Templeborough

Last updated

Templeborough
South Yorkshire UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Templeborough
Location within South Yorkshire
OS grid reference SK 410 916
Metropolitan borough
Metropolitan county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town ROTHERHAM
Postcode district S60
Dialling code 01709
Police South Yorkshire
Fire South Yorkshire
Ambulance Yorkshire
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Yorkshire
53°25′07″N1°23′17″W / 53.4187°N 1.388°W / 53.4187; -1.388

Templeborough (historically Templebrough) [1] is a suburb of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The suburb falls within the Brinsworth and Catcliffe ward of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council. The area takes its name from the remains of the Roman fort found there which were mistakenly believed to be that of a Roman Temple.

Contents

Roman fort

Templeborough Roman Fort visualised 3D flythrough from Rotherham Museums

A Roman fort was first built on the site in earth and wood in the first century AD (most likely between the years 43 to 68 [2] [3] ), and was later rebuilt in stone. [4] It is thought to have been occupied until the Roman withdrawal from Britain c.410, but its original name has never been ascertained. The Roman road called Icknield Street (sometimes Ryknild or Riknild Street) crossed the River Don at a ford close to the fort. There was also a road named Batham Gate that ran southwest from the fort to Navio a signal station at Brough-on-Noe in Derbyshire. The double bank that surrounded the fort was still visible in 1831 although it is believed that stone blocks from the site were regularly carried off and re-used in nearby buildings.

Archaeological excavations of part of the fort and bath house were carried out in 1877 by the Rotherham Literary and Scientific Society headed by local historians, J. D. Leader and John Guest. They found evidence that the fort had been burned to the ground and rebuilt twice. Coins discovered during this excavation ranged in date from the time of the emperors Augustus to Constantine I. [5]

In 1916 the site of the fort was acquired by Steel, Peech and Tozer's steelworks in order to expand their works to meet the demand for steel during the First World War. The plans for the steelworks required the site to be levelled, and 10–15 feet of soil were removed from the area of the fort, destroying all archaeological remains. [6] However, before the works were constructed, an archaeologist specialising in Roman remains, Sir Thomas May, was invited by Rotherham Corporation to re-excavate the fort over the course of eight months from November 1916 to July 1917.

A tile stamped with the stamp of Cohors IV Gallorum found on the site dates to either the time of Domitian (8196) or Trajan (98117). [4] The Fourth Cohort of Gauls are known to have occupied the fort, as evidenced by the clay tiles and carved Roman tombstones discovered on the site. The remains include one of the earliest known memorials to a named British female.

Notable among the finds were:

Finds from both excavations are now housed in Clifton Park Museum in Rotherham. The original stone columns from the Roman granary at Templeborough Fort were re-erected in Clifton Park in 1922.

Templeborough steelworks

Magna Science Adventure Centre, 2008 'Magna' - geograph.org.uk - 902309.jpg
Magna Science Adventure Centre, 2008
Brinsworth Strip Mills, 2016 Brinsworth Strip Mills (geograph 5162759).jpg
Brinsworth Strip Mills, 2016

Steel, Peech and Tozer, known locally as "Steelos" was one of the largest manufacturers in the Rotherham area. In 1918 they merged with Samuel Fox and Company, based in Stocksbridge and Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company in Scunthorpe creating United Steel Companies (USC). The Templeborough steelworks was reputed to be a mile long. At its height in the mid-20th century, the company employed 10,000 people. In the 1950s as Templeborough's open hearth furnaces had become outdated USC set up “Operation SPEAR” (Steel Peech Electric Arc Reorganization), to introduce six modern electric arc furnaces to replace the 14 open hearth furnaces. This resulted in Templeborough Melting Shop becoming the largest electric arc steel making plant in the world: they were capable of producing 1.8 million tons per year. [10] USC also employed the cybernetician Stafford Beer to run a simulation of a "cybernetic factory". [11]

After nationalisation in 1967 it became part of the British Steel Corporation. The steelworks closed in 1993 and has since been partly converted into a museum—the £46 million Magna Centre. The only remaining Steel, Peech and Tozer plant is Brinsworth Strip Mills, located on Sheffield Road, which is now part of Liberty Speciality Steels.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coventina</span> Romano-British goddess

Coventina was a Romano-British goddess of wells and springs. She is known from multiple inscriptions at one site in Northumberland, England, an area surrounding a wellspring near Carrawburgh on Hadrian's Wall. It is possible that other inscriptions, two from Hispania and one from Narbonensis, refer to Coventina, but this is disputed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stocksbridge</span> Town and civil parish in South Yorkshire, England

Stocksbridge is a town and civil parish, in the City of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies just to the east of the Peak District. The town is located in the steep-sided valley of the Little Don River, below the Underbank Reservoir. It blends into the areas of Deepcar, Bolsterstone and the eastern end of Ewden valley around Ewden village, which are also within the civil parish. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 13,455.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sulis</span> Celtic water deity

In the localised Celtic polytheism practised in Great Britain, Sulis was a deity worshiped at the thermal spring of Bath. She was worshiped by the Romano-British as Sulis Minerva, whose votive objects and inscribed lead tablets suggest that she was conceived of both as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess and as an effective agent of curses invoked by her votaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Sheffield</span> History of the English town

The history of Sheffield, a city in South Yorkshire, England, can be traced back to the founding of a settlement in a clearing beside the River Sheaf in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. The area now known as Sheffield had seen human occupation since at least the last ice age, but significant growth in the settlements that are now incorporated into the city did not occur until the Industrial Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magna Science Adventure Centre</span> Educational visitor attraction in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England

The Magna Science Adventure Centre is an educational visitor attraction, appealing primarily to children, located in the former Templeborough steelworks in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twechar</span> Human settlement in Scotland

Twechar is a small former mining village historically in Dunbartonshire and administered by the council area of East Dunbartonshire, Scotland close to the boundary with North Lanarkshire. It lies between the larger towns of Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch. The Forth and Clyde Canal runs close to the village to the north, and closely follows the line of the Antonine Wall. There are visible remains of the wall on Bar Hill and the Roman Fort is a local tourist attraction.

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 United Steel Companies was a steelmaking, engineering, coal mining and coal by-product group based in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brinsworth</span> Village and civil parish in South Yorkshire, England

Brinsworth is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England. It is situated close to the River Rother between Rotherham and Sheffield. At the time of the 2001 census it had a population of 8,950, reducing to 8,789 at the 2011 Census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steel, Peech and Tozer</span>

Steel, Peech and Tozer was a large steel maker with works situated at Ickles and Templeborough, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rawmarsh</span> Village in South Yorkshire, England

Rawmarsh is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically within the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is 2 miles (3 km) north-northeast from Rotherham town centre and 3 miles (5 km) south-southwest of Swinton. The village also forms part of the Sheffield Urban Area. The Rawmarsh ward of Rotherham MBC had a population of 13,389 at the 2011 Census. Rawmarsh also contains other output areas from neighbouring wards giving it a population of 18,498 in 2011 and 18,535 in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotherham</span> Town in South Yorkshire, England

Rotherham is a 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 to flow through the town.

Cohors quarta Gallorum equitata was a Roman auxiliary cohort containing both infantry and cavalry contingents.

Cohors prima Delmatarum was a Roman auxiliary infantry regiment. It is named after the Dalmatae, an Illyrian-speaking tribe that inhabited the Adriatic coastal mountain range of the eponymous Dalmatia. The ancient geographer Strabo describes these mountains as extremely rugged, and the Dalmatae as backward and warlike. He claims that they did not use money long after their neighbours adopted it and that they "made war on the Romans for a long time". He also criticises the Dalmatae, a nation of pastoralists, for turning fertile plains into sheep pasture. Indeed, the name of the tribe itself is believed to mean "shepherds", derived from the Illyrian word delme ("sheep"). The final time this people fought against Rome was in the Illyrian revolt of 6–9 AD. The revolt was started by Dalmatae auxiliary forces and soon spread all over Dalmatia and Pannonia. The resulting war was described by the Roman writer Suetonius as the most difficult faced by Rome since the Punic Wars two centuries earlier. But after the war, the Dalmatae became a loyal and important source of recruits for the Roman army.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alpine regiments of the Roman army</span> Classical era military units

The Alpine regiments of the Roman army were those auxiliary units of the army that were originally raised in the Alpine provinces of the Roman Empire: Tres Alpes, Raetia and Noricum. All these regions were inhabited by predominantly Rhaetian peoples and Celtic-speaking tribes. They were annexed, or at least occupied, by the emperor Augustus' forces during the period 25–14 BC. The term "Alpine" is used geographically in this context and does not necessarily imply that the regiments in question were specialised in mountain warfare. However, in the Julio-Claudian period, when the regiments were still largely composed of Alpine recruits, it is likely that they were especially adept at mountain operations.

Whitley Castle (Epiacum) is a large, unusually shaped Roman fort north-west of the town of Alston, Cumbria, England. The castrum, which was first built by the Roman Army early in the 2nd century AD, was partly demolished and rebuilt around 200 AD. It appears to have been sited to protect lead mining in the area as well as to support the border defences of Hadrian's Wall.

Slack Roman Fort was a castellum near Outlane, to the west of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, England. Its site is a scheduled monument. The ruins of the fort which lay alongside the Pennine section of the Roman road from Deva Victrix (Chester) to Eboracum (York) are no longer visible. The fort may have been the Cambodunum mentioned as a station on this route in the Antonine Itinerary.

The gens Novellia was an obscure plebeian family at Rome. The only member of this gens known to have held any magistracies was Torquatus Novellius Atticus, perhaps better known from an anecdote of Pliny the Elder; however, many others are known from inscriptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bar Hill Fort</span>

Bar Hill Fort was a Roman fort on the Antonine Wall in Scotland. It was built around the year 142 A.D.. Older maps and documents sometimes spell the name as Barr Hill. A computer generated fly around for the site has been produced. Lidar scans have been done along the length of the wall including Bar Hill. Sir George Macdonald wrote about the excavation of the site. Many other artefacts have also been found at Shirva, about a mile away on the other side of Twechar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navio Roman Fort</span> Roman fort near Hope in Derbyshire, England

Navio Roman fort overlooks a tight bend of the River Noe at Brough-on-Noe near Hope, Derbyshire, in England. Navio fort and vicus is a Scheduled Monument.

References

  1. Collingwood, R. G.; Wright, R. P., eds. (1965). "Templebrough". The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Vol. One (online version).
  2. Breeze, David J.; Dobson, Brian (1985). "Roman Military Deployment in North England". Britannia. 16. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies: 1–19. doi:10.2307/526389. JSTOR   526389.
  3. Todd, Malcolm (2004). "The Claudian Conquest and its Consequences". In Malcolm Todd (ed.). A Companion to Roman Britain . Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. p.  57. ISBN   1-4051-5681-3.
  4. 1 2 Historic England. "Monument No. 316617". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 3 September 2008.
  5. Armitage, Ella Sophia (1905). "Chapter IV. Roman Remains.". A key to English antiquities : with special reference to the Sheffield and Rotherham District. London: J. M. Dent.
  6. May, Thomas (1922). The Roman Forts of Templebrough Near Rotherham. Rotherham: H. Garnett and Co.
  7. Collingwood, R. G.; Wright, R. P., eds. (1965). "RIB 619. Funerary inscription for Cintusmus". The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Vol. One (online version).
  8. Collingwood, R. G.; Wright, R. P., eds. (1965). "RIB 620. Funerary inscription for Crotus". The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Vol. One (online version).
  9. Collingwood, R. G.; Wright, R. P., eds. (1965). "RIB 620. Funerary inscription for Verecunda". The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Vol. One (online version).
  10. "Steel, Peech and Tozer". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Grace's Guide Ltd. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  11. Pickering, Andrew (2004). "The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer's Cybernetic Informatics". Kybernetes. 33 (3/4): 499–521.