Mexborough and Swinton Times December 6, 1919

Bits of Bygone Mexborough

The hand of Time and the forces of improvement are gradually effacing traces of Mexborough’s villagedom. Less than a century ago Mexborough was a compact little hamlet gathered around its Saxon-Norman parish church, yet much of old Mexborough has already disappeared.

The photographs show some interesting old landmarks which were wiped out by a recent highway improvement scheme.

Old Church Cottages

In the first photograph is seen a block of cottages which used to stand in Church street with their backs abutting on the north side of the Churchyard. They were Church property ‘and were pulled down by the Mexborough Urban Council, by arrangement with the vicar and churchwardens. to widen the road and incidentally to render the parish church fully visible from the road. In the foreground is seen the entrance to the churchyard, and it was here that the old village stocks were placed and remained until about 1826. What  became of them no one knows. The first cottage, projecting into the road (and also shown in more detail’ in the .second photograph), was occupied for -many years by the late Jacob Chipp, and before him by John Pitt Makin, a fine old Mexborough character, and one of the pioneers of industry in the village. He was a quarry owner and also a builder. He bought considerable amount of land in tele east end of Mexhorough, and was one of the first men to develop the place by building. Pitt Street and Makin Street remain as a memorial of him, and there was also a projected John Street in that neighbourhood, which never materialised. He bought the land for development purposes, and in order to sell the minerals (those were the earliest days of coal mining here), but that part of his plan also did not develop in his time.

Gateway of Old Village School and Parish Constables Cottage

In the second photograph is seen the cottage to which we have just referred and also the gateway of a cottage which was the home for many years of Robert Glassby, parish constable, parish clerk, and grandfather of the sculptor.

Robert Glassby was parish clerk for 49 ½  years, and he was also probably parish schoolmaster, for by many tokens his house seems to have been used as a school before the erection of the National school. In his capacity of parish constable he had charge of the stocks hard by and of the lock-up, .a little dungeon beneath his cottage.

The Parish ” Lock-up,” under the Constable’s Cottage.

The photograph shows the entrance to the dungeon. This grim little cellar was excavated during the demolition in 1915.