A Song of Steel

I recently reported on the announced closure of Brinsworth Cold Rolled Strip. Based in Rotherham in South Yorkshire the Brinsworth plant remains as the last vestige of the old Steel Peach and Tozer steelworks that was incorporated in to British Steel Corporation in 1970.

As a fresh faced teenager I started work in the Hot Mill back in 1971 at a time when the steelworks dominated the Don valley. The main bus route between Rotherham and Sheffield ran right through the heart of the steel industry with huge factories closing in on either side for almost the entire length of the journey. Sheffield Road was the main artery that supplied the lifeblood to the heart of Steel City.

The Don valley was a noisy and dirty place, constantly echoing to the sound of heavy forges, rolling mills and the electric crackling of the arc furnace melting shops. The air was full of smoke and the “red dust” that coated cars weekly with a film of ferrous compounds.

Mixed in with this environment was the constant stream of human traffic. Bus loads of workers travelling too and from the steelworks and their homes in the suburbs of Sheffield and Rotherham, on “round the clock” rotas to keep the machinery moving. Wincobank, Tinsley, Brinsworth, Parkgate and Masbro, sat alongside the plants and the residents lives played out to the sights and sounds of Sheffield Steel. The works were townships, twenty four hour living, breathing communities where their population work, ate and occasionally slept!

It may have not have been a rural heaven, but it was alive. The communities were close and vibrant, unemployment was almost unknown. The beautiful Derbyshire Peaks to the West and the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coasts to the East provided the playgrounds and “fresh air” required to clean out the lungs and refresh the spirit.

Slowly the steelworks began to close. The factories who’s munitions, armour plating and aero engine parts kept the country’s war machine moving during the 1940’s were falling victim to international economics and the domestic politics of the 1970’s. Gone now are Dunford Hadfield’s, Steelo’s and Edgar Allen’s replaced by shopping Malls, Leisure Centres and Car Showrooms. The old Templeborough melting shop, houses a museum and the Hadfield site is the Meadow Hall retail complex.

The valley is much cleaner now, fish have returned to the once open chemical sewer that was the river Don, I even spotted a Kingfisher behind Tesco’s at the meeting of the Don and the South Yorkshire Navigation canal, perching on a semi-submerged wire shopping basket.

At the end of 2005 Outumko announced the closure of it’s Shepcote Lane cold rolling operation in 2006, the closure of Brinsworth cold mill will inevitably be the penultimate act at the Sheffield Road site.

There will little noise as the as the Sheffield Steel Industry finally slips in to the annals of history and the Song of Steel falls silent.