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The Town of Mexborough
with Stu Charmak
 Mexborough, a small town nestling between Rotherham and Doncaster, has not done badly in terms of the fame of some of its inhabitants.It can claim three remarkable actors, Brian Blessed, Kenneth Haigh and Keith Barron; Graham Oliver, a founder member of heavy metal group, Saxon; poet laureate Ted Hughes; and Formula One racing driver Mike Hawthorn, who was Britain’s first World Champion exactly 50 years before current title holder Lewis Hamilton. A plaque commemorating Hawthorn was unveiled in 2006 in Hope Street.
Mexborough’s beginnings, however, were not that auspicious as a Celtic settlement, but its strategic importance on the north bank of the River Don, was in being the only place for miles around at the time where that river could be forded.
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 A Celtic tribe called the Brigantes made a road through the settlement; this eventually formed part of the Roman road known as Ryknild Street. The Brigantes also built a defensive earthwork structure, the remains of which are still in evidence, in Castle Park. Both the Romans and the Saxons utilised and refortified this earthwork, part of a series of defensive structures running from Mam Tor and Castleton through to Mexborough. It was last used as a functioning defensive stronghold by Roger de Busli, a companion of William the Conqueror, who built a motte and bailey castle there along with others in this area at Kimberworth, Laughton-en-le-Morthern and Tickhill.
An earthwork rampart, the Roman Ridge, which originally stretched from where Nursery Street in Sheffield now stands to Windhill in Mexborough, can still be located between Kimberworth and Mexborough. This ridge is believed to have been constructed by the Brigantes as well some time after 43AD in an attempt to defend against the Roman advance to the north. The ridge was subsequently used as a defence against the Angles and Scandinavians after the Roman withdrawal from Britain around 410 AD. The ridge may subsequently have been used by the Saxons to mark part of the boundary between the Saxon Kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia.
 The Celtic name for the original settlement is no longer known, but, according to local legend, Mexborough takes its name from a Saxon chieftain called Meoc and the Saxon word burg, meaning a fortification. However, the town is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Mechesburg, meches meaning a Saxon chieftain. Either way the derivation of its name appears to come from parallel sources.
Mexborough has a historic market dating back more than 800 years. It was given its market charter in 1177. However, by the 1970s market had grown so much it was too big for its location next to the Montagu Arms, and had spawned stalls on the other side of Station Road, adjacent to the market hall and drastic changes had to be made to the area.
Nowadays the outer market is located in the heart of town and there is a purpose built Market Hall. There are more than 90 stalls with a wide range of produce on offer, with free parking adjacent to the Market. Market days are Monday, Friday and Saturday with a second hand market held every Thursday.
 The oldest building in the town is St. John the Baptist C of E church. There is documentary evidence of a church on the site very soon after the Norman Conquest. However, it is believed that the church is originally of Saxon origin probably constructed on top of a Celtic worship site, but also that the present building had passed through three separate stages of construction. One school of thought is that the original erection was 1080 and 1100 evidenced by the two round pillars and plain square capitals on the north side of the nave.
Others place the dates between 1150 and 1190 because of the transitional character of the moulding at the bases of the pillars and the rudeness of the capitals and the arches, accounted for by the remoteness and poverty of Mexborough at that time. Secondly, a doorway discovered in 1891 in the wall under an arch not only witnessed to the taking down of a north aisle and the building up of the arches, but also to the date when this was done, probably between 1260 and 1280. And thirdly, the two windows with perpendicular tracery that existed in the north wall spoke of another alteration having been made between 1400 and 1450.
 Apart from the church and several public houses, most of the buildings in the town are post-1800. This reflects the flurry of activity throughout the 18th, 19th and much of the 20th centuries when Mexborough’s economy was based around coal mining, quarrying, brickworks and the production of ceramics, and it soon became a busy railway junction too.
The original Mexborough station, known as “Mexborough Junction” because of its proximity to the junction with the North Midland line at Swinton was situated about 600 metres west of the present station on the South Yorkshire Railway’s Barnsley to Doncaster line, at that time the only line through the town. This station was opened in January 1850 and closed on 4 March 1871. Shortly afterwards a branch line was built alongside the canal to serve the pottery at Kilnhurst. The South Yorkshire Railway was absorbed into the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway and they saw through plans to make this pottery branch part of a through line to Sheffield Victoria via Rotherham Central.
The coming of the railways and their attendant industries led to an increase in industrial illness and in the mortality rate. At that time, horrific injuries associated with the mining, steel, glass and railway industries were not uncommon.
 Amazingly in those days you could not go straight into hospital however badly hurt you were. The injured had to be either treated at home or even operated on by a GP (serious operations were carried out there). If he could not treat the injury he had to recommend you to a hospital. The recommendation would go in front of the hospital committee to be assessed as to whether you were a fit sort of person to go into their hospital! By this time you could be dead. If alive though, transportation in the area was to either Doncaster or Rotherham in a horse drawn vehicle.
Late in the 1880s it is documented that Chris Ward, a Denaby coal miner, had an accident at 2 oíclock in the afternoon, but did not reach Doncaster Royal Infirmary until 10 oíclock in the evening, having first been taken home in a coal trap and then transported to Doncaster by pony and trap where one of his legs had to be amputated. This incident inspired Dr. W. Sykes to instigate a meeting at the
South Yorkshire Hotel in 1889. He was able to enlist the help of many powerful sympathisers and a campaign began for a local hospital.
James and Andrew Montagu of Melton Park became the first benefactors donating the land for both the original Cottage Hospital which opened six months later in 1890, and also the present site which opened in 1904. Both bear the name of Montagu. The hospital was fortunate so far as its finances were concerned. To a large extent it was financed by regular contributions from the mining, steel, railways and glass industries in the district. But the public had always been encouraged to feel that it belonged to them and the local community’s generosity with regard to donations continues to this day.
In the wake of the rise of new industries, more public houses and other businesses were created, many of which are still trading today. It was in one of these public houses, the Montagu Arms, that a Stan Laurel stayed overnight after performing at the townís Prince of Wales Theatre on the 9th of December 1907.
In the 1970s there was good news and bad news when planners decided Mexborough needed a bypass: it took a growing flow of traffic out of the narrow town centre and allowed shoppers improved access. However, it also saw buildings of character and purpose demolished and buried in the name of progress. Apart from the homes along its route which fell to the developers in the 1970s, there was a stretch of land from the old market hall to the start of Church Street which was utterly destroyed. Market Street and Oxford Road, in particular, were home to two key buildings in the town, the police station, and fire station, as well as a fine methodist church, and at one time a picture house, and they also went, along with a row of retail premises opposite which included a popular record and joke shop.
Following the demise of the coal mining industry in the 1980ís, Mexborough, like many ex-mining towns and villages, found it hard going. The town is still in the process of recovery but, despite recent events, there are slow but sure signs that economic and social improvement is on the way.
(Acknowledgements are due to the Mexborough and District Heritage Society and its excellent website, without which this article could not have been written.)
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