Rotherham, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Rotherham is a minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham. Rotherham is named after the River Rother, one of two major rivers (the other being the River Don) to flow through the town.

Prior to the industrial revolution, traditional industries included farming, glass making and flour milling. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Rotherham became known for its coal mining and, later, steel industries.

The town's historic county is Yorkshire, and Rotherham once formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire administrative county. In 1974, this administrative county was abolished during a reorganisation of local government. Subsequently, Rotherham became part of the county of South Yorkshire, where it makes up one of four metropolitan boroughs.

History Evidence of Iron Age and Roman settlements has been found in Rotherham area. This includes a small Roman fort to the south-west in the upper flood meadow of the Don at Templeborough.

Rotherham was founded in the early Middle Ages. Its name is from Old English hām 'homestead, estate', meaning 'homestead on the Rother'. The river name is of Brittonic origin for 'main river', ro- 'over, chief' and duβr 'water'. Another river called the Rother flows through East Sussex. The Anglo-Saxon settlement, with an ecclesiastical parish, was established on a Roman road's ford over the River Don and the area around it.

The 1086 Domesday Book records a manor previously held by lord Hakon in 1066 tenanted by William the Conqueror's half-brother, Robert de Mortain. The 1086 record shows an absentee lord who held the most inhabited manor, Nigel Fossard. The town area today includes eight outlying Domesday estates. Eight adult male householders were counted as villagers, three were smallholders and one the priest, three ploughlands were tilled by one lord's plough team and two and a half men's plough teams were active. The manor also had a church, roughly four acres of meadow and seven woodland acres. Rotherham had a mill valued at half a pound sterling.

Nigel Fossard's successors, the De Vesci family, rarely visited the town, but maintained a Friday market and a fair. In the mid 13th century, John de Vesci and Ralph de Tili gave all their possessions in Rotherham to Rufford Abbey. The monks from the abbey collected tithes from the town and gained rights to an extra market day on Monday and to extend the annual fair from two to three days.

The townsmen of Rotherham formed the "Greaves of Our Lady's Light", an organisation which worked with the town's three guilds. It was suppressed in 1547 but revived in 1584 as the feoffees of the common lands of Rotherham, and remains in existence.

In the 1480s the Rotherham-born Archbishop of York, Thomas Rotherham, instigated the building of a College of Jesus in Rotherham to rival the colleges of Cambridge and Oxford. It was the first brick building in what is now South Yorkshire and taught theology, religious chant and hymns, grammar and writing.

The college and new parish of All Saints Church made Rotherham an enviable and modern town at the turn of the 16th century. The college was dissolved in 1547 during the reign of Edward VI, and its assets were stripped by the crown. Very little remains of the original building in College Street. Walls of part of the College of Jesus are encased within number 23 and Nos 2, 2A, 4 (later for a time Old College Inn, a beerhouse), 6 and 8 Effingham Street. A doorway was rescued from demolition and relocated to nearby Boston Park in 1879. Sixty years after the college's dissolution Rotherham was described by a wealthy visitor as falling from a fashionable college town to a place of gambling and vice. The history of Thomas Rotherham and education in the town are remembered in the name of Thomas Rotherham College.

Industrial Revolution The Rotherham area had been used for iron production since the Roman occupation of Britain. However, toward the end of the 18th century, coal seams near the town made Rotherham an important settlement in the Industrial Revolution. Coal exports from the town led to infrastructure improvements in the River Don's navigability, and the river eventually became an artery of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation system of navigable inland waterways.

During the early Industrial Revolution iron, and later steel, became the principal industry in Rotherham, surviving into the 20th century. The Walker family built an iron empire in the 18th century, their foundries producing high quality cannons, including the majority of guns for the ship HMS Victory, and cast iron bridges, one of which was commissioned by Thomas Paine.

Rotherham's cast iron industry expanded rapidly in the early 19th century, the Effingham Ironworks, later Yates, Haywood & Co, opened in 1820. Other major iron founders included William Corbitt and Co; George Wright and Co of Burton Weir; Owen and Co of Wheathill Foundry; Morgan Macauley and Waide of the Baths Foundry; the Masbro' Stove Grate Co belonging to Messrs. Perrot, W. H. Micklethwait and John and Richard Corker of the Ferham Works. G & WG Gummer Ltd exported brass products across the world, supplying fittings for hotels, hospitals, Turkish baths and the RMS Mauretania. Their fittings could also be found on five battleships used in World War II and HMS Ark Royal.

The Parkgate Ironworks was established in 1823 by Sanderson and Watson, and changed ownership several times. In 1854, Samuel Beal & Co produced wrought iron plates for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's famous steamship the SS Great Eastern. In 1864, the ironworks was taken over by the Parkgate Iron Co. Ltd, becoming the Park Gate Iron and Steel Company in 1888. The company was purchased by Tube Investments Ltd in 1956 and closed in 1974. Steel, Peech and Tozer's massive Templeborough steelworks (now the Magna Science Adventure Centre) was, at its peak, over a mile (1.6 km) long, employing 10,000 workers, and housing six electric arc furnaces producing 1.8 million tonnes of steel a year. The operation closed down in 1993.

The first railway stations, Holmes and Rotherham Westgate both on the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway opened on 31 October 1838. Holmes station was located close to the works of Isaac Dodds and Son, pioneers in the development of railway technology. Later railway stations included Parkgate and Aldwarke railway station on the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, which opened in July 1873, the Parkgate and Rawmarsh railway station on the North Midland Railway and the Rotherham Masborough railway station also on the North Midland Railway.

Rotherham Forge and Rolling Mill occupied an island in the river known as Forge Island. Its managing director was Francis Charles Moss of Wickersley before his death in 1942. The site was later occupied by a Tesco superstore and is set to be the location for a new leisure development with a proposed cinema, food and drink outlets and a hotel.

Joseph Foljambe established a factory to produce his Rotherham plough, the first commercially successful iron plough.

A glass works was set up in Rotherham in 1751, and became Beatson Clark & Co, one of the town's largest manufacturers, exporting glass medicine bottles worldwide. Beatson Clark & Co was a family business until 1961, when it became a public company. The glass works operated on the same site, although the family connection ceased and the company is owned by Newship Ltd, a holding company linked to the industrialist John Watson Newman. It continues to the manufacture glass containers for the pharmaceutical, food and drinks industries. In the 19th century, other successful industries included pottery, brass making and the manufacture of cast iron fireplaces. Precision manufacturing companies in the town include AESSEAL, Nikken Kosakusho Europe, MTL Advanced, MGB Plastics and Macalloy. Rotherham is the location of the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), which is home to a number of world-class companies including Rolls-Royce and McLaren Automotive.

The district abounds in mineral wealth; coal and iron ore are found in great profusion, and have been wrought from [long ago]. The town was formerly celebrated for its manufacture of edge tools; and in 1160, there were mines of ironstone, smelting-furnaces, and forges in the neighbourhood. But the most extraordinary establishments of this kind, of late years, were the iron-foundries belonging to Messrs. Walker, in which immense quantities of cannon of the largest calibre were wrought for government during the war, till the works were given up by the original proprietors, and let out to small capitalists. The spinning of flax affords employment to about 200 persons; there are manufactories for rope and for starch, a large malting establishment, two large ale and porter breweries, several oil and chemical works, and a glass-[making] house. Some other manufactories and works are noticed in the article on Masbrough. The Don, which is navigable to Sheffield, communicates with the river Aire on the north-east, with the Stainforth and Keadby canal on the east, with the Dearne and Dove canal and the Barnsley canal on the north-west, and consequently with the river Calder; by which means Rotherham enjoys [goods trade] with all the principal towns in the great manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire. In 1836 an act was passed for making a railway to Sheffield, with a branch to the Greasbrough canal and coal-field; it was opened [in] 1838, and the distance is about six miles…The market is on Monday, for corn, cattle, and provisions: on alternate Mondays is a celebrated market for fat-cattle, sheep, and hogs, numerously attended by grazers from distant parts of the country; and fairs take place on Whit-Monday and December 1st, for cattle. A court leet is held annually, at which constables and other officers for the internal regulation of the town are appointed

— A Topographical Dictionary of England, Samuel Lewis, 1848.

Milling grain into flour was a traditional industry in Rotherham, formerly in the Millmoor area, hence Rotherham United F.C.'s nickname "The Millers". Flour milling continued at the Rank Hovis town mill site on Canklow Road until September 2008. The site of the mill is now a warehousing and distribution facility for local logistics company 4S Distribution.

Enterprise Zone 1983 In 1983 Rotherham became a designated Enterprise Zone with benefits and incentives given to attract new industry and development in the area. Within the first year ten new companies were established within the zone. The former chemical works at Barbot Hall, which had been empty and derelict, was developed into a new industrial estate and named 'Brookside', after Mangham Brook, running alongside it.

Floods of 2007 Rotherham was affected by flooding in the summer of 2007, which caused the closure of central roads, schools, transport services and damaged residential and commercial property, including the Parkgate Shopping complex and the Meadowhall Centre, which suffered considerable internal water damage. Ulley Reservoir caused major concern and forced the evacuation of thousands of homes when its dam showed signs of structural damage, threatening to break and release water into the suburbs of Treeton, Brinsworth and Canklow as well as potentially flooding the Junction 33 electrical sub-station. Rother FM evacuated its studios, passing its frequency temporarily to neighbouring station Trax FM. A stretch of the M1 motorway was closed for three days owing to the flood risk in the event of a breach of the reservoir. Fire service and police officers used thirteen high-powered pumps to lower the water level in the reservoir and reduce pressure on the dam wall, which was damaged but held. By summer 2008, the reservoir and surrounding country park reopened.

A new wetland and flood storage area, Centenary Riverside park, has since been built by Rotherham Council and the Environment Agency to prevent flooding in the future. The Wildlife Trust for Sheffield and Rotherham manages the site as a local nature reserve. The site is home to the massive sculpture Steel Henge, a Stonehenge replica which is in fact made from iron ingots.

Landmarks All Saints Minster, on a square of the same name, was built using neat-cut pieces made of a unique sandstone, Rotherham Red, with a low-pitchEd lead roofing. It is a listed building in the highest category of architecture, Grade I. A Belfry was added to the church in 1501 and today the Minster houses 13 bells. A church has stood on the site since before the Norman Conquest and the current building dates from the 15th century and includes parts from earlier Saxon and Norman structures. Clayton and Bell working to George Gilbert Scott's designs constructed the east window. Stained glass makers and designers A. Gibbs, Camm Brothers, Heaton, Butler and Bayne and James Bell are known makers of the other windows. Gargoyles flank its clock on each face. It has a "recessed octagonal spire with crocketed arrises and pinnacled shafts rising from corner faces and a gilded weathervane". Architectural critics Nikolaus Pevsner and Simon Jenkins considered it "the best perpendicular [style] church in the country" and "the best work in the county", respectively.

Close to the town centre is the 15th-century Chapel of Our Lady of Rotherham Bridge (or "Chapel on the Bridge"), beside Chantry Bridge (a road bridge opened in the 1930s). It is one of four surviving bridge chapels in the country. The chapel was restored in 1923, having been used as the town jail and a tobacconist's shop.

The town was once home to Jesus College which was founded by Thomas Rotherham in the fifteenth century. The remains of the college's buildings are in the town centre, some of the earliest examples of a brick built structure remain although not accessible to the public. The gate to the College of Jesus can be found in nearby Boston Park.

Boston Castle, in the grounds of Boston Park, was built as a hunting lodge by Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham between 1773 and 1774 to mark his opposition to British attempts to crush the Americans in their war for independence. It is named after Boston, Massachusetts, the scene of the Boston Tea Party.

Built in the 18th century, Clifton House houses Clifton Park Museum.

On the outskirts of Rotherham, a brick-built glass making furnace, the Catcliffe Glass Cone, is the oldest surviving structure of its type in Western Europe and one of four remaining in the United Kingdom – the others being the Red House Cone in the Wordsley centre of the Dudley Glassworks in the West Midlands, Lemington Glass Works west of Newcastle upon Tyne and Alloa in Scotland. Threatened with demolition in the 1960s, it has been preserved as a Scheduled Ancient Monument and stands as a focal point in a sheltered housing complex and close to the path leading up the Rother valley.

South of Maltby in the east of the district, half-way to Worksop are the ruins of Roche Abbey, among the small minority in the United Kingdom bearing multi-storey walls, as most others are no more than foundations or a single storey of ruins following the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s.

Education Rotherham has three further education institutions and colleges. These are Thomas Rotherham College, Dearne Valley College and the Rotherham College of Arts and Technology. The Rotherham College of Arts and Technology has a campus in the Rotherham town centre and a second site in Dinnington, as well as a nearby, smaller campus for the construction-based subjects taught, such as bricklaying.

Governance Between 1889 and 1974, Rotherham was divided into the County Borough and Urban Districts and Rural Districts which were overseen by the County of York, West Riding.

Geography The town in great part occupies the slopes of two hills; that in the west is the start of a 3 miles (4.8 km) north-west crest topped by Keppel's Column,a folly; that in the east is a narrower crest alongside the Rother known as Canklow Hill, topped by a protected laid out public area, Boston Park, less than 500 metres east of and 80 metres above the Rother. The Rother here is between 32 and 34 metres above sea level. The south scarp here is slightly higher still, the Canklow Hill Earthworks, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, one of relatively few in the borough, as pre-dating recorded history.

Rotherham's commercial town centre occupies the valley in between these hills on the navigable part of the River Don flowing from the south-west after it has turned approximately due north. The town centre is less than 0.5 miles (0.80 km) below and north of the confluence of the Rother flowing from the south. The Mid Don Valley continues adjoining towns in the north of the Metropolitan Borough.

Beyond the town centre and away from the Don Valley, the Rotherham district is largely rural, containing a mixture of retired people, larger properties, some farming and tourism and the landscaped Wentworth Woodhouse estate, where the last surviving kiln of the Rockingham Pottery can be seen.

Aside from two regular roads and two bypasses (one being the motorway network), Sheffield is connected directly by the Trans Pennine Trail which passes the Meadowhall shopping centre on both sides (which between the two places) as it includes Sheffield as southern detour.

Rotherham Central station has frequent trains connecting to Sheffield in a time of 14 minutes; Manchester through a change in Sheffield is accessible in a similar circa 70 minutes to nearer Leeds and York as many towns and suburbs in South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are all stops on Rotherham's railway – it is Doncaster which has the East Coast Main Line providing express intercity services.

Green belt Rotherham is within a green belt region that extends into the wider surrounding counties, and is in place to reduce urban sprawl, prevent the towns in the Sheffield built-up area conurbation from further convergence, protect the identity of outlying communities, encourage brownfield reuse, and preserve nearby countryside. This is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas, and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building.

The green belt was first adopted in 1979, and the size in the borough in 2017 amounted to some 20,450 hectares (204.5 km2; 79.0 sq mi), covering 72% of the overall borough. The green belt surrounds the Rotherham urban area, with larger outlying towns and villages within the borough such as Treeton, Swallownest and Thurcroft also exempted. However, smaller villages, hamlets and rural areas such as Morthen, Ulley, Guilthwaite, Hooton Roberts and Old Ravenfield are 'washed over', so minimising unsuitable development in these.

A subsidiary aim of the green belt is to encourage recreation and leisure interests, with rural landscape features, greenfield areas and facilities including the Wentworth Woodhouse estate and temple, River Rother, northern portions of the River Don and Hooton Brook, Pinch Mill Brook, several golf courses, Ulley reservoir, Herringthorpe allotments, Rotherham Roundwalk and Sheffield Country Walk/Trans-Pennine trails, Thurcroft Hall, and Valley Park.

Demography In 2011, 14.4% of Rotherham's population were non-white compared with 8.1% for the surrounding borough. Rotherham town has over double the percentage of Asian people compared with the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham and a slightly larger percentage of black people.

Museums The Magna Science Adventure Centre, an interactive science and adventure centre built in a former steel works in Templeborough, has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region.

Clifton Park Museum medium-sized museum in Clifton Park. Admission is free.

Entertainment The Civic Theatre and an Arts Centre is in the town centre.

The Westgate district of the town centre is the focal point of Rotherham's nightlife.

In 2019, work began on the former Tesco site on forge island to build a multiplex cinema, 4 restaurants, new urban public space and a hotel. The project, first mooted in the early 2000s has experienced many delays and is now scheduled open in 2024, more than 20 years after the scheme was proposed.

Events Rotherham holds several public events through the year:- A fashion show Rotherham Rocks in July, takes place in 'All Saints Square' and Rotherham by the Sea, in August, is held in Clifton Park, which is transformed into a seaside beach with sand, deckchairs and other traditional seaside attractions. Rotherham Show is an annual event, held in Clifton Park, with stalls from all sectors of the community, shows and live bands in September. The Rotherham Real & Music Festival hosted at the Magna Centre, is one of the UK's largest Real Ale festivals, and typically hosted over 4 days.

In 2016 Rotherham's first carnival took place. The People's Parade which included over 400 people including costumes from Rampage, Luton – Batala a 50 piece Brazilian samba band and hundreds of local people, schools and community groups. The parade lead to a festival in the park with flags, decor 'Eh Up Rotherham' sign, rides, stalls Djs and bands, workshops and activities.

In 2022, Rotherham played host to the UEFA Women's Championship, hosting several games at the New York Stadium.

Parks Clifton Park, in the town centre is a large park and also includes sport facilities, an outdoor paddling pool, a small fairground and an adventure park. It has been voted and nominated several times over the past few years for numerous awards. The park also holds several events annually including the great Rotherham show and annual fireworks display which both attract thousands of people each year.

Minster Gardens is an urban park in the heart of the town centre, next to Rotherham Minster and All Saints Square. It has an amphitheatre and space for open-air events, with stepped seating, lawns, grass terracing and a meadow area.

Culture: Music Rotherham has several Brass band clubs. It has also produced many classic and progressive rock bands, supported by the Classic Rock Society, such as Jive Bunny, Bring Me the Horizon, and Morris Minor and the Majors.

Economy: Retail Rotherham town centre has various chain stores including Tesco Extra. Following the availability of "Vitality Grants" from 2009 onwards, a number of new independent businesses opened in the town centre such as Yella Brick Road. In 2015, Rotherham won the Great British High Street award for its independent town centre shopping. Judges praised the transformation of key properties and the restoration of its "historic core". A plaque commemorating the award was unveiled by Secretary of State for Local Government & Committees Sajid Javid MP in September 2016. As of 2021 the majority of the retail in Rotherham is made up of a thriving independent scene with lots of new start up businesses opening in the town centre. Due to the close proximity of Sheffield City Centre, Meadowhall shopping centre and the towns Parkgate Retail Park Rotherham has struggled to attract major brands. Despite hopes by the Council to establish the town centre as an Independent Alternative, many units within the town centre remain vacant, or have been demolished.

Local Media Local news and television programmes are BBC Yorkshire and ITV Yorkshire. Television signals are received from the Emley Moor TV transmitter.

Rotherham’s local radio stations are BBC Radio Sheffield on 104.1 FM, Greatest Hits Radio Yorkshire on 96.1 FM, Heart Yorkshire on 107.7 FM, Hallam FM on 102.9 FM and Redroad FM on 102.4 FM, a community based radio station.

The Rotherham Advertiser is the town’s local newspaper.

Sport: Football For the 2022–23 season, the town's association football team, Rotherham United, will play in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English Football. The team currently plays at the New York Stadium. Historically the town was represented by Rotherham Town, and Rotherham County, who both played in the Football League.

Sport: Rugby Rotherham Titans rugby union team reached the Guinness Premiership in 1999 and 2003 before being relegated. The club plays at the Clifton Lane Sports Ground. The town is also represented in rugby league by the Rotherham Giants of the Rugby League Conference.

Cricket Rotherham Town Cricket Club is an English amateur cricket club with a history dating back to 1846. The club ground is based on Clifton Lane. The club have 2 Saturday senior XI teams that compete in the Yorkshire Cricket Southern Premier League, and a junior training section that play competitive cricket in the Sheffield and District Junior League.

Motor Racing Former Formula One team Virgin Racing were based in Dinnington in the borough. IndyCar and former ChampCar and Formula One driver Justin Wilson was from Woodall, which is in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham. Motorcycle speedway racing was staged in the town about 1930.

Greyhound racing Three greyhound racing tracks existed in or around the town. They were Rotherham Greyhound Stadium (1933-1974); around Millmoor (1930-1933) and in Hellaby. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club) and all three tracks were known as flapping tracks, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.