England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Wortley by Tankersley St Leonard

The Parish

Yorkshire has two Wortleys, this Wortley, carrying the suffix "by Tankersley" to distinguish it from the other nearer Leeds, is a chapelry within the wider parish of Tankersley and is located in southwestern Yorkshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Derbyshire. Wortley is located about 8 miles north of the city of Sheffield and sits on the A629 road which connects Sheffield with the industrial town of Huddersfield. There is very little to Wortley even today, most properties gather along the A629 or at its entrance to the grounds of Wortley Hall. St Leonard was only licensed for marriages in 1827, all other marriages for this area being recorded in Tankersley registers. The area has a long industrial past with iron smelting in the parish back to the 17th century, mining for coal also provided income as well as farming dominated by pastures for, mainly, cattle. Wortley is drained by the nearby River Don, which forms the western boundary to the chapelry and Tankersley parish, after passing south to Sheffield the Don turns eastwards and eventually reaches the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Wortley is sited at around 220 metres above the sea, some 70 metres above the deeply incised river Don, the area forms the foothills for the nearby Pennines and is rather rolling with local heights rising to well over 300 metres across to the west of the Don. Wortley chapelry was large, sized to a large parish, and covered almost 6,300 acres, it would have supported a population close to 900 parishioners at the close of this transcript period. In Domesday times Wortley was unusual in that part was still held by a Saxon survivor, one Alric albeit the principal tenant was Count Robert of Mortain, the area offered just 3 ploughs and a small woodland so was clearly a small place.

The Church

St Leonard's church sits on the western side of the A629 as it passes through Wortley. The site has clearly been present as a place of worship for a long time as the main road performs an intricate set of sharp bends to pass around the churchyard which clearly predates it. The present building, however, is recent having been built in 1815. The Victorians, even though the church was recent, added their ususal changes, in this case in the latter part of the 19th century to make the present building. As with many churches from this period, it clearly did not insprire Pevsner with its architectural interest as his account is hort being only a half dozen lines of descripotion of the principal features. The church sits behind a low local gritstone wall with anice lychgate granting access at the northern end of the site. The churchyard is open and with few impediments to photography.