Masbrough

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Masbrough
Yorkshire
West Riding

A rural trail around Masbrough
Location
Grid reference: SK416928
Location: 53°25’48"N, 1°22’23"W
Data
Population: 13,262  (2011)
Post town: Rotherham
Postcode: S60
Dialling code: 01709
Local Government
Council: Rotherham
Parliamentary
constituency:
Rotherham

Masbrough is a village of the West Riding of Yorkshire which has become a contiguous suburb of Rotherham, just west of the town centre. It had become just the western part of Rotherham by the middle of the Industrial Revolution, standing on the left bank of Don.just half a mile from Rotherham's town centre.

History

The old Guest & Chrimes valve works

Part of the land in the north of the village lay within the manor of Kimberworth, the other contiguous western suburb of Rotherham today – Masbrough did not feature in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The place was descried in 1848 as follows:

Masbrough, in the township of Kimberworth, parish and union of Rotherham... ½ a mile (N. W.) from Rotherham; containing nearly 5000 inhabitants. This place forms part of the suburbs of the town of Rotherham, with which it is connected by [a bridge, the Chapel of Our Lady of Rotherham Bridge] of five pointed arches over the river Don, on the central pier of which is an ancient chapel of elegant design, [then] used as a prison. It is nearly of equal extent...and has long been distinguished as the [site] of numerous works connected with the manufactures of the district; of these, a few years since, the principal were the extensive foundry and iron-works of the late Samuel Walker, Esq., in which, during the war, immense quantities of cannon and ordnance of the largest calibre were cast, and subsequently, various iron bridges, including that of Southwark in London. Since the establishment here of a station of the Midland railway, by which... sheep and cattle are sent to Manchester, Liverpool, and other towns, a wonderful increase has taken place in the value of landed property; and the facility of [travel to] distant parts... by that line... promises to render this a principal seat of manufacture. It also derives benefit from the Sheffield and Rotherham branch railway. A large tract of land, forming the estate of Benjamin Badger... has been surveyed and laid out in lots for building; and several streets, intersecting each other at right angles, and forming direct approaches from Rotherham and the neighbourhood to the railway station, have been marked out. A spacious hotel for the accommodation of passengers by the railway, and some handsome dwelling-houses, have been built; and a great increase has been made in the number of manufacturing establishments: there are potteries, glass-works, chemical works, a timber-yard, and several forges and foundries. The Independent College, noticed under the head of Rotherham, is... here; and a Roman Catholic chapel has been built.

– Extract from A Topographical Dictionary of England, Samuel Lewis (publisher), 1848

A commemorative memorial to 50 victims of a boat disaster at Masbrough in 1841 by Edwin Smith of Sheffield is in All Saints Church, Rotherham.[1]

Avondale Street

A large memorial to a celebrated iron magnate, Samuel Walker, stands behind the site once occupied by the 1760 Independent chapel (with a date stone of 1777), the Walker Mausoleum. After being closed as a place of worship, the chapel became a carpet showroom Allens of Rotherham, but was destroyed by fire in 2012. It is connected by a short foot subway and Chapel Walk to all the historic buildings in central Rotherham.[2] There were further memorials and statues within the chapel building. The chapel's statue to Jonathan Walker (died 1807), who was at the heart of the iron industry that led to the local area's development, depicts the man leaning on a truncated column "with head in hand".[3]

In 1862, the Midland Iron Company was the scene of an industrial disaster, when one of the boilers exploded, killing nine people. No trace of this company exists as it became the site of a new bus depot in 1982.

Churches

  • Church of England: St Paul's
  • Pentecostal: Rotherham Assemblies of God, now known as Liberty Church
  • Roman Catholic: St Bede's

There are also three mosques in or around Masborough.

References

  1. Grade I listing National Heritage List 1132733: Masbrough
  2. National Heritage List 1132740: Walker Mausoleum and railed enclosure with obelisks and end piers (Grade ii listing)
  3. Masbro' Independent Chapel, Bicentenary 1760–1960, Charles Chislett (ed), Sheffield