Barnburgh Hall had a famous connection
BARNBURGH Hall is perhaps best known for its connection with Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of Henry VIII's reign.
Sir Thomas, according to the Doncaster Chronicle of 27 May 1932, came to Barnburgh to effect a marriage between his only son John and Anne Cresacre, the only daughter and heiress to the estates of the knightly Cresacre family who occupied the Hall for generations.
After the marriage, the newspaper said Sir Thomas was a fairly frequent visitor to the Hall. For generations a picture hung in the house "showing Sir Thomas, his son, and his wife, and tradition held that the painting was by Hans Holbein".
The Hall was demolished amid much controversy during the late 1960s.
This is how CW Hatfield described Barnburgh Hall, now demolished, in his Village Sketches Hints to Pedestrians reprinted from the Doncaster Gazette of 1849-50: "It is of considerable extent, and delightfully situated, looking eastward over undulating ground, cultivated fields and luxuriant woodland foliage. The front presents three characteristic gables, the windows of which exhibit traces of comparatively recent alteration, with a low and wide doorway in the centre, still possessing, there is every reason to believe, its former appearance."
ON the night of Saturday February 6, 1971, the Doncaster Evening Post reported Doncaster Corporation planners wanted to bring modern living standards into a bit of Victorian Doncaster, namely Prospect Place.
These before and after views, (bottom two right), give some idea about how things turned out.
On the previous night owners and residents of some 180 houses in Prospect Place, Stirling Street, Exchange Street and part of Cemetery Road were invited to meet councillors and officials for preliminary discussions on the possibility of making their area the town's first improvement area.
To provide a basis for discussion, the planners put forward two possible alternative layouts and invited the residents to comment and offer their suggestions.
But improving the streets was only one half of the story.
The property owners were asked if they would co-operate in improvement schemes for individual houses with the help of greatly increased grants that had become available.
ON November 23, 1972, the Doncaster Evening Post announced extra parking space could be provided for Christmas shoppers as a result of demolition which was underway in Frances Street, off East Laith Gate, Doncaster.
All the terraced houses on one side were being cleared, but the other side was remaining intact as some of the tenants had not been rehoused. Doncaster Corporation's plans for the East Laith Gate area included the town's fifth multi-storey car park and Frances Street was one of the two possible sites under consideration.
The Highways Committee was hoping to see it started in 1974-75 but it never came to fruition.
THE Grove at Barnby Dun once stood adjacent to the church and amid a large garden and some fine trees.
It has been speculated upon that it was built for a hunting box.
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Latest sport. The occupiers during the 19th century included Thomas Gresham, Baron Rendlesham, James Newsome, and JH Newsome.
In 1940 the house was bought by the Doncaster Amalgamated Collieries, passing to the National Coal Board in 1946.
Controversy raged in the mid-1980s when the houses was razed to the ground. The Doncaster Civic Trust Newsletter number 48 of March 1986 stated: "Some villagers, hearing that a builder had bought the house with an eye to redevelopment, turned to the Trust for help in saving the house.
“The Trust agreed to try to get the house 'listed' but the Department of the Environment refused to do so, presumably because of the alterations that had been made.
“The aforementioned builder who, having obtained planning permission for the erection of several houses on the site, has recently razed Grove House to the ground.”
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