Rectory Park Thornhill Dewsbury

Rectory Park contains remains of a mansion built over 500 years ago and the moat that surrounded it.

Thornhill is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, but the Anglo-Saxon crosses and other remains indicate that there was a settlement here by the ninth century. In the reign of Henry III Thornhill was the seat of the Thornhill family, who intermarried with the De Fixbys and Babthorpes in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II. In the reign of Edward III, Elizabeth Thornhill, the only child of Simon Thornhill, married Sir Henry Saville. This extinguished the family line of Thornhills of Thornhill which now passed down the Saville line. Thornhill now became the seat of the emerging and powerful Savile family. [2]


This is the original coat of arms for the Thornhill Family, before they married in with the Saviles.The Saviles later intermarried with the Calverley family as well, so that when Sir John Savile died in 1503 in Thornhill, he left provision in his will for his sister Alice, married to Sir William Calverley.[1]

The Savilles remained here until the English Civil War when the house was besieged, (having been previously fortified by Sir William Savile, the third baronet of the family), taken, and demolished by the forces of Parliament. Some ruins of the house and the moat still remain at Thornhill Rectory Park.[3]This large house had a secret underground passage, that lead to Thornhill Parish Church. [4] just a few hundred yards away from the park. The passage remained until the early 1990s when it was filled in due to safety reasons. Monuments to members of both the Thornhill and Savile families are on view in Thornhill Parish Church. [5]

One thing that sets Thornhill apart from the rest of Dewsbury is its closer ties to coal-mining. In 1893 the Combs Pit Mining Disaster killed 139 local coal miners. Thornhill colliery resulted from the mergining of Inghams and Combs colliery in 1948. It closed in 1971. The nearest pit from then on was Caphouse Colliery just to the south of Thornhill, which closed after the miners strike of 1985, it later became the National mining museum

Rectory Park contains remains of a mansion built over 500 years ago and the moat that surrounded it.when the house was besieged, (having been previously fortified by Sir William Savile, the third baronet of the family), taken, and demolished by the forces of Parliament. Some ruins of the house and the moat still remain at Thornhill Rectory Park This large house had a secret underground passage, that lead to Thornhill Parish Church. just a few hundred yards away from the park. The passage remained until the early 1990s when it was filled in due to safety reasons. Monuments to members of both the Thornhill and Savile families are on view in Thornhill Parish Church.
Thornhill Park (or Rectory Park) in Dewsbury as some of the locals call it was witness to a frightening apparition, you wont find this information in any text book this is word of mouth. One of the locals swears blind he saw a headless horseman in the park, he was so terrified he ran into his local pub, apparently he was white as a sheet and shaking, he told folks what he saw. There is some Cromwellian history in this area. The park used to house an old manor house owned by the Saville family it has a moat around it which is still there today, the manor was partly destroyed by Cromwells army in the civil war, there are still ruins of it in the park but not much is left now. It's worth a visit, both day and night

The only public toilets in Thornhill (Rectory Park) were demolished early in 2007.

There is a miniature golf course in Rectory Park,

Tags: Historical Place,Park,Miniature Golf Course