CONISBROUGH, or Coningsburgh, a village and a parish in Doncaster district, W. R. Yorkshire. The village stands on the river Don, adjacent to the Doncaster, Swinton, and Sheffield railway, near the Dearne and Dove canal, 5¼ miles SW of Doncaster; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Rotherham. It is the Caer-Conan of the ancient Britons, and the Cyningburgh or Conanburgh of the Saxons; and it has, on a natural eminence, a well-preserved polygonal keep, 78 feet high, of an ancient castle. This structure is assigned by some antiquaries to the time of the British queen Cartismandua; by others to the Norman Earls of Warren; by Sir Walter Scott, partly to the Saxons, partly to the Normans; possesses interest as the residence of Athelstane in "Ivanhoe;" and was the birthplace of Richard de Conisbrough, Earl of Cambridge, grandson of Edward III. The parish includes also the hamlet of Clifton. Acres, 4, 107. Real property, £7, 094; of which £335 are in quarries. Pop., 1, 655. Houses, 356. The manor belongs to the Duke of Leeds. Roman coins have been found. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of York. Value, £206.* Patron, the Archbishop of York. The church is partly Norman, partly of later dates; and has a chantry, a font, a Saxon monumental stone, a mutilated statue of a knight, and monuments of the Bosvilles and others. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists. A school has £8 from endowment; and other charities have £24.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))