A Market Town

Although Mexborough has not progressed and developed proportionately with some of the mining towns roundabout, it certainly has been changed out of all recognition and industrial development of the district in the last 50 years.

Half a century ago it was a recognised shopping centre of the area, and in this respect at least its position has remained unchallenged.

One of the wisest of the acts of the old Local Board was the provision of a Market Hall, and rather ugly but commodious building, which was put up in 1880. There were shopkeepers even in those days who grumbled at what looked like an open invitation to itinerant rate free hawkers to swoop down upon the town at weekends and cleared away the ready money of the district. But it is probably true that the market at Mexborough has had much to do with the prosperity of the town as any other single factor. So far from taking money out of the town, it has attracted money to the town in great and increasing volume, and the shopkeepers of Mexborough have reaped a steady harvest from the floating population which the market has drawn to the town since it was established 47 years ago.

Attempts have been made in various parts of the district to divert some of this market traffic, and markets have been established at Denaby, Goldthorpe, Swinton and Wath, but none of them so far as competed effectively with the Mexborough market.

A Cramped Town

The area of the town 50 years ago was practically what it is today 1,293 acres. There has been no appreciable expansion or contraction, an among the town’s disabilities is undoubtedly a severe restriction of space.

The present population is estimated at 16,500. The last census figures was 15, 421, and this is far too large a population to be comfortably house in so small an area, especially as a large proportion of that area is low lying swamp.

The extension of the boundaries of the town is a subject which had been discussed more or less academically from time to time, and it is at present in the mind of the Council to apply for power to take in the adjoining parish of Adwick-on-Dearne, with a view to redistribution of the present population provision for future developments, especially those who expected to be stimulated by the Barnburgh colliery, a mile or 2 to the north of the town. The breakup of the Montagu and Copley states, in the parish of Barnburgh, High Melton, Cadeby and Sprotbrough is likely to facilitate the large housing schemes which colliery extensions are making increasingly necessary and the future of Mexborough appears to be bound up with that area.

Mexborough’s Growth

From 1880 until the close of the century, Mexborough grew towards the West along its higher levels on the site of the old Common enclosures, which are now completely covered with houses. Since the war, the development has been northward, towards a new colliery at Barnburgh, and it is in that direction that further growth is expected – is indeed, alone possible.

Development to the south is barred for the present by the intervention of river, canal and railway, but here again there is not only a possibility but a likelihood that the picturesque hamlet of Old Denaby will be urbanising eventually incorporated into the town with which it will probably connected by a first-class highway bridge as part of a regional town planning scheme.

Old Denaby has been part of the ecclesiastical parish of Mexborough from time immemorial.