Memories of Royston
The Whincover Royston. It’s Origins. Albert Walker Harry Vincent the present owner and resident of Whincover House has researched the origin of the name Whincover. I met him recently at the Anglers Retreat at Wintersett and he came up with some valuable and interesting information. He found that whin is the name of a type of gorse bush and cover is still in common use as a place for foxes to live or take refuge (as is fox covert). So the landed gentry and fox hunting fraternity of the area, actually created these covers in strategic places all around their properties in order to increase the ease of finding foxes on hunt days when they were entertaining their sporting friends. Before the expansion of the coal industry and even before the building of the canal in the late1700’s, the area was peppered with fox covers of various kinds by landowners such as the Pilkingtons of Chevet Hall and, in the cases of our Whincover, the Moncktons of Hodroyd Hall, Felkirk. In this way they were attempting to almost domesticate the fox, so that if one cover did not produce a fox when the hounds were put in, they could ride on to the next and so on. It would appear that once the Barnsley Canal was built (in which they had shares ), and passing through their land, The Moncktons were quick to capitalise and encouraged the building of The Old Ship Inn, stables for the barge horses, and a dozen or more houses on the site of their old whincover. Thus the name Whincover carried on being used as an address for the created hamlet. In the late 1870’s, with the sinking of the New Monckton 1&2 Collieries up the hillside to the east of Whincover, the value of the site increased dramatically. The coal was drawn straight out of the pit and tipped, virtually directly into the barges waiting in the purpose built Whincover Basin below. The remains of this chute were still in evidence into the 1950’s.
232