum and Monkey name ceased to be used in the electoral registers. 

The Mottishaws (or Mottershaws, as appears on the electoral registers) were the next to occupy the property. Whether Mr Mottishaw kept The Drum and Monkey running or reverted the property back to farm use only is still up for debate, but I hope to have an answer on this soon.

Daniel and Mary Mottishaw were there from late 1924 to 1926,  it was then taken over by his brother Herbert and wife Alice. 

Herbert continued the milk delivery round started by Herbert Gunn. With milk supplied from neighbouring farms he delivered on his bike. Mr Mottishaw is mentioned in Kelly's Trade Directory for 1927, along with the other farms in Shaftholme (below).

Kelly's Directory 1927

The Mottishaws were residing at the premises during the terrible floods of 1932, when the farm was cut off. Herbert Mottishaw had managed to evacuate his children to Arksey, but was forced to put his wife in an old zinc bath and swim her across the railway line, to reach Arksey and the station.

The floods left the premises in a terrible state and following Herbert's death in 1938, at the age of just 38, Herbert's parents (who lived in Chesterfield) sold the buildings and twelve acres of land to local farmer Reginald Mawson. A mentioned earlier Reginald lived at Shaftholme House and it seems he may have let the Grange out for a few years as it was occupied by Alfred and Hannah Elliott from 1945 to 1949/50. After that the Grange was briefly occupied by William Waite and Frank Saunders but by 1953 they had moved to nearby Shaftholme Farm. 

The last mention of Shaftholme Grange in the Electoral Registers was in 1951, after which it fell into dereliction. It was set alight by children on a couple of occasions. 

The Grange's owner Reginald Mawson, exchanged the buildings for some NCB land near the level crossing and built a new bungalow there.

Over a number of years the buildings crumbled away, until there was no trace of them left, only a dusty looking patch of ground at the side of the lane (above).

For the newspaper cutting on the Drum and Monkey go to Scrapbook.

Cottage Farm

Cottage Farm (Google Earth image)

Cottage Farm is sandwiched between a bungalow and Shaftholme House on Shaftholme Road.

The farm seems to have started life as two cottages, called Shaftholme Cottages, which were mentioned in the Hearth Tax of 1672. Ralph Clay lived in one, while Sara Butler (widow) lived in the other.

At some point the two cottages became amalgamated into one farm and is probably where the name Cottage Farm came from. 

Aerial view of Cottage Farm and one of the original cottages. Courtesy of Lewis Marshall

The next set of records start in 1841 with the census and electoral registers. The Addeman family were dominant throughout the nineteenth century, with firstly Richard Addeman from 1841 to the 1860's, then Thomas Addeman (possibly Richard's son) until 1885.

The records are unclear for the next few decades until 1934 when Thomas Fletcher is named at the farm. He was there until 1948 and the following year he had been succeeded by George Fletcher, possibly his son. George stayed on until at least the mid 1950's.

The last named occupier in the available records is Leonard Myatt in 1959 to 1962, he was the farm foreman for the Mawson's at Shaftholme House, the next property along. As with Shaftholme House, the property appears to have been owned by the NCB at this time as Reginald Mawson was able to exchange some of his property for some of the NCB land here, land on which stood Leonard Myatt's cottage. This cottage was pulled down to make way for a bungalow, which is just visible to the right of the house in the photo below.

Today Cottage Farm has a new house and is run as a cattery and stables.

Cottage Farm cattery and stables

  
Most of the farmland in Shaftholme which was owned by the NCB was sold to the Everatt family, who farmed it for many years. It was then bought by Marshall Farming Ltd, with a small portion being sold to the Booth family.

  

The Railway and Workers Cottages

Shaftholme Junction 1961

When the North Eastern Railway arrived in 1848 the first section of track opened between Knottingley near Askern, and Shaftholme. Passing the very edge of Shaftholme, trains terminated at the recently opened Stockbridge Station (later Arksey Station), where passengers would disembark and continue their journey to Doncaster via horse bus until the line and town station was completed. 

By 1850, the Great Northern Railway, which joined the NER, had completed the line between King's Cross and Shaftholme.

In 1871 the NER opened a direct route between Shaftholme and Selby, joining the GNER line at a junction just north of Shaftholme, thus creating the East Coast Mainline, London to Edinburgh railway. The old NER line became a freight line, mainly transporting coal. 

Shaftholme junction box 1961

The effect of the railway on this tiny, peaceful hamlet must have been troubling at the very least, but it was here to stay and the farming community had to live their lives around it.

One consequence of the railway's arrival was the need for two level crossings on the roads into Shaftholme. Originally there were two routes to Shaftholme from Arksey. Looking at the 1854 map below, there is Marsh Lane highlighted in green to the left of the map and Shaftholme Road, highlighted in green to the right of the map. Originally, Shaftholme Road ran via the red route into the hamlet. As the railway cut the road diagonally, a new route (highlighted in blue) took Shaftholme Road alongside the railway before turning left sharply and crossing the rail line at that point (ringed in brown at the top of the map).

The Marsh Lane route was also intersected by the railway line just north of the Moat at Arksey, so another level crossing was created there (ringed in brown at the bottom of the map).

1854 map showing old and new routes

As level crossings had to be manned by a gatekeeper, this meant new properties would be built to house the gatekeepers and their families.

The new Shaftholme gatehouse first appears on the 1851 census and was occupied by Robert Benson, his wife Jane and their three children. The location of the gatehouse was between the railway line and the old road into Shaftholme, as shown on this map of 1930 (below).

Shaftholme Gatehouse (circled in red) 1930

The gatehouse had a high turnover of tenants, with a different family listed there on just about every census well into the twentieth century. Some of the families listed went by the names of:

• White
• Smith
• Boyer
• Trout
• Longhorn
• Gascoigne
• Probin

Around 1939 George Bullock became the gatekeeper. He and his wife Pauline remained there right up until available online records end in 1962. 

The level crossing became automated in the 1960's ending the role of the gatekeeper. The gatehouse went out of use, and was pulled down. No trace of it exists today.


For more on the Marsh Lane gatehouse go to Arksey and the Railway.

Shaftholme level crossing, Marsh 2017, courtesy of Keith Wilburn 

Railway Cottages

Rare photo taken at Shaftholme railway cottages, courtesy of Lorraine Smith

Once the new GNER line was established, railway workers were needed to maintain the line and operate signals etc. With Shaftholme Junction not far up the line it was necessary to house some railway staff nearby. 

The GNER built four railway cottages at Shaftholme. Three of the cottages were built beside the railway line on Tilts Lane just after the pond, and one more was situated on the opposite side of the line, on a lane called The Balk. Although all the maps only show the cottages on Tilts Lane, I am reliably informed there was the other cottage opposite.  

Location of the railway cottages (Shaftholme Cottages) in 1930

The cottages were probably built in the 1870's as the first railway residents to be counted in the census appear in 1881. These first residents were:

• Walter Suter - railway signalman
• George Farrell - railway labourer
• Charles Tuffnail - railway signalman
• William Wright - railway signalman

As with the gatehouse, there was a high turnover of workers living in the cottages up to about 1918 when a few names start to repeat in successive electoral registers. Some families though settled there for much longer.

Henry Smith had been a railway signalman at Shaftholme since the 1880's. He and his wife Sarah lived at number two Railway Cottages with their sons.  When Henry died in 1907 at the age of fifty three, Sarah stayed on at the cottage with her sons who were also railway workers. She lived there until her death in 1938 at the age of seventy six.

Henry James Moss and his wife Rebecca were other long standing residents at the cottages. They lived at number three, and although nothing else is known about them, they were there from at least 1918 to 1953.

Unfortunately the electoral registers for the years between 1953 and 1959 are missing from the archive at Ancestry, but by 1959 William and Alice Ridge had moved into number two, where the Smith's had previously lived. The photo at the top of this section and the one below were taken outside this property; copies were kindly passed on to me by their Granddaughter Lorraine Smith.

Shaftholme Railway Cottages 1960's, courtesy of Lorraine Smith

  
Probably not long after the above photo was taken the railway cottages were pulled down. They were almost certainly demolished by the mid 1960's and nothing remains on the site today.

Tilts Lane, site of the railway cottages (right), Marsh 2017, courtesy of Keith Wilburn

Bentley Community Woodland

Bentley Community Woodland with Shaftolme top right, Arksey bottom right. Google Earth.

Shaftholme lies on the north eastern edge of the Bentley Community Woodland, an area of land once the home of Bentley Colliery, now restored to become an open space for the community.

Bentley Colliery ceased operating in 1993 and was subsequently demolished during the following two years. The land lay derelict for eight years until Yorkshire Forward and the Homes and Communities Agency decided to restore the land to a community woodland area, just as they were doing on other former pit sites in South Yorkshire.

Information board. Photo courtesy of Keith Wilburn

The area was planted in 2003 and became one of the South Yorkshire Community Woodlands. The Land Restoration Trust took over the ownership of the sites, while the Forestry Commission managed them on their behalf.

The project involved taking the black ex-colliery spoil heaps, landscaping and planting them. The maturing woodlands which sprang up became a haven for flora and fauna.

The Forestry Commission has since ceased managing these sites, handing over to the TCV (The Conservation Volunteers) in October 2016. 

The area today provides a pleasant place to walk or horse ride, with a series of pathways to follow. Ironically, the Marsh Lane route between Arksey and Shaftholme has been reinstated as a footpath, so the old route, interrupted for about a century now exists once again.  

Bentley Community Woodland 2017. Photo courtesy of Keith Wilburn

__________

For part two on Tilts go to Local Hamlets Part Two - Tilts.

For part three on Almholme go to Local Hamlets Part Three - Almholme.

For part four on Stockbridge go to Local Hamlets Part Four - Stockbridge




Alison Vainlo 

Written 2017, revised from an article of 2013, updated 2020.