Editing Thornhill, West Yorkshire (section)

===Thornhill Hall===
The Saviles remained here until the [[English Civil War]] when Thornhill Hall was besieged. A royalist heroine after the siege of [[Sheffield Castle]] in 1644, Lady Anne Savile's troops under Capt Thomas Paulden (brother of [[John Morris (soldier)#Seizure of Pontefract Castle|William Paulden]]) defended the hall against the Parliamentary forces under Col Sir Thomas Fairfax in August 1648. They were forced to surrender and the hall was destroyed.<ref>{{cite book|first=B. |last=Nuttall |title=A History of Thornhill |year=1970}}</ref> Some ruins of the hall and the moat remain in Rectory Park.<ref>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1134729|desc=RUINS OF THE MEDIEVAL THORNHILL HALL IN MOATED ENCLOSURE, IN RECTORY GROUNDS|grade=II|access-date=1 January 2019}}</ref> The moat retains water.

The Old Rectory survived and was home to several vicars, notably [[John Michell]],<ref name="EB1911"/> who rose to international prominence by developing an understanding of earthquakes, then devised an experiment to accurately determine the mass of planet Earth, but perhaps most intriguingly, attracted [[Benjamin Franklin]] (founding father of the USA), [[Joseph Priestley]], [[Jan Ingenhousz]], [[John Smeaton]] and others to a scientific meeting and overnight stay in 1771. Benjamin Franklin's stay in Thornhill remained unknown until 2015.

Monuments to members of the Thornhill and Savile families are in Thornhill Parish Church.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thornhillparishchurch.org.uk/AboutUs.htm |title=History & Publications – Thornhill Parish Church |access-date=12 February 2006 |archive-date=12 March 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312020935/http://www.thornhillparishchurch.org.uk/AboutUs.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>