Aroundtown Magazine Nov/Dec 2023 edition
Read the November/December edition of Aroundtown Magazine, South Yorkshire's premier free lifestyle magazine.
Read the November/December edition of Aroundtown Magazine, South Yorkshire's premier free lifestyle magazine.
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
FAMILY<br />
Linking past lives<br />
at Wentworth to present<br />
Strong bonds forged<br />
with Wentworth<br />
Woodhouse in times<br />
gone by are supporting<br />
the house’s current<br />
fundraising campaign,<br />
Forge A Link.<br />
For a donation of £50 or more,<br />
you could have your initials<br />
hand-stamped onto a 154-metrelong<br />
chain for the mansion’s famed<br />
East Front. Blacksmiths at Ridgeway<br />
Forge in Attercliffe are handcrafting<br />
1,800 links using traditional methods<br />
to replicate a centuries-old chain.<br />
Donations have already come in<br />
from as far away as Australia - and<br />
many are being made in memory of<br />
family members who lived or worked<br />
at The Big House as far back as<br />
the 1800s.<br />
Hoyland-born historian, Jane<br />
Ainsworth, is one of those supporting<br />
the campaign after discovering<br />
an ancestor worked for the Earls<br />
Fitzwilliam for 30 years.<br />
While researching her family<br />
history, Jane found numerous<br />
links to Wentworth Woodhouse.<br />
Generations of men on both sides of<br />
her father’s family were miners who<br />
worked for collieries owned by the<br />
Earls Fitzwilliam and their families<br />
grew up in estate houses.<br />
Then she discovered that her<br />
mother’s great-great-aunt, Elizabeth<br />
Martha Horn, was a trusted servant<br />
to the Fitzwilliams for three decades.<br />
Elizabeth grew up close to Milton<br />
Hall, the Fitzwilliams’ family home<br />
near Peterborough, and Jane<br />
surmised the family must have<br />
recruited from local villages.<br />
In 1861, Elizabeth was listed as a<br />
24-year-old spinster chambermaid,<br />
one of 35 servants at Wentworth<br />
Woodhouse. Ten years later, she<br />
was a housemaid at the Fitzwilliams’<br />
London home in Grosvenor Square.<br />
By 1881, aged 42, she was back at<br />
Wentworth Woodhouse and another<br />
ten years later, and still unmarried,<br />
she was the housekeeper in charge<br />
of three staff at Grosvenor Square.<br />
She later married widower checkweighman<br />
William Berry, another of<br />
the Earl’s trusted employees and left<br />
service to live in the Miner’s Lodging<br />
House in Elsecar.<br />
Elizabeth had a close relationship<br />
with older sister Hannah Maria and<br />
her daughter Mary Ann, Jane’s<br />
great-grandmother.<br />
“My grandma called her Auntie<br />
Berry and lived with her in Elsecar<br />
for a time. That’s how she met my<br />
grandad, Arthur Firth, who was hired<br />
to paint and decorate the house.”<br />
The initials of Jane’s parents,<br />
Edith and John Charles Hardy, will<br />
be imprinted on two links of the<br />
hand-forged chain being created for<br />
the East Front.<br />
The campaign closes at<br />
the end of the year. For<br />
more information, visit<br />
wentworthwoodhouse.org.<br />
uk/forge-a-link-campaign<br />
FORGE ISLAND<br />
A family friendly leisure destination in the heart of Rotherham<br />
OPENING<br />
2024<br />
Caffé Noor<br />
Estabulo Rodizio<br />
Arc Cinema • Travelodge<br />
• Casa Peri Peri<br />
• Sakku Samba<br />
• Cow & Cream<br />
• The Rustic Pizza Co.<br />
newforgeisland.co.uk<br />
Brought to you by<br />
aroundtownmagazine.co.uk 49
Change language