High Street
Rotherham High Street was the centre of town from the Middle Ages until very recent times. When I was much younger than I am now all the best shops and department stores could be found there. Sadly this is no longer true. John Speed and Muntus' Department Stores departed long ago. The street was pedestrianised some time back and this seems to have been a long, slow, sad death knell for many of the other shops - John Mason's Jewellers has finally closed in 2002 (the building now houses Hamby's shoe shop) and there are many empty units.
Some have been turned into public houses - Snafu and the Litten Tree (now the Corn Law Rhymer). Others have been abandoned for decades, like the Wakefield Army Stores, behind which is one of the last remnants of Medieval Rotherham, the Three Cranes.
In April 2005 further details of the High Street Rejuvenation Project have been released. Over £2.5million of grants are already being used to convert the former Speeds building into offices. This fronts High Street and goes back into property along Vicarage Lane and up into the Churchyard. There are hopes of further redevelopment of cafés and restaurants, with possibly apartments being created above the shops, though since there won't be any parking I can't see this appealing much to the sort of moneyed young things Rotherham would like to see living there.
The Imperial Buildings were erected in 1907 in much the situation and echoing a very similar shape to the Shambles (Meat Market) which it replaced. The building was restored in 1994 and there were some nice little shops there as rents were cheap. In 2006 all the tenants were given notice to quit as the powers that be want to do up the place again as part of one of the town centre restoration projects. Part of the building has been converted into accommodation. The internal shop units now form the Imperial Arts hub. A proportion of the external shops have been let to individual businesses.
At the top of High Street is Hamby's Shoe Shop. This is a large building that rambles over several floors with cellars underneath. The frontage was extensively rebuilt in 1883 for John Mason Jewellers though the building itself is much older. John Mason was Mayor of Rotherham in 1888-89. The projecting clock on the front of the building replaces an earlier Victorian clock on the same site, and was originally at the front of the Daily Express building in Fleet Street. This
Two views of High Street.
At the bottom of high street are the bank buildings. The sign above the door says 'Old Bank Founded 1792'. This building was erected in 1892 to replace the earlier one. It rejoiced in several other names before it became RBS, the only one I remember being William and Glyns.
