Prosaic landscapes: Day Return to Swinton: Railway edgeland in the Lower Don Valley

[More explanatory text and captions, more images and a map to follow in September]

Swinton lies 10 miles north-west of Sheffield in the Lower Don Valley. The valley forms a corridor through the landscape that holds the river, canal and railway.

In 2011 I produced a small set of photographs to accompany the work of Ruth Midgeley who had written a series of poems inspired by her daily commute by train from Sheffield to Swinton. Those poems focused on seasonal changes and the way the past is represented in the present describing them through the railway setting and the long term changes in the industrial landscape.

The Lower Don valley is somewhere I often walk as well as journey by train and car, and I've continued to add to the pictures I made back in 2011. This is a selection, and while they don't have as much emphasis on the seasons as the original images they retain the idea of representing the landscape of a railway journey: they chronicle a strip of land that is within sight and sound of passing trains and illustrate something of that particular edgeland.

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There are two railway routes between Sheffield and Swinton. One, which I'll call the Midland route, takes trains from Sheffield station to Swinton Interchange and the other, which I'll call the Great Central route, runs from Sheffield (Victoria) to Swinton (Central). Victoria was closed to passengers in 1970, and subsequently demolished as was Swinton (Central) which closed in 1958 but both lines are still used, in most part, by today's passenger trains. The Sheffield tram/train system uses some of the trackbed and shares some of the rails of the Great Central system. Both routes feature in these pictures.

Apologies to railway historians for the oversimplification of the above. I do intend to reflect the railway history but this post is about the river and canal and the recent valley history as much as the railway itself.

A tram and a train leave Sheffield heading for the Lower Don valley.
The two routes will converge at Meadowhall Interchange.

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Meadowhall

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The Lower Don valley has been heavily industrialised for over a century. The impact of the economic and political changes of the 1980s forced the same changes on the landscape as are seen in other areas of the British Isles that were once dependent on heavy industry.

In the case of Sheffield, though, it is not entirely accurate to describe the landscape as post-industrial and the area still produces and works large amounts of steel with major plants at River Don and Aldwarke. What has disappeared in its entirety is the coal industry which has effected, particularly, Swinton and the northern end of the valley.

River Don works, Sheffield

Steel stockyard, Ickles

Steel stockyard, Parkgate

Beatson Clarke glassworks, Rotherham

The River Don at Aldwarke steelworks

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Demolition of RHM buildings, Rotherham

Attercliffe

Demolition of Tinsley Wire, Attercliffe

Refurbishment of Don Valley House, Sheffield

Construction of football stadium, New York, Rotherham

Construction of IKEA store, Broughton Lane, Sheffield

Rotherham Central station during rebuilding.

Bio-mass power station,Tinsley

B&Q store,Parkgate

Construction of bio-mass power station,Rotherham

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Rotherham oil terminal

Swinton

Parkgate

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Canal basin, Sheffield

Waddington's boatyard, Swinton Lock

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The Don Valley stadium was built in 1990 on the site of the Brown-Bayley's steelworks.
The stadium was itself demolished in 2015.

Don Valley Stadium

Demolition of Don Valley Stadium

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Canal, Attercliffe

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Corridor of litter

in a valley where dead

cooling towers and church spires

rise above heaved acres

of black slag and clumps

of factory standing-stone.

Trains like wandering

orphans seek warmth in

coke machines and shopping

malls. In earshot of the old

steel hammer’s toll

welcoming billboards turn

their giant message to the crowds:

”Inner Peace – a regularly serviced

boiler.” With homing winds

from sewage works beneath the M1’s

chilling viaduct-roar

trains pass

then disappear. Gorse waves yellow.

Graffiti’s patchwork

tags love

hoping

to be caught.

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Attercliffe

Brightside, Sheffield

Sheffield

Masborough

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Scrapyards

Rotherham

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Tangled brambles

purple flowering buddleia

overpower spiked fences rampage

through derelict Don-valley stations.

Weed smothered canals

merge with rioting

birch pushing over

wary darkening

undergrowth: Forgemaster’s saw-toothed

roofs peer above

a world gone green. Surrounded

we stop at red.

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Attercliffe GC

Ickles

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Rotherham

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Masborough

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Dredging the River Don, Attercliffe

Burton weir

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Limp leaves – broken bracken – slow

retreat of summer’s rampage. Scant berries

darken. Bare cranes stand idle

amongst piles of scrap. Steaming

Corus steel sheds rear like white cliffs

below mounting winter clouds. Close up

Roundwood’s gravel pit-scape

grovels in grey ulcered earth.

Magpies waver over

dulled seed-heads. Starling’s last

squabbles – children’s late cries

play out green evenings. In waiting: frost.

Lit carriages filled with

day-end talk – insistent

head-phone monologues – silent texting

squeeze through hacked

rock tunnels to the city.

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Meadowhall

Attercliffe

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Sheffield

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where black-nailed

hands drew wages

from hard airless dust

just here. Each daily breath

in steel flames

hardened: acrid sweat our

buried finger print

fused on each dismantled

factory brick.

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The landscape of the Lower Don is dotted with reminders of industry that has gone. There is comparatively little dereliction these days but monuments to the steel and coal industries are scattered along the valley.

The Heritage industry, nationally and locally, includes a significant focus on the railway of the past and the Lower Don is no exception, regularly seeing excursions hauled by vintage locomotives.