Wales is a village and a civil parish in the metropolitan borough of Rotherham (part of South Yorkshire, England), on the border with Derbyshire. It constitutes the villages of Wales and neighbouring Kiveton Park. According to the 1991 census, the combined parish has a population of around 6,000.

Geography

The village of Wales itself is located at approximately , at an elevation of around 100 metres above sea level. It lies on the A618 and B6059 roads, and is served on the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway by the Kiveton Bridge station . The M1 motorway bisects the parish, while the southern boundary is partly marked by the Chesterfield Canal whose Norwood Tunnel runs under meadowland to the south. To the west of the village is Rother Valley Country Park .

History

Wales shares its name with the nation of Wales, and the derivation may well be the same: the name Wales coming from a Germanic root meaning stranger. The suggestion, therefore, is that there was a continued Celtic presence here following the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons at the turn of the 6th century. The earliest reference to Wales is in 1002, when Wolfric Spot , a Saxon thegn, is recorded as owning Walesho.

Sir William Hewet , Lord Mayor of London in 1559, was born in Wales, and his descendents, the Dukes of Leeds, would come to dominate the area.

Education and Employment

Education in Wales is provided by Wales Primary School and Wales High School .

Prior to its closure in 1994, the Kiveton Park Colliery was a major employer. The industrial estate at Wales Common continues to be a large source of employment (not least the frozen food manufacturer Hazlewood Foods ), but principally, Wales now acts as a commuter base for Sheffield.