Scrapbook

Arksey often finds itself in the news, or in print for one reason or another. I have collected quite a few cuttings and interesting items over the years, enough to make up a scrapbook in fact. So here is a virtual scrapbook featuring ephemera from Arksey. Transcriptions of the text appear underneath the images.

Norman Knights Left Their Mark

Doncaster Courier May 23rd 2000, by Grace Paterson

'Building and endowing churches was possibly more of a symbol of power for generations of Norman Knights and their descendants than their manor houses and halls. Masons and carpenters would be thankful for the work and each grand edifice reminded travellers as well as local communities of who was boss and benefactor. While they knelt in prayer they also yielded to the owners of land and property and the makers of laws.

Norman churches are recognised as masterpieces of architecture and craftsmanship and over the centuries they have developed as centres for countless modes of inspirational activity and spiritual refreshment. The ground floor and centre portion of All Saints at Arksey was constructed about 60 years after William of Normandy and his troops conquered England and like many other Norman churches it was built on the site of a less imposing Saxon church.
Adam de Newmarch, a grandson of one of William's most senior soldiers, inherited the estate of Bentley with Arksey in 1123 and he or his father was probably responsible for ordering the first phase of Norman building. The floor space was planned in the form of a crucifix and the church was given a short square tower.

Chancel

Almost all of the first phase of Norman building remains, including the crossing piers, the tower to the top of the lower window, the west front, and north and south transepts and the east end of the church. Narrow slits in the stonework are Norman windows. there is one in the west wall of the north transept, half of another in the north wall of the chancel, and yet another in the bottom storey of the tower. 

In 1180 the north aisle was built and a large round arch was inserted in the north transept wall and between 1180 and 1220 the tower was raised to the bell stage and the south aisle was built in the early 13th century. The north-east chapel was added about 1300 and the south-east chapel was built in the 15th century and a medieval grave or tomb cover - probably ascribed to one of the Newmarch family in the 13th century - was built into the gable of the east wall of the south chapel.

A pre-Reformation altar stone is incorporated into the high altar. The pulpit dates from 1634 and has the initials 'GB' carved on it plus a repetitive design if crosses and arrows. Local craftsmen made the font cover and centre pews in 1662.
Bryan Cooke became lord of the manor in 1636 and one of his descendants, Sir George Cooke engaged Sir George Gilbert Scott to make alterations to the church in 1870. His workmen made the elaborate pew-ends with spherical tops while those that may be described as egg-shaped were made in the 17th century. A great deal of medieval and heraldic glass appears to have been lost during the 19th century alterations but some remains.

Memorial

The tower contains five 17th century bells. A sixth was added in 1897 and two more were installed in 1919 as a memorial to men who had died in the First World War. The organ was constructed by a Mr Abbot of Leeds and installed in 1878. The parish records date from 1557 and were deposited with Sheffield City Archives some years ago and made available for inspection on the production of a note of authorisation signed by the vicar.'

Guarding the heart of a 17th century village for future generations

Doncaster Star summer 1991, by Penny Baddeley

'One of Doncaster borough's most picturesque villages is to be turned into a conservation area. Part of Arksey will be given the protection to preserve its special character for future generations. Councillors made the decision after hearing a report from planners listing the architectural and historic attractions of the village. The report says: "Arksey contains a number of important buildings, a fine medieval church and some good examples of 17th century houses."

Eight Listed

The conservation area will be confined to the centre of the village which boasts at least eight listed buildings. These include All Saints Church on High Street, which is a Grade 1 listed building and forms the focal point of the village. Other listed buildings on High Street include The Old School House, Cooke's Almshouses and a pair of cottages. Also listed are Arksey Vicarage on Church Lane, Arksey Hall on Marsh Lane and Brook House Farmhouse on Station Road. 

The Roundabout Moat - an ancient monument - and a nearby field will also form part of the conservation area. Coun Peter Birks who represents Arksey, is one of a number of local councillors who pressed for part of the village to be made a conservation area.

Gratifying

He said "We are very pleased to see that this has gone through. Arksey has lost a lot of its heritage in the past and it is gratifying to know the rest will be preserved for future generations."

A Journey Into The Past

A book published by Bentley With Arksey Heritage Society

Book cover

The following is an unknown newspaper article about the publication of the book in 1991. By Alan Berry.

'Encouraged by increasing public support, Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society is about to launch its first publication, A Journey Back in Time, and is preparing a major exhibition at its own heritage centre in August (1991). The Society will also join with others in the village events commemorating the Bentley Pit Disaster 60 years ago in November. Alan Berry talks to members Lynn Jackson, Deb Hagland and Padraig Madden. 

"The Right Honourable Doncaster Josse" - such is the caption - faces the camera for what is probably the one and only picture of him ever taken. Roughly clad, stick over his shoulder, unsmiling, this, they will tell you at Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society, is the man after whom Jossey Lane is named. 

Jossey Lane, home for hundreds, known to thousands, runs from Bentley to Scawthorpe and few, if any, of its residents may never give a thought to Josse or Jossey, the man they commemorate every time they write down their address.
But his full length photograph will be one of many, most of them unpublished, to appear in A Journey Back in Time. Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society's first publication due in early August.

Illegitimate

Legend has it - "and we would wish to be very careful about this," says Lynn Jackson (archivist) Padraig Madden (publicity) and Deb Hagland - that Doncaster Josse, or Bentley Josse as he was also called, lived in a hut in what is now called Jossey Lane around the turn of the century, and that he was the illegitimate son of a distant member of the Battie-Wrightson family. 

And the story also goes ("and we have done our research among the local community") that once a month a member of that ancient family long associated with Cusworth Hall would meet "Josse" in the street and pay him an allowance.
Every member of the Society has contributed something to this 40 page volume, which is largely sepia photographs and crisp captions. We have more than enough pictures, say the members, but we are sure that there are still many Bentley and Arksey people who have fine photographs hidden away. These would form the nucleus of the exhibition which will open in conjunction with the book launch. An aerial view of Bentley about 1926 is one such photograph recently discovered. 

But new pictures are always turning up in the most unexpected places. Deb Hagland was at Newark Fair a couple of weeks ago, and came across a photograph about 1900 of Finkle Street as a lane with a stile. "The man wanted £6; I beat him down to a fiver." That will be in the book, along with Josse and a lot more. 

Like the funeral cortege passing through the floods, the coffin seemingly about to float off; like the New Village Ladies Football Club of 1921; or Bentley Mill, mill chimney and pond. 

Enlargements of some of these pictures will also be available to order, either framed or mounted.
Bentley with Arksey are more fortunate than some of the now numerous similar societies. they have their own heritage centre HQ in Bentley Library, where they meet every Friday. A loan of £1,600 by their president, Sir David Cooke of Harrogate, whose family connection with the area goes back 500 years, will be repaid through sales of the book (price forecast, about £3.50). 

The society has not yet got down to much serious history-writing. As Lynn says: "We are not yet in a position to begin the big one, but that will come. The material, especially our recording of personal memoirs, is building up." 

Meanwhile photographers like Padraig, who has a professional interest in old photographs, and Doug Scattergood are recording the changing scene in Bentley today. 

In November this year, however, all Bentley will look back to the village's darkest hour - that day, 60 years ago, when 43 men were killed in an explosion at the colliery.

Disaster

The society, through Padraig, its press and publicity officer, is asking for photographs, memories, pieces of information, any kind of memorabilia so that a complete picture can be built up of events that day, and the aftermath. 

"We know that the effects of the disaster continued long afterwards, we believe that widows had to beg money for their children's shoes; that some people were quite badly treated," said Padraig. 

The society will have a joint exhibition with the help of British coal, the miner's unions and the church, at St Philip and St James's Church in Victoria Road. It will then move to Bentley Library, and may conclude at the pit itself. 

There will be the usual memorial service, held every year, and other events when it is hoped that at some point the survivors or their relatives can be brought together.' 

Smoke-filled memories of the Bentley Triangle

Unknown newspaper article from 1991 by Stephen McClarence

'The Bermuda Triangle is not news. The Bentley Triangle may be.  

I used to live in it, 15 years ago - up on the North West Frontier of Doncaster, over the river and under the railway bridge ... and it's the smoking you remember. 

The bus to Bentley, every last window shut, and four dozen people with fags in their mouths. Hermetically sealed nicotine. Dense smoke swirling over the shopping bags and the kiddies' pushchairs, fathers smoking, mothers smoking, kiddies smoking, plastic cigarettes stuck in the kiddies' dolls' mouths. 

"Got a fag?" says one whippet to another as we trundle over North Bridge, a gigantic filter tip on wheels. The whole bus coughs in unison at the end of Royston Avenue. 

You'd go to the doctor - long wooden benches in the waiting room full of people smoking. If you went in with a cold, you came out with bronchitis. 

Now I can't vouch for the doctor's waiting room, but 15 years on, the buses seem to be smoke free - even if the rest of the Bentley Triangle looks quite startlingly unchanged.  

No cheap jokes, please. Motorists may sometimes drive into the Triangle and never come out again. It may occasionally seem a place where hopes mysteriously wilt and die. 

But it isn't. The Bentley Triangle - a triangle (aptly enough) of roads - is the site of a proposed business and leisure park, with hotel, conference centre, cinema, restaurant and filling station. some of those will be new to Bentley. 

Bordered by York Road, Bentley Road and Watch House Lane, the Triangle includes a school, a rugby ground, a stretch of grassland and my old flat over the greengrocers.
Selective memories of my three and a half years there have come dribbling back this week thanks to A Journey into the Past, a newly published book of photographs from Bentley-With-Arksey Heritage Society. 

Bentley-with-Arksey! What a glorious coupling of communities! And what a misleading one. 

Bentley - red bricked and grey-slated, terraces and back alleys and corner shops selling thick-sliced bread and altogether dusty and urban and sprawling, but not quite a town and certainly not a village. 

And Arksey - very much a village with its buff stone cottages and its semis and its medieval church, respectably - oh how respectably - poised between suburbia and the limitless flat-field countryside north of Doncaster. 

Bentley-Without-Arksey really. But Bentley-With-Arksey it is - and was, in the days of Bentley-With-Arksey Urban District Council, or Bentley-With-Arksey UDC (which I always imagined must be a sort of milk).

Coffins

This was local government at its most urban and district and a grand name to have engraved on silver cups to be presented at Bentley Carnival. 

The Carnival, one sunny September Saturday afternoon in the early 1970's was my first taste of a local Show. It was brass bands and baby contests, bouncy pit head gear and leeks laid reverently out on trestle tables for old men in collapsed flat caps to muse over. 

They grew them on Bentley Allotments, where more old men turned wooden huts into second homes and brewed tea in blackened kettles and spent whole days, apart from slipping home for dinner with soil-soiled potatoes wrapped in the newspaper I worked for. 

With the bile-curdling smell from the animal by-products factory lingering on its street corners on warm afternoons and still summer evenings, it seemed a community preserved magically intact from the 1940's. 

And its nicely recalled in A Journey into the Past, the £3.75 result of many Friday night Heritage Society meetings at Bentley Library over the past three years. 

Forty pages of pictures of rural byways and everybody dolled up for chapel anniversary services and the Daw Wood Rangers and the New Village Ladies Football team and, a few pages on, an amazing picture - 20 coffins in a communal grave for the 1931 Bentley Pit Disaster.  

Windows with net curtains and children in fancy dress to celebrate the launch of the Daily Herald and floods every other week and the soup kitchens for the general strike and the NUM banner on the march and children on picket duty at the 1913 Bentley School strike. 

But not one bus. And no-one smoking.'

Strange Tales From Bentley

Unknown newspaper article from June 1992

'George Hemsley of Bentley and Arksey Heritage Society lectured to pupils and over 60's at Don Valley School recently. He illustrated his talk - based on tape recordings - with pictures provided by fellow member Doug Scattergood. They invited ALAN BERRY to listen in. This is an edited version. 

George used to be a miner down Bentley. A Councillor, too. Retired now. Everyone in the village knows George; goes round talking to the old folk, recording what they tell him of the early days. Putting it on tape, transcribing it. For posterity. 

George would fix up to have a chat with this elderly lady, that old gentleman. They'd get kettle on, and they'd fetch out the cardboard box full of owd photographs, and they'd talk. Talk the teapot dry, talk until the sun went down ... About their families, the births and the deaths, the pit disaster, the floods, the poverty. The good times and the bad and sad times. And talk especially about Bentley and Toll Bar, in the early days, when a rural idyll, through which ran a sparkling mill stream, became a colliery village. 

"I'm not a good speaker" warns George. "I'll do my best."
But they listen enraptured. they have lived through these times; this is their story, told their way. 

First, the man who tells George all about the bus service (or lack of it). 

"I first came to Toll Bar in 1916. We were part of the exodus from Nottingham and Derby to the Eldorado called Yorkshire. Mother, four children and the youngest two months old, three trains to get to Doncaster. Then a two-mile walk to Toll Bar on a damp dreary night ..." 

After detailing all the bus operators for over 50 years, we learn about Jim Holmes. 

"Jim Holmes was a coal dealer delivering home coal. He advanced from horse and cart to a two-ton petrol lorry. After tea he swept it, washed it, and put on it a makeshift bus body; sort of a shed with a door at the end and six upholstered seats, either side, and some steps." 

"The only illumination was a tiny bulb that was also the rear light. He used this contraption to ferry people to Doncaster from 5.30 to midnight. 

Next, the terrors of a first day down the mine for a child of 14.

"I left school in 1924, saw the under manager, got a job. Monday morning I was given a seven pound lamp, made my way to the gantry, to the onsetter, then the cage. Down for the first time. It was terrible. By the time I got to the pit bottom I was absolutely scared stiff. In some places there were no lights at all. I had to open ventilation doors for the pony drivers, then I learned pony driving, pulling tubs, 15cwt of coal. Then they took me off pony driving." 

"They said I was too old, and an agitator. I heard it said that a horse was more value to Barber Walker (the mine owners) than a man ..." 

"When we were on short time they put a notice up saying 'This colliery has six days work this month.' They didn't tell you which days the six were going to be." 

" If there was going to be no afternoon shift, starting at 2pm the pit buzzer would go three times at noon. You had to wait for the buzzer to know if there'd be work." 

"If there were no work, we'd sign on for half a crown a day unemployment. If we worked two days, there was three days unemployment. If we worked three days, there was none." 

"We had to boil water for the menfolks' bath in the houses. In a family of miners, there was always a rush to be the first in the bathwater. Old miners didn't care much for pithead baths. they'd never wash their backs. They said having a bath every day gave them a bad back." 

"Everyone had bad backs. In the Dunsil you couldn't straighten up. I allus had four slices of bread and dripping for snap. And a bottle of cold water. You ate where you were working. I stayed on the face until I had a bad accident. A slab of roof came down. I just couldn't get out of the way ..."

George records an elderly lady: 

I lived in Railway cottages when there was a Bentley brewery, I remember cottages called Piccadilly and Little London." 

"Cows were herded through the village. Mother used to boil milk at night with lumps of fat bacon in it and we didn't get colds like they do today. There was always plenty of milk and a big piece of beef on the table." 

"Nurse Woodhouse was midwife. If you were walking along and you were going to want the midwife 'cos you were pregnant and you saw her passing on her bike you just put your hand up, and she knew you were pregnant. She put your name in her little book to visit you." 

" I remember Bentley Joss ( a local character) and Sally Blacking Tin. She used to have blacking (black lead for grates) and we used to shout 'Sally Blacking Tin' and run off. She was after us. She had a knife ..." 

And another elderly lady goes on the record: 

"We lived in a cottage where the Catholic Church is now. There was no ceiling. You could see tiles and rafters. When the wind blew there was a lot of dust and dirt." 

"There was a pump on the side of the sink. No taps. For our washing water we had tubs near the toilet to catch the rain. In a bad summer dad took a barrel on a handcart to the mill dyke to wash ourselves." 

An Arksey lady born 1909:  

"Water came from the pump. We used to do washing in the garden under the apple trees. It was so olde worldy. When they pulled our cottage down (in Almholme Lane) they moved the fireplace and cooking range and discovered a secret door and a secret room." 

"I was brought up by my grandmother and one day she was pushing my pram when a lady on a white horse (gentry) asked her what was I to be called. she said 'If you call the child after me I will keep her in clothes for the rest of my life.' So I was kept in clothes until I grew up."

Alms and the Men

Unknown publication from 1998

'Alms and the men: Two unemployed teenagers from Doncaster are helping to restore 12 17th-century almshouses as part of a project to create jobs and training for the local unemployed. Anthony Hodder, 18, of Arksey, left, and Mark Griffiths, 19, of Barnby Dun, have been signed up by a contractor to work on the Cooke Almshouses in Arksey. The houses are being redeveloped for elderly and vulnerable local people.'

Almshouses Handed Over

Doncaster Advertiser February 4th 1999

'Former almshouses which have been restored in an eight-month project to provide homes for the elderly were handed over to a charitable trust. 

The Grade II listed Cooke Almshouses in Arksey have been redeveloped to provide housing for older and more vulnerable people. 

Built in 1660 with a bequest from Sir Bryan Cooke they are of special architectural and historical interest and have lain empty since 1991. Original rooms have now been combined into six units each with a living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Two have been specially adapted for people with disabilities. 

The restoration project was initiated by the trustees, who have been assisted since October 1996 by a working group comprising representatives from Doncaster Council's Planning and Design Services, Housing Services, Law, Property and Administrative Services, Trustees of the Cooke Almshouse Charity, the South Yorkshire Buildings Preservation Trust, Anchor Housing and Building Link Design. The project is part of Doncaster Council's Housing Association Development Programme financed by the Housing Corporation  and Anchor Housing Trust and was also funded through grants from the Cooke Almshouse Charity, the National Almshouse Association, the South Yorkshire Buildings Preservation Trust, Doncaster Council and private sponsors. 

Now an official opening is to be held in the spring but it is hoped that the new tenants will move in during the next few weeks. 

Pictured is Stephanie Higginson, Chair of the charity's trustees, who accepted keys to the properties from Russell Drinkall (centre) of R Shepherd Ltd on behalf of the Cooke Almshouse Charity and Sir David Cooke, a trustee and descendant of the benefactor.' 

Your Church?

A strange little cutting that someone once gave me, I've no idea of its origins

'It is a pleasant village just off the Great North Road. Near a town where butterscotch is made. Answer at foot of page. 

1 - General Portington, who distinguished himself in the Civil War lies here near a memorial describing him. 

2 - The famous Scrope family were associated with the church at one period, having acquired estates hereabouts through marriage. 

3 - Another historical figure remembered here was Sir John Falstaff, the burly knight immortalised by Shakespeare. 

4 - The five bells in the central tower were rehung in 1897 at the expense of a parishioner who also paid for a new temor bell and provided an annuity for the regular ringing of a peal. 

5 - Some of the pews with bobbin ends, and the canopied pulpit, are from the 17th century.'

  

The Drum and Monkey

Unknown publication, courtesy of Colin Hardisty

 

'I like to include at the end of most articles a request for information, especially if I don’t have much information on a subject and they rarely draw a blank. 

But a couple of months ago one spot featured a long gone public house, the Drum & Monkey near Toll Bar. 

Despite a couple of calls, for which I was most grateful, I was none the wiser, however a meeting with Geoff Elvin in the Trades and Labour Club turned out to be extremely interesting when he showed me a letter that made for an interesting but tantalizingly incomplete read.

The Drum & Monkey was built to cater for workers who toiled on the Hull and Barnsley railway lines, no date known but in 1915 the building was still a farmhouse.

The first people living there were called Lovely who owned a few cows, a horse and a float used to deliver the milk in Arksey and Bentley. Then came the Gun family with four boys and two girls who all attended Arksey school, who moved on to Sutton around 1927. 

The Mottishaw’s took over the place and continued to deliver milk bought from neighbouring farms to deliver by bicycle. 

But in 1932 there was a terrible flood. Before it became too serious the father managed to evacuate his children to Arksey but the following day the water rose dramatically and cut off the Drum & Monkey. Mr Mottishaw put his wife in his old zinc bath and swam her across the main London to Newcastle line where they walked to Arksey station. 

After the floods the premises were in a poor state and a farmer called Reg Mawson from Shaftholme bought the buildings and twelve acres of land from the Mottishaw’s parents who lived at Chesterfield. 

The farm was rented from the NCB and when he retired he exchanged the buildings for some of the land and had a bungalow built just near Shaftholme railway crossing. 

There seems to be no hard information on when the pub became a farm and vice versa or when it finally closed down (was it following the floods?) but it became rapidly derelict and was set alight twice by children, the fire brigade being called down the narrow lane. 

Bit by bit the structure disappeared until there is now no trace at all, just ploughed fields, all of which leaves me more enlightened but still curious.'

All Saints' Arksey Church News

I saved this copy of the regular parish magazine because it has my wedding announcement in it. April 1987.

These should be large enough to read without transcribing them.

WW1 Centenery 1914 - 2014

This article was published in the 'Owston Parish Magazine', September 2014 issue. Written by Christine Holliday from research carried out by Christine and myself. To read my version of this article go to Sarah Lizzie Harris - The Story of a Grave.

Front Cover

Coronation Celebrations 1953

Cutting courtesy of Den Lowe.

Den has this memory to go with the cutting above:

"On that day I went from Arksey school on a Dray around the village dressed as a Coldstream Guard, I was six years old and received a red and gold money box in the shape of a crown."

This is a photo of Den's money box which he has kept all these years.

In the above cutting Elsie Lowe is mentioned as one of the fancy dress prizewinners. Below is a photo of Elsie on her wedding day with her brother George Lowe. Arksey Church 1957.

Photo courtesy of Den Lowe.

Coronation Celebration Programme

Courtesy of Gina Mason

Front cover

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Back cover

Filming in the Churchyard

Cutting sent in by Janet Roberts on behalf of Jean Cranshaw.

Doncaster Evening Post June 30th 1976
The assistant cameraman David Frost (left) and Graeme Jones, film some of the "extras".

'Who said the British Film Industry was dead? Down in a churchyard in Arksey, there are twenty schoolchildren intent upon disproving the rumour.  

A group of nine-year-olds from Arksey First and Middle School are this week making a "picture" that has everything - drama, historical interest, music, costume, the supernatural, and child stars. 

Under the guidance of form-teacher Howard Connell, the kids have written the story for their twelve minute movie, they have done the research, learnt the parts, composed and played the music-score, and are about to commit it to celluloid, as their own cameramen.

Storyline

The storyline is as follows: a group of children, wandering round a churchyard, come upon two gravestones (made, as you might expect, by these enterprising youngsters) dedicated to two Victorian children who died one hundred years ago. 

Then the ghosts of the children - called Benjamin and Victoria - rise from the grave. Some of the modern children run off, others stay for an exchange of games played by the Victorians and the twentieth century youngsters - including skipping, shuttlecock and battledore, and hoops.  

Then the more timid of their number return, accompanied by a vicar - played by Arksey Church's own incumbent, Mr William Hossent - just in time for Benjamin and Victoria to disappear, leaving the bemused vicar to berate the apparently misinformed pupils. 

"So far as I know, this is the first film experiment of its kind in the Doncaster area," says Headmaster Richard Brooks. 

Whatever the underlying motives for the experiment, there can be little doubt as to the success of the film with the children: "Exciting", they say, "great fun", "better than just staying in the classroom." 

When the film is completed, it is to be shown to the class, and perhaps to parents. 

With all their enthusiasm, Warner Brothers had better start looking to their laurels.'

Arksey Victoria Football Club

Doncaster Advertiser 21 May 1987, courtesy of Margaret Tarren

'From left to right: F Tarren (treasurer), M. Evison, E Byrne, A. Gray, K. Staff, E. England, R. Milner, S. Palmer, D. Hemsley (secretary). 

Front row: L. Job (manager), C. Atkinson, P. Foster, K. Gregory (capt.), I Jennings, H. Stainwright.'

Men - and women - excelled at soccer in thriving Arksey teams

Doncaster Courier 25 November 1997, courtesy of Ian Butterfield

'Ladies as well as young men have been known to excel at football and in 1947 Arksey teams were riding high in their respective football leagues. 

Up to 1950, the footballers rented a succession of farmers' fields, marking out their own pitch and erecting their own goal posts. Bentley Council then purchased one of the fields and so the footballers had a permanent pitch. 

When the young members of Arksey Youth Club formed their team for the 1946/47 season, the coach's wife Peggy Ellis recalls buying all the shorts in Woolworths for either sixpence or ninepence a pair. 

The first youth club started in the Methodist chapel which was near the almshouses off High Street and then in 1953, Coronation year, about 14 Arksey residents met to form the present youth club, which up to 1974 was under the wing of Bentley Council. 

George Ellis was officially on leave at the end of his army service, after being stationed overseas, when the 1946/47 team was formed and he was persuaded to be the coach. Maurice Foster, the captain of the football team, became the landlord of the Druids Arms in Bentley for 24 years.  

Later, George saw a number of the young men progress at 18 to the Bentley Intermediate Football League and also captained the Arksey cricket team for several years. 

In 1961, Arksey Cricket Club won the Doncaster and District Cricket League Third Division championship cup in a match held on Thorne Recreation Ground. The following year, the club became League and Championship winners with the final played on Pilkington's Recreation Ground. 

Other very active sections of Arksey Youth Club were the cycling and swimming members but tragically one of the young men drowned in the Ouse while on a cycling trip to York. 

Peggy recalls country fairs and gala days being highlights of the annual calendar in Arksey as well as the street party for the Coronation. 

Gwen Senior was a member of the Arksey ladies team which played against Rotherham in January 1947 but she could not be in the photograph because Maurice Foster needed his boots back to play in the young men's team. 

In those days the ladies could not afford their own boots and shorts and had to borrow from the boys.'

The Photos in Detail

'Arksey Ladies' Football team 1947. Back row: Mrs Madge Charles, Mrs Hannah Burt, Mrs Mycock (goalie), Mrs Peacock (stewardess at Arksey Club). Front row: Mrs Violet Mycock, Mrs Bugg, Mrs Peggy Ellis, Mary Mycock, Mrs Alma Sharpe.'

'Arksey Youth Club football team 1946/47. Left to right back row: George Ellis (coach), Frank Skeith (Snowy), Peter Rowlands, Frank Humphries, Billy Fairbrother, Alan Foster, Eddie Bullock, Alan Unsworth, Leon Rowlands, Eric Flint (club secretary). Front row: Fred Barthorp, Maurice Foster (captain), Stan Sanders, Ken Charlesworth, Ken Pittaway, Dennis Middleton.'

"Mercury" Pictures of Flood Havoc in South Yorkshire.

The Leeds Mercury 6th March 1933, courtesy of Sheila Seymour

The text on this cutting is almost impossible to make out, but here are the photos cropped from it and my own brief explanations.

                Flood photo taken from Arksey church tower.

Boys using an improvised raft to punt along High Street, Arksey.

Rescue for a resident on a street in Bentley

This picture (below) is from a further cutting from the same publication.

Bentley farmers carrying two young pigs through the floods

Reminder of a Royal Feast that Cost a Pound

From an unknown publication.

'When Arksey decided to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in a big way, the spread cost just over £1. 

And 80-year old Mrs Gertude Tagg, of the Almshouses, Arksey, near Doncaster, has the bill to prove it.  

For Mrs Tagg is the daughter of the butcher and general grocer who laid on the food for the feast. She is also Arksey's oldest resident 

Judging by the order placed with her father, Thomas Johnson, the Jubilee Committee weren't exactly out to bloat themselves. The rather austere order was for 20 lbs. of beef, some sugar and tea, and two stone of flour. 

Mrs Tagg was handed the bill by a friend at a whist drive at the local church hall.

"My Dad's!"

Said Mrs Tagg: "There was this young fellow and he asked me if I would be interested in something, and showed me the bill. He handed it to me and I said: 'Oh, it's my Dad's!' I never dreamed of anyone finding anything like that." 

Her father was the only butcher and grocer in the village, which now has no butcher's shop at all. 

In June 1897, 20lb. of beef cost the committee a mere 13s. 4d. Two pounds of tea for the jubilee banquet set them back 3s. 8d., and for seven pounds of sugar they had to fork out 1s. 5 1/2d. 

Now she plans to keep the bill to show her 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.'

Further to this piece :-

I was able to work out when this was published by researching when Gertrude Tagg (nee Johnson) was born and adding her age (80 years). She was born in November 1889, which dates this article to 1969 or 1970.

Below is a photo of Thomas Henry Johnson (1854 - 1929), Gertrude Tagg's father. 

Yorkshire Chief of Pig Board

Unknown publication 7th April 1934, courtesy of Sheila Seymour

New Chairman.

_____

Mr. J. A. Fox of Arksey

Elected

_____

'New officers of the Pig Marketing Board were appointed at the first meeting of the newly constituted board held at the offices of the Board. 

Mr. J. A. Fox, of Almholme, Arksey, Doncaster, was appointed chairman, and Lord Radnor, of Longford Castle, Salisbury, vice-chairman. 

The former chairman of the board was Captain E. T. Morris. 

When three special members were elected to the board at a general meeting in February of registered producers under the Pig Marketing Scheme, Captain Morris was unsuccessful. 

Five candidates were nominated and the three elected were Lord Radnor, Mr. E. W. Langford, and Major C. M. Higgins. They had large majorities. 

The other unsuccessful candidate was Mr. J. P. Evans, a Gloucestershire farmer. The result of this election was to displace the chairman of the Board. 

The National Farmers' Union was left to arrange for the nomination of candidates and Captain Morris's name was not included. 

At the election meeting a vote of thanks was passed to Captain Morris for his services to the pig industry, and many of those present joined in singing "For he's a jolly good fellow." 

Mr. J, A. Fox, the new chairman, was appointed in December a representative of the Pig Marketing Board on a committee set up by the Ministry of Agriculture to assist the home bacon industry in connection with the pig and bacon marketing schemes.'

Busy Fingers At Arksey

Unknown Publication courtesy of Ian Rockett

Willing hands for the job of cleaning up the village of Arksey . . . these members of the local youth club - from left, Lesley Crawford (15), Mark Perkin (16), John Grat (15) and Sue James (14) - were among those taking part In the Arksey Pride Project. Their tasks include clearing up ditches, footpaths and open ground, repairing a seat on Station Road and finishing the painting of public toilets.

Through Three Ridings

Unknown publication from about 1940, courtesy of Liz Jackson

I launch to-day's column - which concerns the village of Arksey, near Doncaster - with a snatch of a song I'm sometimes foolish enough to attempt at parties....

Behold, a giant am I,

Aloft here in my tower. 

Though Mr. Price (the Rev. J. P. Price, the Rector, to be formal) is no giant in stature, we can imagine him aloft there in his church tower, hand over his eyes, looking out over the farms.

For every few years they get floods in the district, and local folk have come to look at their Rector to warn them of impending inundation.

Grand material for sermons, I should say.

We can imagine him, like stout Cortez, staring out over the watery waste. Or think of him as Casablanca or the Dutch boy who put his finger in the dyke, completing the composite picture with a hint of Grace Darling.

Imagine him calling on the rescuing rowers with a merry "Heave-ho, me hearties," and encouraging the marooned folk with his cheery "Keep smiling".

Yes we can imagine a lot.

*

Arksey folk don't want any floods, but you know what our summers are. A picture comes to my mind of holidaymakers sitting inside the landlady's bay window and staring dully out between the aspidistras at the streaming rain and the empty prom.

Depressing thought.

The village has had rectors since 1200; so the pleasant church is old. The clock bears the marks of time, too - and I mean that two ways. It needs regilding.

Mr Price who went to Arksey 11 years ago from Mexborough and South Wales before that fished slips of yellowing paper out of an envelope.

"Tremendously precious, all these things," he mentioned. "Antiquaries get excited over them."

Ancient receipts for money collected in the parish, Arksey seems to have given generously in its day.

The sum of £2 went to help those who suffered by the Great Fire of London. Arksey also helped plague victims, contributed to the building of the parish church at Pontefract, paid towards the spreading of the Gospel in far away New England.

Had I seen a traveller's pass? We poured over the antique writing of a document that told about Hannah Stewards, how she had been stripped and robbed, and required parish constables to help her on her way from Bentley to friends in Durham.

Poor old soul, we thought to ourselves.

*

Choirmaster, master bell-ringer and people's warden - Mr. George Clark is all those things and he trains a juvenile team of boys and girls aged 14 to 18 in bell-ringing.

Arksey numbers 14 farms. some of the farmers are Mr. T. Brookfield, Mr. Frank Auty, Mr. Andrew Massarella (who's brother Lewis is a popular farmer at nearby Bentley), Mr. Reg Mawson, Mr. A. Preston and Mr. Walter Thornton.

And there are many keen gardeners.

*

Mr. Thornton had been at his farm 38 years, believed his house was a "pub" called the Barley Mow at one time.

Another farmhouse was once the Drum and Monkey, and Mr. Maurice Wilson's house near the almshouses was a hostelry once upon a time, it is said.

"But then," said Mr. Wilf. Thornton, with a grin, "everybody kept a pub in Arksey in the old days."

Mr. Rowlands, secretary of the Victoria Club, thought there was the Hammer and Wedge in Taylor's Yard... "but that[s] 50 or 60 years before my time - I'm only 80."

One of his jokes.

Mrs. Hobson has only been there about five years, though she has known Arksey nearly 20.

A handsome grey cat rubbed past me. The Plough Inn faces the church. The only one; there were once six.

*

By Arksey Hall to the picturesque High-street, farm stacks one side of the irregular street, stone walls and red-tiled roofs. The old school endowed by Sir Charles Cooke [should read 'George'], has its main entrance walled up.

Then opening a yellow-brown door in an archway, a surprise view of little houses ranged round a neat square. Almshouses, all for women.

Mrs. Lucy Warner, 73 now, has been there longest - 21 years. Her canary Maggie is "a bit o' company."

Each has her little plot, and, "We do as best we can. A few cabbages, peas and beans. I set some cabbages, but I think they've gone back home."

Mrs. Spink likes to grow flowers mainly, but .. "I'm 73, and age tells when you want to do a lot o' work. I've had eight children and brought seven up, worked hard all me life."

No Golden Sheaves of Corn

Tragedy of Arksey's Harvest Festival Celebration.

17 Farms - Two Acres of Oats

Unknown publication of 1932, courtesy of Liz Jackson

The Floods at Arksey

In September 1931, the little village of Arksey was inundated by flood water.

In May 1932, the village was again flooded. Fields were six feet deep in water, and the roadways were impassable.

The farmers of the village drove their cattle to other and drier lands. Seventeen farmers in that tiny parish have lost approximately £5,000. 

They are just beginning life afresh in the village of brave hearts.... 

Autumn leaves are falling in Arksey, and Autumn has crept softly into the lives of many of the farmers there; but the advancing years have brought no rest. Five months ago the farmers of Arksey drove their cattle out of the flooded pasture lands, and sorrowfully faced ruin by flood. In a few hours the rising waters had destroyed the work of a lifetime, and left the pretty little village in a lake.

They are beginning life anew now; hard work lies ahead of them; sorrowfully, steadfastly, they are coming to grips with a future that is fraught with difficulty, and already new hopes and lives are rising on the ruins of the past.

I spent the best part of yesterday in Arksey, and it was then I met them; the people who have known a great sadness, and who are forced to begin life anew.

It is in this stricken village on Sunday that a drama will be enacted - a drama both touching and tragic.

For it is then that these hard-hit farmers, these men who have seen their lands soured and ruined by the flood waters last May, who have stood by and seen their newly-sewn crops washed out of the ground by rippling rivers of water from the Don, will attend a harvest festival in the old Parish Church.

It will be a strange and ironical celebration of "harvest home." For miles around the ancient church lie the desolate and barren corn lands: even the church with its damp foundations, subsiding grave yard, and toppling tombstones is a lasting memorial to the floods last May.

 

Sour Fields

There will be no lavish decoration in the tiny church; only a few flowers and a little fruit. No mellow sheaves of corn will adorn the altar, and there will be no produce from the fields to decorate the church.

For they told me in Arksey that only one farmer has harvested this year in that unhappy parish; he had reaped barely two acres of oats.

The other sixteen farmers of Arksey have not led an ear of corn between them. Their reapers rust in the farm buildings, for the fields are sour. They have not yielded a grain of corn, and there has not been a day's threshing in the whole village....

I shall not be in that village of brave hearts on Sunday, but about eleven o'clock I shall think of the bells at Arksey calling the people to church; and I shall think of great-hearted men and women leaving their farmsteads and cottages to thank their Maker for the crops of their more fortunate fellow.

Irony and tragedy will walk hand in hand to that church door at Arksey, but I am confident they will not be allowed to enter. I know because I have talked to those who live there; in the post office and general store is a woman who has known more sorrow and misfortune than most people, even in this stricken area. Twice within the last 12 months has she been forced to leave her dwelling because of the flood water. Twice has her slender stock of provisions been ruined and her home made unfit for human habitation.

 

"It Comes Hard."

We sat in that shop of tragedy yesterday - some half dozen customers and I - and we talked of the unhappiness that roams unbidden through this pretty village, whose very name is said to mean "liable to flooding."

"It comes hard," said an old lady, whose home was still befouled by the floods of last May. And that was all she had to say. Just "it comes hard..."

"And what about the farmers?" I asked. An old man turned from the counter. "They are not farmers any longer," he said. "They are muck-shifters and scavengers," and he walked heavily out of the shop. And the old man was right. The men of the land at Arksey are not farming; they are still cleaning up their fields; they are still ploughing the land to sweeten it. Yet not one of those people I met in the shop had any complaint; they don't squeal.

A house I entered in the village smelt abominably. The housewife understood. "The floods did it," she explained.

The tree-fringed meadow lands are still like vast green sponges, and no cattle graze on them; the water that rippled over them for so long has poisoned the ground.

The great barns adjoining the farms are less than half-filled. They tell their own story of flood and disaster. The work of a lifetime has been all undone in one tragic month. The farmers have seen the work of years topple about their ears, over £5,000 has been lost by them in this parish alone - and it consists of but 1,000 souls. I could tell you what each farmer has lost - in some cases it is nearly £1,000.

Yet these villagers have not despaired. Steadily, courageously, they have put their hands to the plough again, and are preparing to re-build their shattered lives and fortunes. Life is very real here.

And on Sunday they will assemble in the church for the harvest festival; to a lesser people it would be a bitter mockery; to the people of Arksey it will still be a thanksgiving - a thanksgiving for the good fortune of others, and an emblem of faith.

E. W. C.

The Yorkshire Observer Budget

Friday 10 March 1933, courtesy of Liz Jackson

The following photographs and article are taken from the above named newspaper, documenting the floods of March 1933. Following on from two devastaing floods in 1931 and 1932, this flood seems to have been the result of snow melt following a great blizzard. 

The newspaper in its original form

The newspaper includes pictures and stories from all parts of Yorkshire affected by these floods. Below are cropped images from the Bentley and Arksey areas.

From the front cover
Rev J. P. Price (right, holding his arm out to the lady), helping people into
boats on Church Lane, Arksey.

Rafting on High Street, near the Plough Inn

The old smithy lies on the left of this photo, taken from the church tower,
the path leads to fields at the back, the railway and Bentley pit

Throstle cottages, just off High Street, surrounded by flood water

An unnamed street in Bentley

The Article

The following article has been edited to focus on the Bentley and Arksey areas, with the exception of the opening paragraphs.

Article on the floods which affected large parts of south and east Yorkshire

Widespread Floods in Yorkshire

Families Living in Schools

Government Urged to take Vigorous Action

As a result of the continued overflowing of the Ouse and Don, hundreds of people in the low-lying districts of South and East Yorkshire spent last week-end in great anxiety, marooned in the upper storeys of their homes.

The Ouse at York was on Sunday 13 feet above its normal level, and was still rising. Boats had to be used in the village street of Ryther, between Tadcaster and Selby. At some of the churches in South Yorkshire prayers were offered for the abatement of the flood waters, which devastated the Doncaster district for many miles around. Several hamlets were cut off from communication, except by boat.

The Bentley Urban Council has made an appeal to the Government to deal with the constant menace to the health, comfort, and property of the people of Bentley and Arksey.

The Vicar's All-Night Watch.

The River Don overflowed its banks in many places between Doncaster and Thorne, with the result that miles of corn and pasture land became a huge lake, and serious loss was sustained through damage to crops, farm buildings, and stock.

Almhome, a little village five miles north of Doncaster, caught the floods worst, and was completely marooned. There only one family had left before the water cut off communications.

The others took refuge in the upper parts of their premises.

Another village badly flooded was Arksey. A "Budget" representative who visited the place found that not-withstanding the fact that water was lapping the walls of the church, the Vicar, the Rev. J. Pierce Price, was conducting the services as normal. The Vicar, when the flood waters were steadily rising, kept watch throughout the night to give warning to his parishioners....

.... About 200 or 300 houses in Bentley, the colliery village near Doncaster, were marooned, several streets in the vicinity of the colliery being flooded to a depth of 1ft to 2ft. In several score houses water entered the lower rooms to a depth of a few inches.

Acting on a warning from the local Council, the householders removed the furniture to upstairs rooms.

Bentley Colliery, employing 4,000 men, was surrounded by water, and was idle during the week.

The Bentley Urban Council, with the permission of the County Council, took over the new village school, where they prepared accommodation for 200 families from the flooded area.

Bedding and cooking utensils were sent by the Public Assistance Committee, and on Monday a "Budget" representative saw several dozen families in occupation, and children scampering about, joyfully appreciating the novelty of the situation.

A number of boats were obtained by the Council, but the work of taking people to and from their homes in the flooded parts was undertaken by Council workmen with horse-drawn carts and lorries.

The main Doncaster - Selby road at Bentley Toll Bar on Tuesday was impassable. It is estimated that the flood last year did £50,000 worth of damage and that the latest flood would prove equally disastrous.

The river level at Bentley was still falling on Wednesday.

Council's Indignation.

At a special meeting of the Bentley Urban Council on Tuesday night much indignation was expressed at the Government's lack of action after the two previous great floods at Bentley. Mr. W. J. Ballam, the miner's leader, said nerves and homes at Bentley had been wrecked to an extent that could not be computed in terms of cash.

It was stated that an engineering expert had suggested the erection of a barrier bank 1,000yds. long to keep this overflow water of the Don from reaching Bentley.

The Bentley Urban Council have sent the following telegram to the Ministers of Agriculture and Health and also to local M.P.s:-

"The people of Bentley and Arksey are grief-stricken. The floods have invaded hundreds of homes and are still rising. The people are driven to live in the new village school for the third time in eighteen months.

"Thousands of acres of agricultural land and good growing crops are standing from 2ft. to 8ft. deep in water, and all the flooding has come from the higher reaches of the catchment area.

"Our people demand that the Government shall take such effective and vigorous steps to deal with this constant menace to their health, comfort, and property as would be taken in the event of an invasion of their homes by a foreign enemy."

A return made to Bentley Urban Council on Wednesday showing the financial loss which the district has suffered through floods stated that it was estimated that in the last 12 months floods had cost Bentley £80,000.

Rising Tides.

The floods last May cost the district £44,600, made up as follows: Damage suffered by farmers, householders and allotment holders, £18,700; loss to the Council in making provision for and transporting residents and cleansing property, £2,900; damage to Council property, roads, etc., £5,000; private property owners' loss, £5,000; loss of rents by private landlords, £3,000; estimated loss of wages due to the compulsory cessation of two weeks' work at the Bentley Colliery, £10,000....

Proud of Vicar.

The Bishop of Sheffield (Dr Burrows) and his wife visited the Doncaster flood area on Wednesday and made an inspection of the schools where refugees are housed, and later toured the district.

The Bishop was joined by the Vicar of Arksey. "I am very proud of him, and the people are very grateful to him," said the Bishop.

Speaking at an induction service at Stainton, South Yorkshire, on Sunday night, the Bishop referred to the gallantry shown in the Bentley floods by Mr. Price. He said it was a great joy to him that Mr. Price had shown splendid courage and resolution and devotion to his people. When he heard what the miners had to say about him, it made him thank God.

More items are added as they become available.