called Loxley, coursing in this vicinity described by a local poet as follows:

"From Wharncliffe Wood, where yet, unknown to fame,
The moorland torrent falls without a name,
To where the Loxley, down his shelving bed,
Rolls to the Don his waters tinged with red.
No whispering reeds, no meads like velvet neat,
Tempt to his banks the summer wanderer's feet;
But broken ground and scattered stones are there,
And roots long washed by wintry torrents bare.
Tall woods descending meet the water's edge;
Swift sluices, gushing down the rocky ledge,
Far o'er the windings of the foot path way,
In misty showers, throw the hoary spray."

It runs between Stannington and Wadsley, until it is joined by the Riveling at Malin Bridge, shortly after which it is merged in the Don, just beyond High House, near Owlerton. This stream, and the chase through which it flows bear a name on which the magic wand of the "great wizard of the north" has conferred an immortal and worldwide reputation; and thousands know Locksley as one of the aliases of Robin Hood, who are not aware that it is a real name, and that in this, as in many other instances, Sir Walter Scott built his charming fabrication upon a foundation of truth. We have now to attend to what forms more particularly the parish of Ecclesfield, of which the church and village are nearly at the central point. Its boundary line on the north and west coincides with the boundary of the Wapentake of Strafford and Tickhill. On those sides it adjoins Tankersley, and its chapelry of Wortley. On the east it has Wentworth and Rotherham, and on the south Sheffield. The duke of Norfolk is lord of the manor, owner of the rectory, and patron of the church. He has much land and extensive woods. But there are many ancient freeholds, and houses, which, in the common language of the neighborhood, are dignified with the name of halls. Several of these are now deserted by their proprietors. The families in whom they descended from generation to generation have either become extinct, or have retreated to a greater distance from the smoke and other annoyances of the iron manufactures. In the neighborhood of Chapel Town are extensive iron works. Some portion of the Sheffield manufactures is found here. All the nails manufactured in Hallamshire are made in this parish. The parish produces coal and iron-stone. At the village of Ecclesfield was a cotton, now a paper factory. But still the general character is rather that of an agricultural than a manufacturing district. There have been some recent inclosures, so that there is now (1819) but little land in an unproductive state. In 1801, the parish contained 1020 houses, and 5114 inhabitants. In 1811 its inhabitants were 5834, in 1861 they were 12447. This is the district surveyed in Domesday book under the name of Eclesfelt. In the Saxon times it was in the hands of six proprietors; and hence, according to the nomenclature of that survey, it was said to consist of or to contain six manors. But it had only four rated carucates, and there were only two villeins, and as many bordarii. There was a pasturable wood of little more than two square leuæ in extent. In the time of the Confes

sor, it was valued at three pounds. At the time of the survey it was worth only ten shillings. The Norman had been there. The names of the six Saxon lords were, Ulfac, Elsi, Godric, Dunninc, Elmar, and Norman. Ulfac was lord of Grimesthorpe. Godric had Brinsford and Greasborough, neighboring manors. Elsi and Norman had other property in the Wapentake. Perhaps Elsicar may derive its name from this person. Roger de Busli is returned as sole Norman lord. Very soon after the Conquest, a religious house was erected at the village of Ecclesfield, which was made dependent on the foreign monastery of Saint Wandrille. It was under the superintendence of a prior. Of its founder we are ignorant; but most probably it was either Roger de Busli or the Countess Judith, a known benefactor to that house. It is scarcely probable that it was Roger de Busli, more likely to be the Countess, who was a benefactor; but perhaps still more probable that it was the first of the Lovetots. It was exhibited in parliament in the reign of King Edward III, that the Church of Ecclesfield was founded by the monks of St. Wandrille, three, hundred years before, which fixes its foundation, and also the existence of the priory, at a period not long after the Conquest. This was in 50 Edward III (1375); three hundred years before would carry us back to 1075, which is before the date of Domesday, and before the appearance of the Lovetots in the north. There can be little doubt that the priory was founded by Judith, unless it was a Saxon foundation. No Saxon would have given it to St. Wandrille. But by whomsoever it was founded the priory of Ecclesfield acquired a predominant interest in the whole parish. When De Lovetot succeeded to the interest of De Busli in this neighborhood, he found but a divided sovereignty at Ecclesfield. We have already given a deed by which it was intended to define the respective right of the monks and of De Lovetot. But much seems to have been left unsettled; for from the time of King John, to the seventh of Edward I we find the lords of Hallamshire engaged in legal discussions with the monks touching this manor of Ecclesfield. There are some remains of the priory of Ecclesfield near the Church; and a small piece of ground moated around is said to have been an island in the swan-pool of the religious. Richard II found the priory of Ecclesfield and all its appurtenances in the hands of the crown, and in the 9th of his reign, anno 1386, gave them to the newly-founded Carthusian monastery of Saint Anne near the city of Coventry. By such an appropriation he prevented the clamor which might have arisen from the ecclesiastics of his time. It was in the midst of the contentions which issued in the dissolution of the priory of Ecclesfield, that in all probability the treasure was secreted which was discovered in the year 1770, in the house of one Richard Wood, an inhabitant of Ecclesfield. It consisted of groats and half groats, of the reign of Edward III. Mr. Wilson was informed that as many were found as would have filled a peck measure, and that they were sold en masse for sixty pounds. The rectory and the manor of Ecclesfield were granted in 3 Edward VI, to Mary, Countess of Northumberland, for life. Ecclesfield Hall, in which the Courts were held, was formed out of the buildings inhabited by the monks.

THE PARISH CHURCH AT ECCLESFIELD

"The church of Ecclesfield is called by the vulgar, and that deservedly, the Minster of the Moors, being the fairest church for stone, wood, glass,