Barnsley

Surveyor Valuer Barnsley South Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 218,063

The first historical reference occurs in 1086 in the Domesday Book, in which it is called ‘Berneslai’ with a total population of around 200.   The exact origins of the name Barnsley is still subject to debate, but Barnsley Council claims that its origins lie in the Saxon word Berne, for barn or storehouse, and Lay, for field.

The town lay in the parish of Silkstone and developed little until in the 1150s it was given to the monastery of St John, Pontefract.   The monks decided to build a new town where three roads met: the Sheffield to Wakefield, Rotherham to Huddersfield and Cheshire to Doncaster routes.   The Domesday village became known as “Old Barnsley”, and a town grew up on the new site.

The monks erected a chapel-of-ease dedicated to Saint Mary, which survived intact until 1820, and established a market.   In 1249, a Royal Charter was granted to Barnsley permitting it to hold a weekly market on Wednesdays and annual four-day fair at Michaelmas.   By the 1290s, three annual fairs were held.   The town became the main centre for the Staincross wapentake, but in the mid-sixteenth century still had only 600 inhabitants.

Surveyor Valuer Barnsley South Yorkshire

Wandsworth

Surveyor Valuer

Wandsworth Greater London

Approximate Population: 259,881

Wandsworth is a town on the south bank of the River Thames in south-west London.   Wandsworth takes its name from the River Wandle, which enters the Thames at Wandsworth.

Wandsworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Wandesorde and Wendelesorde.   It was held partly by William, son of Ansculf and partly by St Wandrille’s Abbey.   Its domesday assets were: 12 hides. It had 5½ ploughs, 22 acres of meadow.   It rendered £9. Since at least the early 16th century, Wandsworth has offered accommodation to consecutive waves of immigration; from Protestant Dutch metalworkers fleeing persecution in the 1590s, to recent Eastern European members of the European Union.

An influx of French Huguenot refugees in the early 17th century is remembered in many local street names.   There is a band of small and expensive terraced housing (known as The Tonsleys) behind Old York Road — the former centre of old Wandsworth — rising to an area of grander, terraced, semi-detached and detached housing along the roads bounded by West Side Wandsworth Common, Earlsfield Road and East Hill.   In contrast, at the base of East Hill is a collection of high-rise council blocks.

Surveyor Valuer

Wandsworth Greater London