page_title: Thornhill, West Yorkshire
section_title: Seizure of Thornhill Hall
hierarchical_section_title: Thornhill, West Yorkshire / History / Seizure of Thornhill Hall
caption_attribution_description: St Michael and All Angels, Thornhill 1
context_page_description: Thornhill is a village and former township in Dewsbury, Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Thornhill was absorbed into Dewsbury County Borough in 1910. It is located on a hill on the south side of the River Calder, and has extensive views of Dewsbury, Ossett and Wakefield. It is known for its collection of Anglo-Saxon crosses.
context_section_description: The Saviles remained here until the English Civil War when the house was besieged. As royalist heroine since the siege of Sheffield Castle in 1644, Lady Anne Savile's troops under Capt. Thomas Paulden (brother of William Paulden) in August 1648 defended Thornhill Hall against the Parliamentary forces under Col. Sir Thomas Fairfax. They were forced to surrender and the hall was destroyed.
  The Old Rectory survived and was home to several prominent vicars, most notably John Michell, who first rose to international prominence by developing an understanding of earthquakes, then devised an experiment to accurately determine the mass of planet Earth, but perhaps most intriguingly for Thornhill, attracted Benjamin Franklin (founding father of the USA), Joseph Priestley, Jan Ingenhousz, John Smeaton and others to a scientific meeting and overnight stay in 1771. Benjamin Franklin's stay in Thornhill remained unknown until 2015.
  Some ruins of the house and the moat still remain at Thornhill Rectory Park. The moat still retains water.
  Monuments to members of the Thornhill and Savile families are in Thornhill Parish Church.
caption: St. Michael and All Angels, Thornhill Parish Church
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