William Wordsworth - the poet - the local connection - family at Stainborough

William Wordsworth was almost certainly this country's greatest, most loved, and best known poet. Most folks will know that - but a lot less will it seems be aware that his family lived for generations at Stainborough!

The Wordsworths were around these parts for very many years and it is said that it may be possible to trace them back to before the Norman Conquest.

There are countless references to the great man on the internet, and some to his forebears who lived at Falthwaite Grange Farm. That farm still exists - it is on the road that runs from Hood Green to Silkstone Common.

The Wordsworths moved into the farm when the Cutlers left - in the 1600's. The Cutlers who were a very important family in the area at that time moved from Falthwaite to Stainborough where they took over from the Everinghams, another vary important family, and built the house that forms the core of Wentworth Castle to this day, the 'Cutler House'. The Everinghams went towards Sheffield. The Wentworths took possession of the Cutler House in the early 1700's.

That branch of the Wordsworth family sold up and left Falthwaite around 1700, perhaps after a mining investment went wrong. They went to what is now known as The Lake District. William was born there in 1770, and raised there, but he was aware of his Yorkshire roots and visited Yorkshire on a number of occasions. In fact he married a woman from Yorkshire, and his sister was brought up by relatives who lived in Halifax.

A few years before he died William became the nation's then leading poet as the Poet Laureate, and before that he had been in correspondence with at least one source in Yorkshire seeking information about his family history. That source told him about Falthwaite, but he may have known before.

On the day he got married William, visited the spectacular ruins of Rievaulx Abbey near Helmsley in North Yorkshire. It would be nice to think he knew then of the connection between that place and Falthwaite - but perhaps he didn't. English Heritage clearly know today for they show on the display at Rievaulx that the abbey had a 'grange' at Stainborough when the abbey was functioning. That grange was Falthwaite Grange and it belonged to the abbey from about 1100 until the abbey was closed down by Henry V111 in the 1500's. Falthwaite may have been a proper settlement in those early years, something smaller than a village maybe, but it had certainly disappeared before the Wordsworths left the area. What did they know of it? - we'll probably never know.

Other branches of the Wordsworth family continued to live around this area for many years, for instance at Penistone and Swaithe Hall near Worsborough, and in the Rotherham area.

If you have anything to add to this account or any corrections or queries you are most welcome to air them here.