Hooton Roberts is a village and civil parish situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. Among several listed buildings in the village are the local church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, [1] the rectory on Doncaster Road, [2] and the Earl of Strafford public house (a former manor house). [3]
The village was home to the Gatty family of Ecclesfield. Nicholas Comyn Gatty, son of the Rev. Reginald Gatty, was born in Bradfield, Sheffield, on 13 September 1874. He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music which is where he met and became a lifelong friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who from the 1900s spent many a summer vacation with the Gattys at Hooton Roberts. In September 1902, Williams composed the song Linden Lea sitting in the rectory gardens, where the walls were covered with ivy, and on the lawn were croquet hoops. Williams often played croquet at Hooton Roberts.
In 1897, the Hooton Roberts Musical Society was formed by the Gattys. Nicholas played the harpsichord and the violin. His brothers Ivor and René were also involved with the Society. His first opera, Greysteel, with text by René, was performed in Sheffield on 1 March 1906 by the Moody-Manners touring company, and at the Crystal Palace on 24 May, Lucy Broadwood, acting as guarantor. This was followed by the opera Duke or Devil, premiered in Manchester on 16 December 1909, again by the Moody-Manners company. This opera proved more successful, as did his next opera Prince Ferelon, which won a Carnegie Award. Gatty's other operatic works were: The Tempest, King Alfred and the Cakes, both with text by René Gatty. His orchestral works included a Concert Allegro for piano and orchestra premiered at the Proms in 1901 and a set of Variations on Old King Cole.
In October 1972, a Vaughan Williams Festival was held at Hooton Roberts to mark the centenary of the composer's birth. Gatty's Mass for four voices was performed here. [4]
The first Earl of Strafford's widow lived at the manor house and, when she died in 1688 at the age of 83, she was buried secretly by torch light in the chancel of the church. There is a memorial to her husband at Wentworth Woodhouse, where he was thought to have been buried. However, in 1895, when work was being carried out near the altar in St John's, three unknown skeletons were found, one appearing to be headless. They were thought to be the Earl, his wife and 16-year-old daughter, who had rickets, as one of the skeletons had signs of this disease.
Strafford, (1593–1641) from a great Yorkshire family, was chief adviser of Charles I. He was impeached by the Long Parliament and, with the King's reluctant assent, was executed in May 1641 – 'Put not your trust in princes' he exclaimed when he heard of the King's defection. [5]
Hooton Roberts had a population of 181 in 2001. [6] This had increased to 210 at the 2011 Census. [7]
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford,, was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1640 he was Lord Deputy of Ireland, where he established a strong authoritarian rule. Recalled to England, he became a leading advisor to the King, attempting to strengthen the royal position against Parliament. When Parliament condemned Lord Strafford to death, Charles reluctantly signed the death warrant and Strafford was executed. He had been advanced several times in the Peerage of England during his career, being created 1st Baron Wentworth in 1628, 1st Viscount Wentworth in late 1628 or early 1629, and, finally, 1st Earl of Strafford in January 1640. He was known as Sir Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baronet, between 1614 and 1628.
Duke of Rutland is a title in the Peerage of England, named after Rutland, a county in the East Midlands of England. Earldoms named after Rutland have been created three times; the ninth earl of the third creation was made duke in 1703, in whose family's line the title continues. The heir apparent to the dukedom has the privilege of using the courtesy title of Marquess of Granby.
The Council of the North was an administrative body first set up in 1484 by King Richard III of England, to improve access to conciliar justice in Northern England. This built upon steps by King Edward IV of England in delegating authority in the north to Richard, duke of Gloucester, and in establishing the Council of Wales and the Marches.
Earl of Strafford is a title that has been created three times in English and British history.
John Williams was a Welsh clergyman and political advisor to King James I. He served as Bishop of Lincoln 1621–1641, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal 1621–1625, and Archbishop of York 1641–1646. He was the last bishop to serve as lord chancellor.
William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, KG, of Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, was a prominent landowner.
Strafforth and Tickhill, originally known as Strafforth, was the southernmost wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The west of the district, plus a detached area in the east, constituted the Upper Division, while the central area and a detached part in the extreme east constituted the Lower Division.
Sir Alfred Scott Scott-Gatty was a long serving officer of arms at the College of Arms in London and a successful composer.
Dinton is a village, civil parish and former manor in Wiltshire, England, in the Nadder valley on the B3089 road about 8 miles (13 km) west of Salisbury. The parish population was 696 at the 2011 census, estimated at 733 in 2019. The civil parish includes the village of Baverstock, about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Dinton village.
Sir James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon was an Irish magnate and politician. He was born a Catholic but converted at a young age to the Church of Ireland. He supported Strafford during his term as governor of Ireland. In the Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian conquest he was a royalist. He died in 1649, but was nevertheless included as the fifth on the list of people that were excluded from pardon in Cromwell's 1652 Act of Settlement.
Events from the year 1641 in England.
Nicholas Comyn Gatty was an English composer and music critic. As a composer his major output was opera, which was generally regarded as musically undistinguished but well-presented theatrically. As a critic he worked for the Pall Mall Gazette and The Times, and served as assistant editor for the second and third editions of Grove.
Hooton Levitt is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England; one of four villages in the county that carry the name of Hooton, meaning 'farmstead on a spur of land'. It has a population of 110, increasing to 132 at the 2011 Census.
Thomas Jones was a Welsh Anglican clergyman. He was a firm defender of the position of the Church of England, and encountered considerable difficulties and hardship when he accused the Bishop of Winchester, George Morley, of disloyalty to the church. Jones wrote a number of tracts setting forward his defence of the church.
Sir Richard Bolton was an English lawyer and judge, who was an important figure in Irish political life in the 1630s and 1640s.
William Laud was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms; he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645.
Barnes Hall is an English country house near Burncross within the City of Sheffield in England. The estate includes the buildings of the adjacent Barnes Hall farm.
St Thomas is a former Anglican church in the Brightside area of Sheffield in England which now serves as a circus training school.
Sir Charles MacCarthy, 1st Viscount of Muskerry, also called Cormac Oge, especially in Irish, was from a family of Irish chieftains who were the Lords of Muskerry, related to the Old English through maternal lines. He became the 17th Lord of Muskerry upon his father's death in 1616. He acquired a noble title under English law, becoming 1st Viscount Muskerry and 1st Baron Blarney under letters patent. He sat in the House of Lords in both Irish parliaments of King Charles I. He opposed Strafford, the king's viceroy in Ireland, and in 1641 contributed to his demise by submitting grievances to the king in London. Muskerry died during this mission and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Hooton Roberts is a civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The parish contains nine listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The parish contains the village of Hooton Roberts and the surrounding countryside. The listed buildings consist of a church, farmhouses and farm buildings, a public house and an associated former coach house, a rectory, and a milepost.