Homepage
Welcome to Rotherham The Unofficial Website. The site it is about the town and borough of Rotherham, it has no connection or allegiance to other organisations and it is a website. The opinions expressed on these pages are personal. I have tried to cover a variety of subjects about Rotherham of interest to citizens of the town, expatriate Rotherhamites, regular visitors, casual visitors and the just plain surfing. I hope you find something you like.
Rotherham is a metropolitan borough of about 250,000 people in the county of South Yorkshire, England. It is also the town of about 100,000 people which is not unnaturally the centre of the borough. X marks the spot on the map. The borough includes suburban areas, rural villages, open countryside and the towns of Dinnington, Maltby and Wath-upon-Dearne.
The area now covered by the borough was largely agricultural until the 16th Century. Rotherham was a prosperous town with a renowned livestock market and a magnificent church. A grammar school was founded in the town towards the end of the 15th Century and this survived until the 1960s.
From the middle of the 17th Century Rotherham became increasingly industrialised as the iron ore deposits and coal seams found throughout the borough were exploited. In the 21st Century only one of the pits survives. Iron and steel are still produced though not in the massive quantities of earlier times. Rotherham is still an industrial area with everything from small units to large companies manufacturing a wide variety of goods.
Please come in and have a look around.
To Note
2013 is the Centenary of the establishment of bus services in Rotherham. A First bus will be painted in the original Rotherham Corporation livery. In July there will be a celebration (no details so far) and The South Yorkshire Transport Museum are planning an exhibiton for Rotherham Show in September.
Demolition
June 2013 Norfolk House, Civic Offices and the old Arts Centre are now being demolished and there is no access through the precinct. All the road systems and car park seem to be operating normally but there is a deal of heavy traffic down Nottingham Street.
May 2103 Part of Bellows Road Shopping Centre in Rawmarsh has been demolished. The Post Office, Bakers, Pharmacy and other shops are still open and there is limited parking. Redevelopment has started and new shops including the above and a Tescos Local are expected to open in 2014. The rest of the site will then be demolished and redeveloped.