Simon English
England Revisited

On concrete corner post on some redevelopment land in Swinton. N.E. of Rotherham. (Birdwell flats)

On a young Lime tree on the south side of Calcot Green. This area of grass is surrounded by modern bungalows built on what was once redevelopment land. The tree conforms to the location given by my original grid reference however the skyline, even allowing for the new roofs is not that of the old photographs. I felt that in 1971 wandering about the open derelict land I may have put the flag on higher ground 200 yards to the north-west. So concerned was I that the next day I drove back to Swinton to try to work out where I really had put up the original flag.

I went to the local library, a new building, where I was introduced to an old lady and life time resident of the town. We spent a pleasant couple of hours looking at the photograph, discussing the history of Swinton and how much had changed – the glass works that made bottles for Bells; the waterworks that closed then made nuts and bolts then repaired cranes before being pulled down to build a nursing home. About Waddington that built barges to import sand and alkali, the powder works at Old Danby where all the workers were yellow. The building of airplane wings and the coal pit, Manders Main, now an industrial park with a call centre. All this has gone much demolished and not just the industry but older parts of Swinton history with the pulling down of the Cruck Barn and keepers cottage that were part of the Hall. On a human scale the tale of how her father entered a practically feudal estate as a groom then ran away to join the railways to become an engine driver. The shunting yards he worked on have all gone.

None of this quite pinpointed point 32. However she identified the big church with a tall finial on the roof as the United Reform Church. She remembered that the finial, for safety reasons, was taken down by crane and then exhibited in the church before the whole building too was demolished and the site turned into flats.

The big building with the square chimney she was unable to identify but was familiar with the terraced house rooftops and felt that point 32 photograph must have been taken where the primary school or Gleneagles Close is now.

In the school playing field I could see the distinct roofline and gables of the big building, oddly with a bell on its roof. The square chimney has gone and further walking about the streets suggests that it went with the demolition and building going on now around Cliffe Bank and Swinton Lodge. It was not part of the big building but only connected by an optical illusion, no wonder the old resident did not recognize it.

The big building turns out to have once been the Free Library on Church Street. It has recently been converted to flats and is now known as Carnegie House. Presumably in honor of the donor who famously gave money for libraries nationwide. The fate of these philanthropic gifts of land and properties to industrial towns and villages is a whole other study of change.

So should I re-place the flag in its proper place I would need to seek permission of the Lime Grove school, even then the exact point may be problematic as the land has, to give a flat playing fields on the hillside, been terraced.
Points 34, 32 & 29