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Wentworth family of Woolley Hall Yorkshire, Archive

Archive Collection: MS/DEP/Wentworth Woolley Hall Contains records with digital media

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: Wentworth family of Woolley Hall Yorkshire, Archive

Level: Collection

Classmark: MS/DEP/Wentworth Woolley Hall

Creator(s): Wentworth Family()

Date(s): 1301-1900

Language: English

Size and medium: 89 boxes

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/6604

Collection group(s): Estate

Description

The Brotherton Library holds a considerable number of documents and maps relating to the Wentworth family of Woolley and its estates. This branch of the Wentworth family had its seat at Woolley Hall, about five miles south of Wakefield.


In 1947, Woolley Hall was sold to the West Riding County Council. It was used as a college of further education for a while. Wakefield Council owned the building until 2015. During the Council's period of ownership the it also served as a conference centre and wedding location. The Hall now belongs to a private developer.


The papers in the Brotherton Library are known as the Wentworth-Woolley Hall papers to distinguish them from the Wentworth-Woodhouse collection in Sheffield City Libraries. The Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society also holds a considerable collection of Wentworth -Woolley Hall documents, mainly medieval.


The papers in the Brotherton Library cover all aspects of the family's estates and interests, and range from the 14th-19th centuries.

Biography or history

The Wentworths were a prominent land-owning family in Yorkshire. In the mid-fourteenth century, much of what became the Woolley estate was in the possession of Sir William de Notton, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. In 1365 Sir William Fyncheden owned the lands, which on his death passed to John Woodruffe or Woodrove. Woodruffe did not, however, own the lordship of the manor.


The Popeley family are the first known lords of the Manor of Woolley. The lordship passed to the Rilston family until 1490 when it was bought by Sir Richard Woodruffe (c.1447-c.1522), a descendant of John Woodruffe. Richard was the High Sheriff of York from 1510-1518.


Sir Thomas Wentworth (d.1548) of Wentworth Woodhouse married Richard's daughter, Beatrice (d.1529), c.1514. Subsequently a branch of, the Wentworth family was established at Woolley in 1559, when Michael Wentworth purchased a house and lands in Woolley and Notton from his cousin Francis Woodruffe.


Woolley Hall is a Jacobean building, dating from 1635, with many later alterations in the village of Woolley. The surrounding landscape park is largely unchanged since 1800, and includes wooded pleasure grounds.

Provenance

The papers in the Brotherton Library were deposited by Commander Ewart Wentworth in 1946 and 1949.

System of arrangement

The order of the boxes in which the papers were received when they were deposited has been retained. To help enquirers interested in the Wentworth family and the Woolley area, it was decided that it would be useful (short of preparing a complete calendar of the documents) to replace the brief list made at the time of deposit with one which would give intending users an indication of the amount and type of material in each box. Although two separate deposits were made by Commander Wentworth, in 1946 and 1949, the boxes are numbered consecutively, in one sequence, 1-74.


Nos. 1-20 were deposited in 1946, and the remainder in 1949. The sections on Bound Manuscript volumes and Maps were formerly a separate handlist (number 10). The documents formerly in Box 13 are in Box 20.

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Access to this material is unrestricted.

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