RAWMARSH AND KILNHURST, ETC.

Legal papers relating to various causes brought in various courts concerning disputes over the Darley and Ellis family title to property and over the enclosure of Rawmarsh Common. The causes were tried in Chancery, Star Chamber, Wards and Liveries and the Council in the North, and presentments were also brought before the West Riding Quarter Sessions; they are entitled variously William Harrys and others v. Robert Ellis, Robert Ellis and others v. F. Foljambe and others, etc., etc., and as in some instances it has been found impossible to distinguish exactly to which suit the papers relate, they have all been grouped together.

The dispute over Rawmarsh Common, intercommoned by the inhabitants of both Rawmarsh and Kilnhurst, arose from the attempt by Sir Francis Foljambe to enclose part of the area. He had inherited one-third of the lordship of Rawmarsh, and purchased another third from the Chaworth family; the Chapter of Southwell Minster (Nt.) owned the remaining third.A note records that, apart from the property of these two owners, 959a. in Rawmarsh belonged to 42 freeholders, who owned 37 messuages and 27 cottages. 1300 sheep, 66 horses, and 52 beasts were pastured on the Common. Sir Francis had only enclosed 250a. of the total 750a. of the Common, but the enclosure had blocked the ancient rights of way between Kilnhurst and the remaining parts of the Common, etc., and the action produced the usual crop of complaints about the erection and pulling down of fences, the turning of animals off the Common, and assaults by one party on the other. There is a rough sketch plan of the Common amongst the papers.