The Roman Ridge
The Roman Ridge or Rig, also called Rig Bank or Rig Dyke or the Balk in places, is a series of banks and ditches that runs from Pitsmoor in Sheffield to Mexborough. The route of this has been lost in Pitsmoor but is believed to have run from near to the Wicker, and along Grimesthorpe Road, where it was still possible to trace the route up until the 1930s. The Ridge then ran below the Celtic fort on Wincobank, through Wincobank, where it can still be seen, then down the hill and under the Meadowhall roundabout and along the Don Valley to Kimberworth. The northern rig goes from Kimberworth via Wentworth Park, Hoober, Abdy and Wath Wood to Mexborough. The southern rig goes from Kimberworth via Wingfield, Greasbrough, Nether Haugh and Swinton Common towards Kilnhurst where the line becomes lost beyond Chainbar Plantation. Many of these sections that run through the countryside can be followed today. The Roman Ridge has therefore presumably delineated field boundaries right up to the present day or it would have been ploughed up and lost. Modern public footpaths and bridleways follow the line in some places.
So what was the Roman Ridge? It is difficult to date and I have found a number of conflicting ideas as to its age and purpose. However where clearly visible it consists of an earthwork bank with a ditch either before or behind it, depending on how you approach it. Most theories suggest that it was constructed in the First Century AD as either a geographical marker to show where one tribe's jurisdiction ended and the next one's started or for defensive purposes, either Brigante against Belgae, or Celt against Roman. I have also found another theory that suggest that the bank was actually a much earlier construction, made in the Iron Age a couple of centuries before the Roman Invasion, and was actually a route to transport iron ore from mine to smelter. Yet a third is that the ridge was built between 450 and 600 AD to defend the Celtic kingdom of Elmet from the advancing Anglo-Saxons.
In 18th Century Rotherham parts were known as the 'Via Vicinalis Romana Antiqua' and the name roman road stuck. I have included it under the Roman History of Rotherham quite simply because it is called the Roman Ridge.
You choose which you theory you like the best or you could advance your own ideas!