Oxspring

Coordinates: 53°30′50″N 1°35′38″W / 53.514°N 1.594°W / 53.514; -1.594

Oxspring is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. At the 2001 census it had a population of 1,048.

History

Old maps going back two hundred years or more do not mark a village on the site of present day Oxspring. Instead they mark the hamlet of High Oxspring alongside the top road and they show the position of the former Manor House or Lodge, which until recently was marked on Ordnance Survey maps in the special letters used to indicate an ancient place. The original Oxspring undoubtedly lay across the River Don from the present village.

The earliest historical reference to Oxspring is in the Domesday Book of 1086. The meaning of the name is literally "ox spring". The whereabouts of the original settlement is unknown but the most likely site is that of the former Manor House, which occupied a commanding position on an outcrop of shale above the river. For centuries Oxspring consisted of just a few scattered farms and water driven mills. The Domesday Book also records Rough Birchworth, "the enclosure where birch trees grow". Here was a separate manor and a small farming community with all the buildings clustered together. These two manors together formed the township of Oxspring within the old parish of Penistone. The word "township" has fallen out of use, but in Middle Ages it meant the basic unit of local government.