The Unofficial
WebsiteRoman Rotherham
Roman Tombstones from Templeborough
The Roman Fort at Templeborough
The Roman Ridge
The town of Rotherham does not appear in Roman annals but then I
suppose a few farmsteads on the outermost edges of empire weren't going to, were they? In
Rotherham there are no mausoleums to dead Roman generals, no ruins of great temples to Jove, no
hoards of buried Roman gold.
The Roman army, under the Emperor Claudius, arrived in Britain in 43AD. Many of the local Celtic tribes threw their lot in with the invaders - I don't blame them for it - for hot water and central heating I'd throw in my lot with anybody.
By 50AD the legion of the 9th Hispana (later to loose their eagle fighting the Picts if I remember aright) were settled in the fortress at Lincoln. About 54AD the 4th Cohort of Gauls attached to the 9th Hispana built a large temporary fort, possibly called Morbium, in the area we now call Templeborough, to uphold Queen Cartimandua and her supporters during a power struggle amongst the confederation of Brigantian tribes. It was erected on a raised site in the angle where the Rother meets the Don, protected in the east by a broad swamp and controlling a ford across the Don to the north.
About 100AD a stone fort or castra was built, part of the network of fortifications joined by military roads, each about a day's march apart, by which the Romans controlled England. These metalled roads provided a good system of transportation for manning and supplying the forts and could be used for the swift redeployment of troops whenever the natives were revolting. In time there came to be extensive burial grounds and a colonia, or settlement of retired soldiers near the fort. During the centuries of Roman rule the small civilian town or vicus attached to the fort and garrison was near the present Canklow Bridge over the Rother. Iron ore was smelted and worked south of the fort.
The steel making firm of Steel, Peech and Tozer (which like the Roman fort has now passed into history itself) acquired the Templeborough site and mills were built upon it over the years, the firm graciously permitting various excavations of the site before pouring the concrete.
In the Fifth Century the Roman armies were withdraw from Britain and the rule of law collapsed (even if it was foreign law). The fort fell into disrepair and little was known of Rotherham's Roman past until various excavations took place in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
For anybody who is interested there are information and relics in (and outside) Clifton Park Museum.