Monk Bretton

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Monk Bretton is a village in the metropolitan borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It has been a settlement since medieval times, although most of the older buildings have been demolished and the oldest structure still standing is a 400-year-old barn at the junction of Cross Street and Westgate. Monk Bretton has a 200-year old church and several pubs together with a number of shops. The village greatly explanded in the 19th and 20th centuries with the building of new housing estates, so that today Monk Bretton more or less merges into nearby Lundwood, Carlton, Athersley and Smithies.

The nearby Priory of St Magdalane of Lund, a ruined former Cluniac (later Benedictine) house, is commonly known as Monk Bretton Priory although it actually lies outside the village in the Lundwood area. The presence of the nearby monastery is believed to be the origin of the 'Monk' part of the name.

Famous people from Monk Bretton include Sam Nixon, runner up of pop idol^{[citation needed]}. Keith Laybourn, long serving Professor of History at Huddersfield University, was born in Monk Bretton.