RECORDS OF EDLINGTON (YORKSHIRE) LAND AND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LTD

Comprising: Title deeds, mortgages, abstracts of title and associated legal papers. Includes the records of its successors.

The Edlington (Yorkshire) Land and Development Company Limited, and the partnership which preceded it, was responsible for building a substantial part of the colliery village of New Edlington between 1909 and about 1922. The village was built to house the workers who moved into the area on the sinking of the Yorkshire Main colliery. The colliery was created by the Staveley Coal and Iron Company, which bought land in Edlington and the leased the right to exploit the coal reserves under this and adjoining land from the Battie-Wrightson of Cusworth estate in several transactions in 1909 and 1910. William Wrightson of Cusworth had acquired the Edlington estate in 1803 from the Molesworth family, which had owned it since the late seventeenth century.

The Land and Development Company (and its satellite, the Edlington Co-operative Tenants Ltd.), built the streets on the north-west of Edlington Lane, bounded by Victoria Road to the north, Gordon Road to the south, and St John's Road and Church Road to the east. (It also purchased Staveley Street, to the north of Victoria Road from the original developer). Altogether, the estate as defined by these deeds comprised 557 houses and sixteen shops when completed.

On 22 December 1909, Lady Isabella Battie-Wrightson, the widow of W H Battie-Wrightson of Cusworth, and her trustees conveyed to the Staveley Coal and Iron Company Ltd. of Staveley, Derbyshire for £4,200 approximately seventy acres of land in Edlington, part of Martin Wells Farm and Edlington Farm, shown on an accompanying plan as plots 101,107, 109 and 114. There is no information in the documents catalogued here about the development of the plot numbered 101, to the south of Martin Wells Farm.

A few days later, on 31 December 1909, the Staveley Company sold 6 acres 2 roods and 23 perches of land to Arthur Thompson of Balby, builder, for housing development. A few days later, on 31 December 1909, the Staveley Company sold 6 acres 2 roods and 23 perches of land to Arthur Thompson of Balby, builder, for housing development. Just over six months later, on 6 July 1910, Thompson sold the land and the houses he had built upon it to four Cardiff-based partners for £4,763. The partners were Harry Davies of Cardiff estate agent (who later withdrew from the partnership), Joseph Woolf of Cardiff merchant, Dr. S G Morris of Mardy, and F C Davies of Pontypridd accountant. Some five months afterwards, on 1 December 1910, the Staveley Company made an agreement with these four partners, now carrying on business as the Edlington (Yorkshire) Land and Property Company, altering the covenants in the conveyance of 31 December 1909.

Shortly after the first dealings between the Staveley Company and the Land Company, on 16 December 1910, the colliery company sold to the latter for £2,928, 41 acres 3 roods and 7 perches, part of the land which it had bought from Lady Isabella Battie-Wrightson a year earlier. The estate was developed in two parts: the section to the north of Main Avenue, and the section to the south of it.

By the end of July 1913, a plan in the abstract of title shows the extent of the Land Company's activities in the previous two-and-a-half years in the northern section. In addition to the houses purchased from Thompson in Staveley Street, the company had built houses in Victoria Road and in Queen's, King's, Prince's and Duke's Crescents. Land had been sold to York Diocesan Trustees for the site of a parish church (St John the Baptist, New Edlington), to the West Riding County Council for the site of an elementary school on Victoria Road and two sites to the Doncaster Co-operative Society for shops. The growth of the Land Company's developments can be traced through the descriptions of the properties in the mortgages that it obtained successively on its estates.

The area to the south of Main Avenue was developed by an organisation called the Edlington Co-operative Tenants Ltd. This purchased the 10.837 acres of land, which eventually supported 200 houses, from the Land and Development Company in October 1914. However, it appears that this organisation was essentially the Land and Development Company in another guise, as the membership of its board was identical with that of the Land and Development Company. This may have been done to make it easier to obtain the mortgage funds necessary to build the houses.

In addition to the deeds directly relating to the property of the Land and Development Company, there is a copy of the memorial of a deed of 20 April 1910. By this deed, Lady Isabella Battie-Wrightson of Cusworth conveyed to the Staveley Company substantial property that the Cusworth estate owned in the area. The price is not given in the abstracts nor in the memorial of the deed registered with the West Riding Registry of Deeds. The property conveyed comprised the Barnsley seam of coal under the land and 115 acres and 33 perches of land in Edlington and Warmsworth.

The records have been grouped together by type as follows:

DYEDLO/1–14: Conveyances

DYEDLO/15–29: Mortgages and Associated Deeds

DYEDLO/30–38: Deeds and documents relating to two hundred cottages

DYEDLO/39–47: Abstracts of Title

DYEDLO/48–49: Lists of Mortgages

DYEDLO/50–51: Mining Leases

DYEDLO/52: Other records

DYEDLO/53–54: Schedule of deeds and documents, 1909–1964

Open

These deeds were given to Doncaster Archives in 2003 by the former solicitors to the owner who succeeded the Land and Development Company. Many of the deeds itemised in the schedules have not been found, and have presumably passed to the subsequent owners of the property.

Paper and vegetable parchment; some plans on linen and tracing paper. Mainly in good condition for their age

Duplicate copies of an abstract of title of Information 1965 were disposed of, otherwise the archive remains intact

None expected from this source, as the owner of the property is no longer a client of the solicitors who made the gift

New Edlington St John the Baptist (Doncaster Archives reference P41). Battie -Wrightson of Cusworth (Doncaster Archives reference DD/BW). J Simmons and Son of Doncaster (Doncaster Archives reference DYSIM)