ECCLESFIELD, a parish in the northern division
of the wapentake of STRAFFORTH-AND-TICKHILL, West
riding of the county of YORK, comprising the chapelry
of Bradfield, and the townships of Aldward and Ecclesficld,
and containing 12,496 inhabitants, of which number,
7163 are in the township of Ecclesfield, 5 miles
(N.) from Sheffield. The living is a vicarage, in the
archdeaconry and diocese of York, rated in the king's
books at £ 19. 3. 4., and in the patronage of Earl Fitzwilliam.
The church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist,
is in the later style of English architecture, and has
lately received an addition of three hundred and ninetyseven
sittings, of which two hundred are free, the Incorporated
Society for the enlargement of churches
and chapels having granted £200 toward defraying the
expense. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists.
The manufacture of hardware, similar to that
at Sheffield, is carried on at this place. There are several
endowed schools; that at Ecclesfield is supported
out of the feoffee estate of this extensive parish, with
£21 per annum, for teaching eighteen poor children.
Sylvester's hospital, for seven poor persons, was
founded and endowed by Edward Sylvester, in 1693;
the income, aided by a bequest of £200 from Ann
Reresby, in 1801, amounts to about £100 per annum,
which, after providing for repairs, &c., is divided among
the inmates. Barnes Hall hospital, for six poor people,
was erected in the 15th of Charles I., by Richard Watts,
to whom Sir Richard Scott, in 1668, devised certain
estates for the purpose. An almshouse, for three poor
persons of Ecclesfield and three of Owleston, was erected
by George Bamforth, and is kept in repair by the parish.
There was formerly an Alien priory of Benedictine monks
to the abbey of St. Wandragisilius, in Normandy, which,
at their suppression, was granted by Richard II. to the
Carthusian monastery of St. Anne, near Coventry. In
the neighbourhood are vestiges of a Roman intrenchment,
termed Devil's Ditch.