The Ickles/Templeborough/Bradmarsh area in Rotherham, a view over the railways taken in 1971 & 2013

Many millions of years ago a hyper-intelligent race of pan-dimensional beings became so fed up with the constant bickering about the 'meaning of life' that they decided to sit down and solve it once and for all. And to this end, they built themselves a stupendous super-computer called 'Deep Thought' ... after mulling over this problem for a considerable length of time, seven and a half million years, in which the philosophers, Vroomfondle and Majikthise made considerable impact on their gravy-train of philosophical musings, the long-awaited response from 'Deep Thought' came, the answer ... '42'. It was decided, on instruction from 'Deep Thought' that to decipher _that_ reply, the 'Mice' would have to build yet another computer, able to understand the response. This newer, faster computer turned out to be the 'Plant Earth' but just before the answer became available, the Earth was blown up by a Vogon Constructor Fleet, making way through the Solar System for a new hyperspace bypass... and that, or so it is written, is where the story begins. Douglas Adams trilogy in 5 parts, 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy', with the front cover of the 'Guide' emblazoned with the re-assuring words, 'DON'T PANIC', in large friendly red letters...

 

Well it has been 42 years between the two events depicted in this first New Year, 'Then & Now' piece, showing the scene over-looking one of the local South Yorkshire railway areas, at top, in November 1971 and below, as best as I could manage, a very similar view from the 23rd March 2013 with, for this date, a surprising downfall of snow still evident. The upper picture 'popped up', as it were, during the recent scanning session for the pictures for the Varsity-II set, taken by my father during the war. This one however wasn't part of that set of course but was in the same box and I hadn't taken a close look at what this was until scanning the second set of pictures for the Varsity-II material. It is unfortunately not of very good quality and I think, as it was November, the first shot taken by my father, is out of the side window at their bungalow over-looking what was still a thriving Don Valley Steel Industry. Even so, poorness of shot aside, I well remember this view as it lay below where, in the 1950s/60s style, myself and cousin ran wild under what seemed to be eternal long, hot summer days and rarely wanted to be inside except maybe for Top of the Pops on Thursdays at 7:30pm and Dr. Who on Saturdays at `tea time`, around 6:00pm... In addition, my grandfather, Fred Moncaster, a builder, whose work featured here on these pages last year, see-

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and-

www.flickr.com/photos/daohaiku/31862800414/

and who owned the land at the back of his house just across the road from where we lived, used the land as open space along with the storage of building materials and this provided enough in the way of source materials to enable us to get up to all sorts of mischief. I was delighted to find this shot, looking over the sidings area atop what used to be the Bradmarsh area of Ickles, the sidings at that time, perched on a large piece of high level ground beyond the then snaking course of the River Rother. As mentioned above, it looks like the shot, taken on Kodak colour transparency film, dates from Nov 1971. Although the original is in 'colour' the time between 'then and now' hasn't been kind to the emulsion and the positive has a strong magenta cast which makes the scene look odd; as this is the way we like out vintage railway pictures, this was rendered in black-and-white. Some processing has been undertaken and an attempt made to remove the many spots and marks on the slide, especially visible on the sky section; so this isn't a bad rendition with the proviso that it is still slightly blurred. There is much to see in the picture and the main item of interest, as shown in the 'tidied-up' version of a detailed 1955/68 OS map of the Bradmarsh area, the GC's lines coming in from the rear of the Templeborough, Steel, Peach & Tozer, works can be seen at top left, passing over the the River Don with another bridge below it allowing access into sidings in the space which now forms the rough ground/car park, for Centenary Park; the more northerly bridge into the sidings at Bradmarsh, now having been removed, carried the lines over into the elevated Bradmarsh sidings; now the land has been flattened and is now the Bradmarsh Business Park. The GC mineral line which comes out of the site and heads south-west towards the Ickles Goit, a small stream usually to feed a mill or windmill, in the lower left corner of the map, continues and joins the Midland's 'Old Road' at Masbrough Sorting Sidings which ultimately became a Freightliner Depot and is now the Masbrough Freight Depot/Steel Terminal/Newell and Wright Container Services depot. The small estate of terraced houses running along the north-west side of Sheffield Road consists of, the aptly named, River Street, Bradmarsh Street, Marsh Road and Marsh Street, of which there is still a little left with its single house next to the car showroom at Bow Bridge. An interesting feature is that the GC built their second line south of the 'Mineral Railway' marked on the map, which then went into other works at the side of the river just north of the Phoenix Works Hall, and the line also curved east and passed under the original line in a small tunnel, coming out on land between Bradmarsh and River Street and the now east-bound flow of the River Don. In the mid-to-late 1950s, heavily wrapped in blankets in the spare back-bedroom of my grandparents house at No.9 River St, marked on the map, I used to watch the patterns on the thin curtains, of the fiery inferno which happened regularly in the night; the furnaces in the Iron & Steel works being tapped or ladles of molten metal being poured out of wagons on the lines, just a few hundred yards away between the house and the River Don bank. At top left in this map, just at the other side of the River Don, the main lines of the Great Central Railway head north-east from the Tinsley and Woodburn Junctions, heading towards Rotherham Central, and on to Mexborough. At top right, the confluence of the Rivers Don and Rother, at Bow Bridge, a very dark and sinister edifice in the 1950s when all the rivers around here were heavily polluted and looked not one jot very inviting at all; I absolutely hated walking over that bridge. Things have changed dramatically now of course with clean water, kingfishers and other bird life about and the water full of fish and plant life; but all the Templeborough polluting steel works have now gone of course. In the main picture at top left, many features are evident. Centre left background, hiding somewhat is smoke, the Tinsley Cooling Towers and to their right, behind the tall chimney stack, the gasometer at Wincobank which was demolished last year, see-

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The well packed area of the Bradmarsh Sidings is in the foreground, behind Rotherham's Canklow Council house estate, with the Kenning's Garage at the central intersection and their car hire establishment off to the right along the same road. Difficult to see in this picture but the meandering nature of the River Rother can just be made out, with what used to be called the 'Ox-Bow lake' cut off from the main river and shown in the 1955/68 map at right in the lower right corner; officially titled there as 'Pond'. The 1971 picture was processed in November but I'm not sure this is when the picture was taken, as the double-image of the setting sun is too far over towards Kepples Column in the north-west at Kimberworth, where it used to pass behind in high summer; so this picture, with the sun more south of the Column may be from the Autumn. The advertising hoardings on Sheffield Road, at the side of the GC's bridge over the road into the Bradmarsh sidings, can be clearly seen, one with the distinctive checker-board pattern standing out between the other two. This advertising awning looks to have been up for a couple of years as it featured in a picture I took at this location, in colour, three years earlier in 1968!, of a lunar eclipse., the checker-board pattern clearly visible alongside the GCs embankment carrying the mineral line over into the Bradmarsh Sidings. The main feature in that picture, at centre, was what we all knew as the 'Hovis Factory', the flour mill of RHM, Rank-Hovis Mcdougall, fully illuminated and fully working and still, at that time, receiving materials in Waddingtons Barges, on the short section of the River Rother which was navigable, below Bow Bridge; just off to the right partially hidden by the bushes. It was demolished in 2012.

In front of the awnings, on this side of Sheffield Road, and to the east of the Bradmarsh Sidings embankment, was an area of land next to the river, where the Waddingtons Barges used to pull up, this land, although host to a cricket ground, see map at right, frequently flooded and was probably the reason my grandparents two-up-two-down house with outside loo was situated on the very aptly named 'River Street'. All this area is now re-developed and Centenary Way, the dual carriageway allowing folk to bypass Rotherham town centre, runs along the bottom of the black and white picture and can be seen in the snow covered scene in the lower picture, of approximately the same area, taken from the identical vantage point, in March 2013; which saw a particularly snowy start to the new year and which extended into late March! In the lower picture, a 3-part panorama, taken at 18:44 on the 23rd March, there is sufficient light to illuminate the scene using 200ISO with the 40mm lens set to f/16, to give the star-burst lens diffraction effect and with a 3.2 seconds shutter time; so cars, racing along Centenary Way, at centre, have their lights streaked along the frame. Missing from this lower picture, in the background, the Tinsley Towers are no more, demolished in August 2008 and the elevated Bradmarsh Sidings, the height of course representing the difference between the GCs line formation and that of the Midland, the latter running through here at the other side of the Bradmarsh area, during the early 1980s, were razed to the ground and now form the Bradmarsh Business Park. At centre left, the dark building with the red-stripe just visible, is the Magna Science Adventure Centre with now, no Wincobank gasometer to its right; the River Rother got straightened out and now flows where the developers and planners found it most convenient to be and all the meandering features and the interest they created, have gone. The Canklow Council house estate is still present, though under-going a process of refurbishment with new houses being built on the space where old ones have been demolished once tenants can be moved out. Kenning's GArage, seen in the earlier picture has had a chequered history and is now a hand car wash facility operating from the same site. At the time of this picture, in early 2013, not all of the RHM building had been demolished, though all the concrete structures had been removed, there was still a couple of building left which seemed to persist for a while; they can be seen alongside the River Rother at far right. Booths Scrapyard is just behind them and the Midland's large bridge of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation can be seen just behind the elevated barriers of the Brinsworth Street level crossing on the Holmes Chord. Immediately to the left of the crossing, the large white expanse, above the 3 prominent 'stars' at the Citroen Garage on Centenary Way, is Centenary Park with its henge of cast iron trilithons, a remnant of past Iron & Steel glories. The Midland's 'Old Road' lines run alongside the park at the far end, passing behind the Bradmarsh Business Park and making their way south alongside the Masbrough Freight Depot/Steel Terminal with the chrome-green Firth-Rixon building just behind. The centre of Sheffield, the well lit city, is off to the left, but the sky already speaks of a system of light pollution which in the last two years, as part of the road regeneration programme, is being changed over to upward-shaded LED lighting; though the stark blue of the light isn't very welcome compared to the soft yellow variety seen in this picture.

 

Those March days, almost 4 years ago, with the snow having fallen heavily, reminded me of the not-often played introduction to the Raymond Briggs seminal and iconic story of 'The Snowman', if interested, a clip of this can be heard here-

www.tightfitz.com/sounds/Raymond_Briggs-Intro-to-The-Snow...

Done