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Historical Swinton
By Stu Charmak
 Swinton is located on a hillside on the west bank of the River Don; the higher regions generally being home to older dwellings and the lower regions the location of newer build.
The town was once a centre for the manufacture of ceramics of international importance; deep coal mining, glassmaking, canal barge building and engineering were also part of its industrial landscape.
The River Don provided a vital natural defence for Swinton’s earliest inhabitants, the Brigantes tribe, in their confrontations with the Roman legions. Evidence of Roman presence was found when 19th Century workers digging out a cellar on Rockingham Road uncovered a hoard of nearly 400 coins covering the period from 69 to 212 AD.
The withdrawal of the Romans allowed Dark Age Barbarian tribes such as the Angles, Saxons and Vikingsto invade and settle.
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 Again the River Don would have been a big attraction only this time providing a watery highway to assist this migration. Hard on these tribes’ heels came the Normans under William the Conqueror.
They parcelled out lands to William’s followers as a reward for their services. The Doomsday Book completed in 1086, was an audit of the property and resources in England and it shows Swinton as being very sparsely inhabited. However, it is known that its name derives from the old English for Swine Farm. Documents in Latin dating from very ancient times refer to the settlement as Villa Porcorum (House of Pigs).
 The Normans were responsible for the building of the Chapel of St. Mary Megdalene in the second half of the 12th Century under the auspices of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem who had lands and buildings in Swinton. This building lasted until 1816 when it was demolished, the parish church of St. Margaret being consecrated the following year. On March 24th, 1897, a catastrophic fire burnt down this church, with only the tower surviving. The present larger church was built onto the old tower and was consecrated on October 28th, 1899. The clock in the church tower was installed in 1937 to celebrate the Coronation of King George VI.
Between 1800 and 1901 Swinton’s population rose spectacularly from 653 to 12,217. This coincided with the rapid industrialisation of the Victorian period and led to extensive housing developments and other building in the Swinton Bridge area of the town. For many years industry defined Swinton’s
raison d’etre.
 Coal had been worked in the Swinton area since 1600.
Early mining was by the use of bell pits, opencast and drift methods. Swinton Common Colliery operated into the 1920s and was then demolished. It was situated near the Woodman roundabout. Warren Vale Colliery stood at the far end of the town and was the scene of two explosions which claimed
many lives.
As already shown, waterways have played a significant part in Swinton’s past as the town was an important junction of the Dearne and Dove Canal and the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation. Boat building in the town started in 1770 and the tradition was carried on later by Thomas Scholey and the Waddington family. The Waddingtons Boat Yard still operates a limited barge repair and transport business, having also diversified into timber milling and woodworking.
 The Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation canal, once a major transport route between Sheffield and Goole, underwent substantial modernisation in the mid-1980s and is capable of accommodating very large vessels as far as Rotherham, and pleasure craft right into Sheffield. Recently, limited bulk freight has returned to the canal and can occasionally be seen passing through the modern Swinton Lock. There is now an Activity Centre located at the Lock, which is a community-based Arts, Education and activity centre. This provides a wide range of activities for young people including Fishing, Arts & Crafts, Digital Art and Boat Handling alongside an extensive programme of activities for adults. It has gallery space which features the work of local artists and craftspeople and has held exhibitions.
Swinton is possibly best known for being the site of the Rockingham Pottery, a world-famous manufacturer of porcelain. It was Edward Butler who first established his tile and pot works in Swinton in 1745. The site off Blackamoor Road was ideal for a pottery with clay available on Swinton Common, a reliable water supply, building stone quarried from Wath Wood and coal obtainable from close by.
Eventually, control passed into the hands of the Brameld family, whose technical competence enabled the pottery to become world famous, with an international sales base and royal clients. Although rising costs caused the factory to close in 1842, its name is left as a defining style of rococo porcelain.
 There were several other potteries in the area during the 19th century. One was the Don Pottery at the other end of town and nearby Kilnhust had the Twigg Pottery. Products from these potteries are now highly sought after in the antiques world with collectors of ceramics world-wide maintaining a keen interest in Swinton’s pots. One of the original kilns, a small part of the factory, a gatehouse (both now private residences) and the pottery flint millpond can still be seen today in a small park off Blackamoor Road near the Woodman pub in Swinton.
The railways first came to Swinton with the North Midland line and the first station opened in 1840. A new station was built by the Midland Railway opening in 1899 but then closing in 1968.
The town was without a railway station between January 1968, when this old station was closed as part of the Beeching cuts, and 1990, when a new, unstaffed station was opened. The new interchange restored rail services to the town after a gap of 22 years. This followed the restoration of the dual track “Swinton Curve” enabling trains to travel from Sheffield to Doncaster via Swinton. Increased passenger usage eventually led to the provision of a small building housing a ticket office and waiting room, and in 2002, the facility was presented with a National Award for the best Small Interchange in the UK. Today buses and trains provide regular services to a good range of destinations.
An early record of educational provision in Swinton was a school provided by Earl Fitzwilliam for his stable lads who worked at Swinton Racecourse. A church school opened on Church Street in 1854, with enlargements in 1900 and 1910. This became known as the Fitzwilliam County School. The buildings remain today as private residences. The Education Board erected a school at Swinton Bridge in 1878 and at Queen Street in 1908. Queen Street School still serves the children of the town, along with Fitzwilliam Infants, Fitzwilliam Juniors and Brookfield Junior and Infant Schools. Secondary education, including a VI form, is provided by Swinton Community School, which started life in 1958 as a teacher-training establishment. Milton School provides special education to children from a wide area.
Continuing on the education theme, Swinton now boasts a fine community library. This shares a plaza-type area with the civic hall and a variety of shops including a post office, a fresh fruit shop, a baker’s and a large Co-op store.
The library is large, airy, spacious and has a quiet ambience which encourages reading and research. The tasteful decor is complemented by book displays which highlight a particular theme. There are also individual desks strategically placed for personal study and a children’s area with books and educational toys. The day of my visit, the upstairs floor was given over to a display of the work of young local artists, enhancing the community feel of the library.
Around the library in this central part of Swinton is a parkland area with seating and a mixture of evergreen and deciduous trees, a lovely place to sit and contemplate Swinton’s distinguished past, once home to Julie Andrews’ grandfather and the irrepressible Tony Capstick, and ponder on what the future holds for this busy town.
Acknowledgement is made to the invaluable aid given by the excellent Swinton Heritage website.
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