Worksop, Nottinghamshire

Description
Worksop, a market-town and a parish in Notts. The town stands on the river Ryton and the Chesterfield Canal, 23 miles N of Nottingham, has a station on the M.S. & L.R., and a head post office; was known at the Norman Conquest as Wirchesop; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and carries on a large trade in flour, timber, railway sleepers, Windsor chairs, and timber sawing. There are a county police station, a corn-exchange and assembly-room in the Venetian style, a mechanics' institute, a workhouse for 200 inmates, brass and iron foundries, chemical works, saw-mills, malt kilns, a weekly corn and fat stock market on Wednesday, and a cattle and horse market in April and October. The town is governed by an urban district council. The parish includes several hamlets, and comprises 20,731 acres; population, 12,805. It is divided into the two ecclesiastical parishes of St Mary and St Cuthbert and of St John; population of the former 6019, of the latter 5753. The livings are both vicarages in the diocese of Southwell; gross values, £230 and £251 with residence. There are Roman Catholic, Congregational, Primitive and United Free Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, and an ancient market-cross. St Cuthbert's College, a magnificent pile of buildings, was opened in 1895. The manor belongs to the Duke of Newcastle, whose seat, Clumber Park, stands in a park of 4000 acres. To the E of the house is a private chapel consisting of choir, nave, transepts, and lofty tower with spire.