Until the early 18th century, what is now Stocksbridge was a deciduously wooded valley, running from Midhopestones at its northwestern extremity to Deepcar at its southeastern end. A river, originally called the Hunshelf Water and later renamed the Little Don, ran through the valley. This river was also, unofficially, called the Porter, probably on account of its peaty colour. A dirt road, connecting Sheffield with Manchester, ran through the woods adjacent to the river. There were a few stone houses in the valley and a sprinkling of farms on each hillside.[3]:38
The works institute
In 1716 John Stocks, a local farmer and landowner, occupied a fulling mill halfway along the valley where a flood plain, created by meltwater at the end of the last ice age, extended southwest from the river. Here he reputedly built a footbridge over the river, perhaps so that his workforce could reach the mill from their homes on the north side. This originally wooden structure, Stocks' Bridge, gave the place its name, not only because it was about the only thing there apart from the mill itself,[3]:40 but also because as a crossing place it appeared under that name on Thomas Jeffrey's map of 1772, so establishing itself as a place name. On various occasions, this bridge was destroyed by flooding, and it was eventually replaced by a stone structure in 1812.[4]
In 1794 three businessmen, Jonathan Denton, Benjamin Grayson and Thomas Cannon,[3]:15 built a large cotton mill extremely close by, or possibly upon, the site of the original mill.
Buildings of Samuel Fox's works. The large structure in the background is the original cotton mill.
The valley bottom today is almost entirely occupied by steel works. Samuel Fox acquired the old cotton mill in 1842, at first renting it from its then owner, Joshua Newton. Nine years later, in 1851, he purchased the mill outright from Joshua's son, Thomas Newton. Fox converted the place to use as a wire mill, and built much of the infrastructure of Stocksbridge, primarily to house his new workforce and to supply their needs. The wire was initially for textile pins, but around 1848 the business expanded to include wire for umbrella frames which led to Fox developing the “Paragon” umbrella frame in 1851.
The business continued to expand, and extended into different products, but underwent a major change in direction in the early 1860s when Fox realized that he could save large amounts of money by making his own steel for the wire, rather than buying it in. Furnaces and a rolling mill were installed, which in turn allowed the production of railway lines and springs. The business was incorporated into a limited company in 1871.
Between 1872 and 1877 a railway line was built to link the works with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway at Deepcar railway station. This was the Stocksbridge Railway, which existed as a subsidiary company until 1992. Although the Sheffield to Manchester route via the Woodhead Tunnel was closed to traffic in 1981, a single-track section from Sheffield to Stocksbridge via Deepcar remains to serve the steel works.
Samuel Fox & Co joined Steel, Peech and Tozer at Templeborough to form the United Steel Companies (USC) following the First World War. From then on the products of the USC sites were coordinated so that each works specialised in set products. Fox’s specialised in special steel produce such as spring steel and stainless steels. This developed into the manufacture of high-quality steel for the aviation industry. One specialised department assembled and tested springs for Rolls-Royce cars.
During the Second World War, 'Sammy Fox's' Steelworks was kept busy as part of the war effort. During the Sheffield Blitz by the Luftwaffe, the bombers used the dam at the end of Stocksbridge as a turning point for their run back toward Sheffield.
Following nationalisation in 1967, the British Steel Corporation split the stainless steel departments off into a separate business which by 2004 had become part of Outokumpu.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Stocksbridge works was part of the United Engineering Steels group (a joint venture between British Steel and GKN) and was known as "Stocksbridge Engineering Steels".
In 1999 the works were taken over by Corus and are part of the Corus Engineering Steels (CES) group. Although for several years Corus ran at a loss, it returned to profit, in part helped by a rise in demand for steel caused by Chinese economic activity.
Steel manufacture in Stocksbridge had always been by melting iron and steel firstly in crucibles (from 1860), then Bessemer converters (from 1862) and Siemens Open Hearth Furnaces (from 1899 until 1968) and lastly Electric arc furnaces (from 1939 until 2005). Iron has never been produced from iron ore at Fox's, by any method.
In October 2006, Corus was taken over by the Indian company Tata. Corus Engineering Steels (Stocksbridge site) was renamed Tata Steels Speciality. During the 2008 recession Stocksbridge works reduced its workforce and output, focusing on producing lower quantities of high-value product for the aerospace and oil and gas markets. After the recession the company returned to profitability and began investing once again. In 2011 £6.5million was invested in boosting the site's ability to produce aerospace steel, and further developments were planned for 2013.[9]
In December 2015 Tata came under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office in connection with the alleged falsification of certificates guaranteeing the quality of its speciality steels. This was then followed in early 2016 by an announcement from Tata that they would be selling their entire steelmaking interests in the UK, due, they said, to crippling electricity prices in the UK which are more than double the price in the European Union and in other competing countries, and to large volumes of cheap steel which are being exported to the west by China. If a buyer could not be found, then steelmaking in the Stocksbridge valley would finally end, after almost 160 years.[10][11]
On 9 February 2017 it was announced by Tata and by the Liberty House Group, that the latter had purchased Tata's entire UK steelmaking operation for GBP 100 million. This has secured the continuation of steelmaking in the Stocksbridge valley.[12][13] In May 2021 Liberty Steel Group put the Stocksbridge business up for sale, a consequence of the collapse of Greensill Capital in March 2021.[14][15]
Transport
The main road from Sheffield to Manchester passed through the town until the A616 Stocksbridge bypass opened in 1988. The new road links the M1 motorway at Junction 35A (and J36) to the A628 (which is one of the main trans-Pennine routes from Sheffield to Manchester) bypassing the towns of Stocksbridge and Deepcar, diverting the steelworks traffic away from passing through the town.
Stocksbridge has bus services that connect the town to Sheffield City Centre, Middlewood tram stop and Barnsley Interchange. The 57/57A (operated by Stagecoach Yorkshire) runs every 30 minutes. The 57 serves Unsliven Bridge (the western part of the town) to Sheffield City Centre, and the 57A serves Stocksbridge Leisure Centre and Worrall to Sheffield City Centre. Service 201 (operated by South Pennine Community Transport) runs hourly connecting Stocksbridge to Chapeltown. Service 23/23A (South Pennine Community Transport[16]) connects Stocksbridge to Millhouse Green hourly, and Barnsley twice a day. Smaller services, such as the 34 and the 26 (also operated by South Pennine Community Transport), serve Northern College to Barnsley Interchange and Penistone, respectively.
Culture
The British Steel Stocksbridge Band [sic] is credited with performing "Slaidburn" in the trailer of the 1997 film The Full Monty. Stocksbridge Engineering Steels Brass Band has since been renamed to Unite the Union Band. Deepcar Brass Band remains locally.
Nearby Bolsterstone is home to a well-known male voice choir led by male vocalist Alan Rodgers, particularly noted for its performances of Sheffield local carols.[17]
Stocksbridge has a strong amateur theatre group called Steel Valley Beacon which produces Shakespeare and other plays every year.
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC Yorkshire and ITV Yorkshire. Television signals are received from the Emley Moor and the local relay TV transmitters.[18][19]
The town is served by the local newspaper Look Local Newspaper.[21]
Sport
The town's local football club, Stocksbridge Park Steels, was founded in 1986 following the merger of Stocksbridge Works and Oxley Park FC. Their home ground is Bracken Moor, located at the eastern end of the town. The club plays in the Northern Premier League Division One East and also organises many youth teams, for ages 8 to 18.
South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire to the east, Nottinghamshire to the south-east, and Derbyshire to the south and west. The largest settlement is the city of Sheffield.
Barnsley is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 96,888 in 2021, while the wider borough had a population of 244,600 in the 2021 census.
Penistone is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 24,760 at the 2021 census. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is 8 miles (13 km) west of Barnsley, 17 miles (27 km) north-east of Glossop, 14.2 miles (23 km) north-west of Sheffield, 27 miles (43 km) south-west of Leeds and 29 miles (47 km) east of Manchester in the foothills of the Pennines. The town is frequently noted on lists of unusual place names.
The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England; the main settlement is Barnsley and other notable towns include Penistone, Wombwell and Hoyland.
The Woodhead line was a railway line linking Sheffield, Penistone and Manchester in the north of England. A key feature of the route is the passage under the high moorlands of the northern Peak District through the Woodhead Tunnels. The line was electrified in 1953 and closed between Hadfield and Penistone in 1981.
The areas of Sheffield, a city and metropolitan borough in the north of England, vary widely in size and history. Some of the areas developed from villages or hamlets, that were absorbed into Sheffield as the city grew, and thus their centres are well defined, but the boundaries of many areas are ambiguous. The areas of Sheffield do not play a significant administrative role, but the city is divided into 28 electoral wards for local elections and 6 parliamentary constituencies for national elections.
Deepcar is a village located on the eastern fringe of the town of Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, England. It is in the electoral ward of Stocksbridge and Upper Don, 7 miles (11 km) approximately north-west of Sheffield city centre.
The Little Don River also known as the Porter, is a tributary of the River Don in South Yorkshire, England. Arising on the Langsett Moors in the northern Peak District, the Little Don River feeds the Langsett and Underbank Reservoirs. It runs through the town of Stocksbridge before joining the River Don.
Tata Steel Europe Ltd. was a steelmaking company headquartered in London, England, with its main operations in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company was created in 2007, when Tata Group took over the British-Dutch Corus Group.
Penistone and Stocksbridge is a constituency in South Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Miriam Cates, a Conservative. As with all Westminster constituencies, adults qualifying to vote in the seat elect one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system at least every five years.
Sheffield is a geographically diverse city in England. It nestles in the eastern foothills of the Pennines and the confluence of five rivers: Don, Sheaf, Rivelin, Loxley and Porter. As such, much of the city is built on hillsides, with views into the city centre or out to the countryside. The city is roughly one third urban, one third rural and one third in the Peak District. At its lowest point the city stands just 29 metres above sea level at Blackburn Meadows on the Rotherham border, rising up to over 500 m in some parts of the city to a peak of 548m at High Stones on the Derbyshire border; however, 89% of the housing in the city is between 100 and 200 metres above sea level. Over 95% of the population resides in the main urban area.
Thurgoland is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England, on the A629 road. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,801, increasing to 1,969 at the 2011 Census.
Deepcar railway station, originally "Deep Car", is a disused railway station near Deepcar, South Yorkshire, England. The station, situated on the line built by the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway, opened on 14 July 1845. The station was located between Oughtibridge and Wortley and was intended to serve the village of Deepcar, near Sheffield, South Yorkshire. In 1899 the route became part of the Great Central Railway main line from London Marylebone to Manchester.
Don Valley Railway first formed as a heritage rail project in September 2003 to operate on the freight rail line between Stocksbridge Steel Works and Sheffield following the route of the former Woodhead Line between Deepcar and Sheffield, The project is developed by Don Valley Railway Ltd., a not-for-profit company and registered charity based in Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire. Original plans to operate heritage rail services for the dual purpose of providing infrastructure for tourism over the weekends, alongside regular commuter services have now shifted towards concentrating on the development of a viable commuter service - though with help of outside assistance heritage plans could be revised. In 2023, the Department for Transport announced that the Don Valley Line will be restored for passenger use.
Samuel Fox and Company was a company operating a major steel complex built in the Upper Don Valley at Stocksbridge, near Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.
The Stocksbridge Railway was a subsidiary of Samuel Fox and Company and linked the company's works at Stocksbridge, near Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, with the main line of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway at Deepcar. As the size of Fox's steelworks expanded, better transport links were needed, and the railway was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1874. It was completed in 1877, and remained an independent subsidiary until 1992, when it became part of the steelworks operation. When the Woodhead line was closed to the north of Deepcar, the line south to Sheffield was singled, and operates as a long siding.
The A616 is a road that links Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, to the M1 motorway at Junction 30, then reappears at Junction 35A and goes on to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
The United Steel Companies was a steelmaking, engineering, coal mining and coal by-product group based in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England.
The Materials Processing Institute is a research centre serving organisations that work in advanced materials, low-carbon energy and the circular economy. The Institute is based in Tees Valley in the northeast of England.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
