Editing Worksop (section)

==History==

===Etymology===
Worksop was part of what was called Bernetseatte (burnt lands) in Anglo-Saxon times.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/researchframeworks/eastmidlands/attach/County-assessments/NotAngloSaxon.pdf |title=Anglo Saxon Nottinghamshire |work=Archaeology Data Service}}</ref> The name Worksop is likely of [[Old English]] origin, deriving from a personal name "We(o)rc" plus the placename element "hop" (valley). The first element is interesting because while the masculine name Weorc is unrecorded, the feminine name Werca (Verca) is found in [[Bede]]'s ''Life of St Cuthbert''. A number of other recorded place names contain this same personal name element.<ref>The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire Their Origin and Development, Heinrich Mutschmann, Cambridge, 1913</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nottsheritagegateway.org.uk/places/worksop.htm |title=Worksop|author=Andrew Nicolson|work=Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Nottinghamshire/Worksop|title=Key to English Place-names|website=kepn.nottingham.ac.uk}}</ref>
===Anglo-Norman Times===
In the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086, Worksop appears as ''Werchesope''. Thoroton<ref>Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire: Volume 3, Republished with Large Additions by John Throsby, Nottingham, 1796</ref> states that the Domesday Book records that before the [[Norman Conquest]], Werchesope (Worksop) had belonged to Elsi, son of Caschin, who had "two manors in Werchesope, which paid to the geld as three car". After the conquest, Worksop became part of the extensive lands granted to [[Roger de Busli]]. At this time, the land "had one car. in demesne, and twenty-two sochm. on twelve bovats of this land, and twenty-four villains, and eight bord. having twenty-two car. and eight acres of meadow, pasture wood two leu. long, three quar. broad." This was valued at three pounds in [[Edward the Confessor]]'s time and seven pounds in the Domesday Book. Roger administered this estate from his headquarters in [[Tickhill]].

The manor then passed to [[William de Lovetot]], who established a [[castle]] and endowed the [[Augustinians|Augustinian]] [[Worksop Priory|priory]] around 1103. After William's death, the manor was passed to his eldest son, Richard de Lovetot, who was visited by [[Stephen of England|King Stephen]], at Worksop, in 1161.<ref>Worksop the Dukery and Sherwood Forest, Robert White, 1875</ref> In 1258, a surviving ''inspeximus'' charter confirms Matilda de Lovetot's grant of the manor of Worksop to William de Furnival (her son).

===Medieval and early modern history===
A skirmish occurred in the area during the [[Wars of the Roses]] on 16 December 1460, commonly known as the [[Battle of Worksop]].

In 1530, Worksop was visited by Cardinal [[Thomas Wolsey]], who was on his way to [[Cawood]], in Yorkshire. "Then my lord [Wolsey] intending the next day to remove from thence [Newstead Abbey] there resorted to him the Earl of Shrewsbury's keeper, and gentlemen, sent from him, to desire my lord, in their maister's behalf, to hunt in a parke of their maister's, called Worsoppe Parke." (Cavendish's ''Life of Wolsey'')

A surviving (Cotton) manuscript written by [[Henry VIII]] nominated Worksop as one of three places in Nottinghamshire (along with Welbeck and Thurgarton) to become "[[bishopric]]s to be new made", but nothing was to come of this (White 1875), and the priory later became a victim of the [[dissolution of the monasteries]] – being closed in 1539, with its prior and 15 monks pensioned off. All the priory buildings, except the nave and west towers of the church, were demolished at this time and the stone reused elsewhere.

In 1540, [[John Leland (antiquary)|John Leland]] noted that Worksop castle had all but disappeared, saying it was: "clene down and scant knowen wher it was". Leland noted that at that time Worksop was "a praty market of 2 streates and metely well buildid."

[[Worksop Manor]] became a prison for [[Mary, Queen of Scots]] in 1568. In 1580s the new house was built on the same site for [[George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury]]. He was the husband of Elizabeth Talbot, [[Bess of Hardwick]]. 
[[File:Worksop Manor- aerial 2017 (2) - geograph 5542991.jpg|thumb|Worksop Manor]]
In the [[hearth tax]] records of 1674, Worksop is said to have had 176 households, which made it the fourth-largest settlement in Nottinghamshire after Nottingham (967 households), Newark (339), and Mansfield (318). At this time, the population is estimated to have been around 748 people.

===Modern history===
[[File:Worksop - houses on north side of Potter Street - geograph.org.uk - 3287287.jpg|thumb|Potter Street]]

By 1743, 358 families were in Worksop, with a population around 1,500. This had risen by 1801 to 3,391, and by the end of the 19th century had reached 16,455.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Worksop benefitted from the building of the [[Chesterfield Canal]], which passed through the town in 1777, and the subsequent construction of the [[Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway]] in 1849. This led to growth that was further boosted by the discovery of [[coal]] seams beneath the town.

Worksop and area surrounding are known as the "Gateway to the Dukeries" due to the former ducal seats of Clumber House, [[Thoresby Hall]], [[Welbeck Abbey]], and [[Worksop Manor]] either owned by the Dukes of Newcastle, Portland and Kingston.<ref>Bassetlaw District Council, History of Worksop, 2019 retrieved on 1 April 2023</ref>