Rotherham The Unofficial Website

Broom

The name is that of the plant broom (also called gorse, whin, furze or plantagenet) which used to grow in abundance and can still be seem blooming in all its yellow glory in the spring along East Bawtry Road. An old view of Rotherham from about 1740 shows a small hamlet on a hill labelled 'Broom'. Up to the Twentieth Century Broom House and Farm existed near the junction of Broom Road, Wickersley Road and Broom Lane. I believe that the farmhouse is now The Homestead public house but I think that the site of the house is now flats.

I have to say that as a child I lived 'Up t'Broom' and that Broom and Whiston were my stamping grounds. My parents bought their house on a new estate which was being built in 1938. Broom and Broom Valley consist of housing estates both private and council built from the 1930s to the 1990s. Before that I think that the land had been farmed, small-holded or allotmented. Knagg's Farmhouse (also called Broom Grange) was stranded with one field behind it in the middle of the estates and the farmer had to travel to outlying fields - I know I picked potatoes in some of them. The field became allotments and is now a new housing estate, the farmhouse an old folks' home.

Broom Valley

Until the Twentieth Century Broom Valley was open fields, meadows and allotments where the streams meandered peacefully between the reed beds. Development along Broom Road seems to have begun in the 1900s and in the years after the Second World war the streams were culverted and houses built over the meadows. There are still two areas of allotment but half of one of these was built on in the late 1990s. I expect that the rest will go the same way in time.

Clifton

Clifton means the farmstead by the cliff or bank. Clifton House was built in the late 18th Century for a member of the Walker Family. In 1822 there were all of two houses in Clifton. Clifton Park was acquired for the people of Rotherham in the 1890s and Clifton House became the museum. The area surrounding the park was then developed at various times for housing. Rotherham High School for Girls was opened in 1910 on a very nice site overlooking the east side of Clifton Park.

Moorgate

Gate in Old English does not mean gate, but 'gade' i.e. street or way. So this was the street to the Moor - in this case the Town Moor - an area of common land used by the people of Rotherham. Moorgate Hall has existed here since 1627. However it wasn't until the Nineteenth Century that some of the posh folk in town acquired land and built large houses here to puff off their circumstances - some of them are still puffing off. The Thomas Rotherham College, Oakwood School and Rotherham General Hospital can be found up here. Boston Park and Boston Castle leading to Canklow Woods can be found at the back of these.