Wortley is a village and civil parish

Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley

Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley

The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough of the metropolitan county of South Yorkshire, England. Its main town is Barnsley....

, South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South 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 City of Sheffield...

, England

England

England 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, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. At the 2001 census it had a population of 579.

Wortley grew up as a settlement where the Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

 to Halifax

Halifax, West Yorkshire

Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...

 road crossed the Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

 to Rotherham

Rotherham

Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Don, at its confluence with the River Rother, between Sheffield and Doncaster. Rotherham, at from Sheffield City Centre, is surrounded by several smaller settlements, which together form the wider Metropolitan Borough of...

 route. In 1250, a Sunday market was briefly established, but this was quickly suppressed by the monks who owned the right to hold markets in Barnsley

Barnsley

Barnsley is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Dearne, north of the city of Sheffield, south of Leeds and west of Doncaster. Barnsley is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, of which Barnsley is the largest and...

. In 1307, the village finally received a Royal Charter

Royal Charter

A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...

 to hold a weekly Thursday market

Market

A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

 and an annual three-day fair at Whitsun

Whitsun

Whitsun is the name used in the UK for the Christian festival of Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples...

. The market and fair both soon ceased, and an eighteenth-century attempt to revive the fair was unsuccessful.

The village is famous for the Wortley Top Forge

Wortley Top Forge

Wortley Top Forge is an historic former finery forge and ironworks originally dating back to the seventeenth century, although evidence suggests iron working took place in the vicinity as early as the fourteenth century...

, which dates back to the time of the Industrial Revolution, but is most famous for the notorious highwayman Swift Nick (John Nevison

John Nevison

John Nevison , also known as William Nevison, was one of Britain's most notorious highwaymen, a gentleman-rogue supposedly nicknamed Swift Nick by King Charles II after a renowned dash from Kent to York to establish an alibi for a robbery he had committed earlier that day...

, 1639 - 1684) who was born and raised there. It was really he (and not Dick Turpin

Dick Turpin

Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...

) who made the infamous ride on horseback from London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

 in order to establish an alibi for a robbery. Until 1987, Wortley was home to the Earl of Wharncliffe

Earl of Wharncliffe

Earl of Wharncliffe, in the West Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1876 for Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, 3rd Baron Wharncliffe. He was a descendant of Edward Wortley Montagu and his wife, the authoress Lady Mary Wortley...

.

Located in Wortley is Wortley Hall

Wortley Hall

Wortley Hall is a stately home in the small South Yorkshire village of Wortley, located west of Barnsley. For more than five decades the hall has been chiefly associated with the British Labour movement...

. The parish contains the hamlet of Bromley.