Village of the Week: How a tragedy in a Barnsley pit village led to changes in the law

Rolling green fields and farms, a presence on the local equestrian scene, buildings that point directly to the past, brand new homes, shops that are essential to village and community life, businesses, music and tragedy.

It also has a whole load of fascinating history, some more well known than others.

Just take a moment to look, really look at some of the older houses and buildings, they will be Victorian and beyond.

Where Barnsley Road meets the High Street near the church for instance or where Knabbs Road becomes Ben Bank Lane.

You can use your imagination and see, if the 21st century properties were not there for a moment, what life may have been like.

Rows of Victorian cottages, with that browny grey stone very typical to house-building in Barnsley at that time, and then open countryside and a far away farmhouse in the distance.

The pace of life slower, more simple, yet harder.

It was hard back then and a world away perhaps from the Silkstone we see now with brand new detached houses hitting the market in a former mining village at half a million pounds.

The cheapest house is on at £169,000 and is a Victorian terrace, it may be half the size but has double the character.

It is more than enough to make you wonder about the previous residents that have passed through over the years.

Luckily, for us future generations, much has been documented about the history of Silkstone and Silkstone Common.

A good place to start is the Silkstone Parish Council website which begins with, “The Origin of the village of Silkstone is lost in the mists of antiquity”.

It is believed Silkstone was known in the days of the Romans and after that escaped 'The Harrying of the North', when troops of William the Conqueror ravaged towns and villages and burned them to the ground. Oxspring, Penistone, and Thurlstone, just a few miles away, didn’t fair so well.

The account that first appeared in “Silkstone Ancient and Modern” by G N Sykes tells that, “For many centuries the villagers lived simple lives in their lovely rural community, undisturbed by blasts from the outside world.”

It would seem that the War of the Roses in the 1400s did more damage than William The Conqueror as it led to clashes of loyalties and the dividing of families and several people being executed in a field near Hall Royd Farm at Silkstone Common, watched by several women.

The field is now known as Lady Royd.

“Until after the first world war amenities were few, and life was very simple.”

The parish council account goes on to say how the roads were covered in grime in summer and sludge in the winter. There were no street lights, privies were “terrible places” as until the 1920s sanitation was not a priority.

There was very little food packaging, and what there was, was easily dealt with by chucking it on the fire.

(Imagine trying to deal with the amount of plastic you get these days on a gas fire?)

At this time, parish councils had more responsibility and were responsible for the care of the poor, policing and the state of the roads.

“Parliament also decreed that every able bodied man should give four to six days free labour in the repair of the roads, and this was done for many years”, says the account.

Again, can you imagine the outcry should such a stipulation be implemented in 2023?

The early part of the 20th century saw that people were almost independent of the outside world, and needs catered for by local tradesmen in the village.

In Raines Directory for 1822, Silkstone had, John Ellis, surgeon; Joseph Shooter, schoolmaster; two butchers; three grocers and corn dealers; three tailors; two shoemakers; William Haynes and John Jubb, blacksmiths; George Tattersall, nurseryman and seedsman, and one each of the following - whitesmith, malt dealer, hat manufacturer and linen draper.

In 1809 a waggonway was created and with the links that made to other areas, it wasn’t long before these trades were lost.

There was no radio or television, let alone, the technology of today but it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

On Christmas Eve people would gather to listen to the Church Choir at Bloomfield House in Silkstone Common. Christmas Day brought Silkstone Band while the Silkstone Wesleyan Reform Church went on their rounds.

Easter saw the beginning of open-air life, a Good Friday morning service, an Easter Monday bazaar and on the Tuesday a 'wagonette' took a party to Wharncliffe Craggs.

As with most places, August 1914 saw the end of the peaceful village existence, and life has never been quite the same since.

Another huge event in the history of Silkstone that also meant life would never be the same again was the Huskar Pit Disaster of July 4, 1838.

26 children, aged between six and 17, were drowned as they tried to escape from the Huskar Day-Hole, part of Silkstone’s Moorend and Huskar Pit workings, during a summer thunder-storm when floodwater from a nearby stream gushed into the underground tunnels.

They were buried together in the churchyard of All Saints' Church and the incident had caused shock around the country.

It led to the 1842 Mines Act, following a government inquiry led by Lord Shaftesbury, which sought to introduce some protection for child miners and meant that all girls and boys under the age of ten were prohibited from working underground.