Sitlington, historically Shitlington, was a township in the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Thornhill in the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley in the West Riding of Yorkshire comprising the villages and hamlets of Middlestown, Netherton, Overton and Midgley.
New Hall, once a moated manor house became the property of Sir Thomas Wortley and subsequently the Earls of Wharncliffe.
[10] In medieval times monks from Kirkstall, Rievaulx and Byland Abbeys and St John's Priory in Pontefract obtained ironstone from Sitlington.
[1][4] Netherton and Midgley are in the south-west of the township separated from Overton and Middlestown in the north east by the wooded valley of the Coxley Beck.
[6] The A642 road between Wakefield and Huddersfield passes through Middlestown and by the National Mining Museum at Caphouse Colliery in Overton.
The geology of the area comprises the Coal Measures of the South Yorkshire Coalfield, sandstone, Millstone Grit and in medieval times, ironstone was got from the Tankersley seam that outcrops in Overton and Emroyd Common in Middlestown.