The
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in...
s of
North Anston and
South Anston are the principal constituents of the
civil parishIn England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and in some places the lowest tier of local government, below districts and counties. A civil parish can alternatively be known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council; and in a limited number of...
of
North and South Anston, in the
Metropolitan Borough of RotherhamRotherham is a metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. It is named for its main town, Rotherham. Despite a swing against Labour in 2008, it is one of the safest Labour councils in the country and now their only safe council in Yorkshire...
in
South YorkshireSouth Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and the city of Sheffield...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The area is generally known simply as
Anston, although the Post Office now officially recognises South Anston in its own right, (this change occurred due to postal confusion with nearby Aston and also because of petitions of local residents). Anston is located on the
A57The A57 is a major road in England. It runs east from Liverpool to Lincoln, via Warrington, Irlam, Eccles, Salford and Manchester, then through the Pennines over the Snake Pass , around the Ladybower Reservoir, through Sheffield and past Worksop.Within Manchester a short stretch becomes the A57...
trunk roadA trunk road, trunk highway, or strategic road is a major road—usually connecting two or more cities, ports, airports, etc.—which is the recommended route for long-distance and freight traffic...
, midway between Sheffield and
WorksopWorksop is the largest town in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England on the River Ryton at the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. It is about east-south-east of the City of Sheffield and its population is estimated to be 39,800...
.
The
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in...
s of
North Anston and
South Anston are the principal constituents of the
civil parishIn England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and in some places the lowest tier of local government, below districts and counties. A civil parish can alternatively be known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council; and in a limited number of...
of
North and South Anston, in the
Metropolitan Borough of RotherhamRotherham is a metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. It is named for its main town, Rotherham. Despite a swing against Labour in 2008, it is one of the safest Labour councils in the country and now their only safe council in Yorkshire...
in
South YorkshireSouth Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and the city of Sheffield...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The area is generally known simply as
Anston, although the Post Office now officially recognises South Anston in its own right, (this change occurred due to postal confusion with nearby Aston and also because of petitions of local residents). Anston is located on the
A57The A57 is a major road in England. It runs east from Liverpool to Lincoln, via Warrington, Irlam, Eccles, Salford and Manchester, then through the Pennines over the Snake Pass , around the Ladybower Reservoir, through Sheffield and past Worksop.Within Manchester a short stretch becomes the A57...
trunk roadA trunk road, trunk highway, or strategic road is a major road—usually connecting two or more cities, ports, airports, etc.—which is the recommended route for long-distance and freight traffic...
, midway between Sheffield and
WorksopWorksop is the largest town in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England on the River Ryton at the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. It is about east-south-east of the City of Sheffield and its population is estimated to be 39,800...
. It has a population of 9,559.
Anston was already established as a settlement by the time of the
Domesday BookThe Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror...
(1086), when North and South Anston (
Anestan and
Litelanstan) were under the ownership of Roger de Busli. The name Anston is thought to derive from "
an stan" (a stone) as opposed to anything based on the
suffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
-ton, and there is much evidence of
quarryA quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel...
ing in the area. Anston, and neighbouring Dinnington make up a 3.5 km strip of urban development stranded amidst a sea of agricultural land, and its presence and growth owe much to quarrying. The original interest for the area (beyond Anston's agricultural uses) was the sandy "
Anstone" magnesian
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
, but the real growth in Anston's population was more due to the sinking of the Dinnington Colliery in the early 20th century.
Anston railway stationAnston railway station was situated on the Great Central and Midland Joint Railway line between the villages of North Anston and South Anston near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England....
opened on 20 May 1912 and closed on 2 December 1929.
North Anston
North Anston is located at about 53° 21' 20" N, 1° 13' W, and merges seamlessly into the town of Dinnington to the north. Today it is largely a commuter base for Sheffield, Worksop and Rotherham, and is mainly made up of sub-urban housing estates. The picturesque "old village" at the south-east however retains its
greenA village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
, and the village
wellA water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
s. The surrounding landscape contains several disused quarries: the
plantationA plantation is a large farm or estate, usually in a tropical or subtropical country, where crops are grown for sale in distant markets, rather than for local consumption. The term plantation is informal and not precisely defined....
s to the east, and Greenlands Park to the west being prime examples.
There are currently two pubs in North Anston - the Little Mester on Nursery Road and the Cutler on Woodsetts Road.
North Anston is home to a tropical butterfly house, and also the limestone gorge of Anston Stones Wood - a
site of Special Scientific InterestA Site of Special Scientific Interest or SSSI is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based...
.Anston stones wood stretches across the border of South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. The wood is believed to be part of a medieval smuggling route. evidence of this has been found in the valley an example of this is dead mans cave.( a large cave carved out of the limestone used for hiding goods).
South Anston
South Anston is located at about , and is separated from North Anston by the Anston Brook, the A57, and a freight railway-line. It is more rural than its northern partner, though still has its fair share of suburban sprawl. South Anston contains the parish church of St. James, and two methodist chapels (dating from 1871 and 1935). It also contains Anston's working quarries which continue to mine stone for the building industry.
There are two pubs of note in South Anston - the Loyal Trooper and the Leeds Arms.
At the extreme south of the parish runs the
Chesterfield CanalThe Chesterfield Canal is in the north of England. It was opened in 1777 and ran 46 miles from the River Trent at West Stockwith, Nottinghamshire to Chesterfield, Derbyshire...
, and adjacent to it is the disused Harry Crofts Quarry, which, along with other local quarries, provided the stone for the
Palace of WestminsterThe Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament, is the seat of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
.