Chapter One

Masbrough Remembered 

 

Masbrough Station has to be one of the most iconic locations in this area being as it is, and was, at the focus of two railway lines, one passenger and one freight. Although there has been a large down-turn in freight over the years and latterly this has been more the case, with the huge change in the use of coal at the local power stations, the location is still very busy, now with an equally large upsurge in passenger traffic. 

The Midland Main Line runs through here to Sheffield and south to St. Pancras and to the north, to Doncaster, Leeds, York and on to Scotland. The cross-over junctions at both the north and south end of the station site were removed in the 1970/80s though the quadruple lines through the 4 platform faces still exist and there is now only a single lead connection from the Midland passenger lines at the north end, to the 'Old Road', the colloquial name for the Midland's old freight lines, south to Derby and beyond. The station ceased being a passenger station in 1987 when the new Rotherham Central station opened in the centre of the town and which provided a much more convenient location for local people to board the train and access the town easily. 

Freight traffic continues now on both the passenger lines and on the old 'goods' lines which go straight through from north and south, taking the bulk of freight workings on the 'Old Road' along the old platform 3 and 4 lines nearest the station building.

This piece relates to the station area and surrounds and shows pictures which haven't featured in my Flickr, 'Industrial, Rail & Landscape Photography' site here,  Flickr site
but are presented here to illustrate somewhat, the history of some of the surrounding buildings which have either gone or have been re-used for modern businesses. 

The views show the station area and surrounding buildings as it stood in the summer of 2010 but in the short space of time since then, around 8 years, matters have once again changed, not always for the better. After the station closed in 1987, it was left empty for a long while until around 2008 when it was purchased from Network Rail and began conversion into the 'Orient Express', an Asian cuisine establishment and of course with no access to the platform faces at all; although I made a suggestion to the owner to whom I once spoke, that a fenced access at the back of the station on platform 4, would provide a nice spot to have a coffee/beer/food, and watch the trains go by! He appeared semi-enthusiastic!

BR Blue class 37, 37077 seen at Booths Scrapyard

In the local area, just outside the station on the old Sheffield & Rotherham Railway line's now cut off branch, sits the large Booth's Scrapyard and during 2008, a visit was made to the Yard. Having made a nominal contribution for the Sheffield Children's Hospital as the 'entrance fee' , this picture shows part of the scene in the Railway section at the top of the yard, the only part which it is permitted to look around, at that time. To the top right in the picture, not a real signalbox from some lost location, but a commercially available 'shed', decked out to look like the real thing. The Wicker branch line to Rotherham Westgate comes towards the camera and in the background, the Midland's 'Old Road' passes over the line on the green bridge; the scrapyard area gated off from the rest of the line over to Holmes Junction. Sat awaiting its fate in now rusting livery, is British Rail blue class 37- 
37077 Renumbered, from D6777 on 31/12/1973
Works Number:E3069/8323
37077 Named: 30/09/1985, 'British Steel Shelton', unamed: 31/07/1987
37077 Named: 01/10/1989, 'Hurricane', unamed: 01/08/1990
Withdrawn: 30/09/2008
Disposal Date: 17/01/2010, Scrapped, C F Booth, Rotherham
A video of a visit which was mentioned above can be seen here-
Booths Scrapyard Visit, December 2012 

The station undergoing redevelopment

At the front of the station, its car park now fenced off, there are construction vehicles parked and with refurbishment going on inside to change over the station fittings to those used for restaurant purposes. Its a very great shame I didn't go round and take pictures inside, but it looked as if all the 'old stuff' had already gone and there was dust everywhere. The 'Orient Express' is still in business and appears to do well but, like the station before it, its location can't help with trade this far out of Rotherham town centre.

Looking towards Rotherham - 2

Looking towards Rotherham - 1

This location on Coronation Bridge was the 'limit of shunt', as it were, when I was train-spotting here, with all the usual Ian Allen accoutrement, in around 1957-1960, before moving to the other side of town. My parents insisted I went no further than this bridge and although that 'request' was stretched somewhat, it meant I didn't have the sort of adventures others in this area experienced, especially with the use of their bicycles. Both views look from the shallow crown of the bridge, towards Millmoor on the left with the 'Old Road' metals and 'Bloodaxe' graffiti in the right corner of the picture. In the right-hand shot, taken at the same time, the centre of Rotherham is in the background with both 'The Millmoor' pub, and behind it, Victoria Hall, still standing; date 25th August 2010.

Holmes West Sidings & Red Bull pub

The 'Red Bull', previously the 'Tivoli Inn', public house has been open for decades and at this time, August 2010, looks still to be open for business; it has since been boarded up and is now officially closed. The last remnant of the Holmes West sidings can be seen in the form of a track which still passes at the back of the station site. The rails are being covered over by grass and shrubbery but the single line is still signalled at both ends; there is also a buffer stop peeking out from behind a silver birch tree to the left of the signal. The small housing estate along Holmes Lane to the left of the 'Red Bull', now occupies the rest of the land which was once the busy Holmes sidings, controlled from both the large Masbrough Station South signal box and the Holmes Junction box, which was just around the corner, but all this was removed around the late 1970s/early 1980s.

The famed Millmoor Pub next to the old RUFC ground

A close up of the _very_ local pub, 'The Millmoor', here seen boarded up and ripe for re-development, except, it never happened. This shot taken in August 2010, precedes its final demolition in April 2015 and the site is now clear and open. The road at the side is Millmoor Lane, leading down to the level crossing at Brinsworth Street and beyond that, the Rotherham Cut of the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation, the GC's Woodburn to Mexborough line and the Ickles Viaduct carrying the Midland's 'Old Road', south to Chesterfield & Derby. 

Victoria Hall as it would have looked in 1968

Victoria Hall, still seemingly in use as a 'Boxing & Fitness Gym' in August 2010, the gym presumably being on the ground floor as the upstairs looks to have been the target for some vandalism. At this time I am sure the padlocks had been on the doors for a while and it was out-of-use but with the signage still present and this may well have remained, right up until demolition in early April 2015. There is a date-stone above the damaged windows just below the apex of the roof, stating 'Established 1847', and has clearly seen many used though it must have been a cold place to exercise in during the winter! Beyond is the old Telephone Exchange, dwarfed by the stone-built, late Victorian Hall. 

The old Telephone Exchange building

One of the buildings still in-situ and in use, the 1920's looking design of a building which was once the GPO Telephone Exchange. I recall walking past this building to go to the Radio Club on Monday evenings at 7pm, and seeing a lot of heavy looking equipment through the windows of the building. These were the days of relays, transformers, selenium rectifiers, valves and the like with transistors  just recently having become available, but which were relatively expensive, it would take a while longer before solid-state electronics, became very much cheaper and easier to get hold of and finally take over from the kind of gear prevalent in this and many other buildings of its type. Although adorned with modern additions to the structure and small advertising boards on the walls, the building looks essentially the same as it did almost 50 years ago and it is good the building has survived, well into the 21st century.

The scene as it looked in October, 2018

Victoria Hall seen in August 2010

The upper floor of the Victoria Hall, in the 'past' picture, left, was being used at the time for the monthly meeting of the Rotherham Radio Club of which I attended about 3 meetings. To be frank, it wasn't the most exciting of clubs to attend and, being the age I was, interest was quickly lost. It is to my lasting regret that, just a few hundred yards away on either side of this building, the once great railway infrastructures were still largely in tact and this should have provided some incentive to become interested in them once more, after around an absence of 10 years subsequent to moving from this area in 1962. Victoria Hall went through various phases of usage becoming, in the end, a 'muscle Gym', which as indicated above, finally closed around 2010. In the right picture, taken from the same position on the 3rd of October whilst re-visiting the site, shows that the Victoria Hall building and the 'The Millmoor' pub, have both been demolished this occuring around April 2015. The Millmoor football ground floodlights still stand extant but of note, the square red-brick chimney stack, seen on the extreme left of the earlier picture and within the Booth's Scrapyard site, has now gone. I am not sure what the purpose of this was, but it is evident on Google views of the area prior to this date. On early OS maps of the area it is shown as as part of a much older Brass Foundry works, so may well have been related to the Brass smelting processes within the works.

The RUFC club grounds at Millmoor

A view directly onto the front of Rotherham United's spectator entrances at the closed Millmoor football ground. RUFC left here over a dispute with the ground owner in 2008-
'... Rotherham United were forced to leave Millmoor after talks with Ken Booth, owner of Millmoor, broke down. The team played in the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield until 2012, when the club moved into a new community stadium in Rotherham. Millmoor is currently used by Westfield United of The Bud Evans BD U18 Division 5...' The film 'Salt' appears to have been showing at that time with Angelina Jolie looking very sultry, on the advertising hoarding to the left. 

Rear view of the Station and old goods yard

Looking south over towards Coronation Bridge in the upper right of the picture and on the left, another building which has survived and still appears to be in business, the family run, 'Prince of Wales Hotel'. The building now looks grander than it needs to be for this area but offers a restaurant, bar, WiFi, free parking and is a 12 minute walk from, Central, station; in its heyday that would have been less than a minute from the one across the road!. It looks like an old lineside hut has been recovered and is now located in the Network Rail yard, behind the 'new' relay building which sits on platform 4 at the north end of the station and pokes into the picture here at lower right. On the wall of Coronation Bridge a faded, but still readable sign, advertising the 'Midland Railway Goods and Coal Station' , which was just under the bridge arches on what is now the Millmoor car park. A pile of scrap, heaped up behind the old telegraph pole, is alongside the old Westgate branch line stub into Booth's Scrapyard; the 'Old Road' bridge over the line is just above the Midland signage on the bridge. The station now has its Asian cuisine own sign at right, indicating the new name of the place, 'The Orient Express'; very droll!

The Butchers Arms public house

One of the many pubs in Rotherham which saw a down-turn in business after the government introduced smoking bans in almost all public places. By 2010 the pub had closed and was boarded up and it wasn't long before it was demolished in November of the following year. On the other side of the road to the pub is the bus depot which occupies the site of the old Midland Iron Works which had a rail connection into the site via a gated access from the goods line at the back of Masbrough Station. Access to the goods line was from Holmes West junction, mentioned in an earlier picture. The curved, single line, went across Union Street in a northerly direction coming towards the end of the street which can be seen in the picture at lower left. Another line which came out of the works and crossed the road just to the south of the 1st one acted as a shunting facility which presumably annoyed locals when the road was closed. The gate across the road was the place to stand to see movements through the station, all the lineside in those days of course being clear of trees and vegetation, and then watch as wagons were brought out shunted into and out of the Iron works, with its deep pond and tall, jibbed-crane. The black, metal-plated section at the top of the jib, used to seemingly 'fly back and forth' across the roofs at around 7:30 in the morning, which I could see and which scared me to death, wondering if some roof-top beast was on the loose. A local 'First' passenger bus comes along Midland Road, heading into the Rotherham bus station, this now under a program of refurbishment, and not before time. Yet another awful 1970s concrete monolith which the local council built on the 'cheap and nasty' principal; the library, designed by the same 'monkey', went a few years ago, it looking like a concrete nuclear bunker!

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