John Dickinson, my 3rd great-grandfather, was born in Masbrough, in 1831. Masbrough is a suburb located in the township of Kimberworth, which is in the borough of Rotherham (West Riding), in South Yorkshire, England.
In 1841, John was 10 years old and living in the home of his parents, William and Ann Dickinson in a place called Woodstock Bower in Kimberworth. William was 50 and working as a "Tilter". Ann was 35. They had four children in the home with them: Ann (age 15), Martha (age 13), John (age 10), and Joseph (age 5).
After much searching, I found that Woodstock Bower was located (approximately) at 19 Kimberworth Road, in Rotherham. This may have been an apartment building or perhaps a manor or workhouse, since several other families lived there. Notice one of the other families on the census was Stephen Procter (Proctor), also a Tilter. John's daughter, Mary Ann, married a man by the name of John Proctor, possibly related.
The western end of Coronation Bridge is across the street, connecting Kimberworth to Rotherham. Kimberworth is northeast of Sheffield, where the family lived later.
The oldest photograph of Woodstock Bower I was able to locate shows it already abandoned in 1981. This and more can be seen at the website Rotherham Now & Then. You can browse their site to get a better idea of what Rotherham and the surrounding area looked like in the past when John Dickinson and his family lived there.
If anyone has any other photographs, illustrations, maps, or information about Woodstock Bower or the Dickinson family of Rotherham, Kimberworth, or Sheffield, please comment below or contact me!
See maps showing the location and layout of Woodstock Bower at this site:
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