Spotlight on Stocksbridge: Sheffield steelworks were "absolutely night and day 24/7" and "wild and crazy"
We take a look at Stocksbridge, the importance of steel and how the town has changed over the years.
The steel works were absolutely night and day 24/7.
At one time Stocksbridge had over seven pubs. It had an HSBC, a Natwest, a Halifax and a Nationwide. Manchester Road was busting with shops including a grocers, a butchers and a stationers.
Up until 1998 it even had its own college at the site of what is now the Co-op - which notably was originally opened by Prime Minister Harold Wilson and offered a course in marine biology.
Locals say when the steelworks was thriving in the 1960s it employed over 6,000 people and operated “night and day 24/7” by “wild and crazy workers”.
Andrew Hurrell, vice chairman of Stocksbridge and District History Society, says before umbrella manufacturer Samuel Fox came along in the early 1840s there was no “Stocksbridge”.
It comprised of a chapel, the Coach and Horses pub and a “few farms”.
Samuel Fox and Company Limited was formed in 1842.
After the 1860 the Stockbridge plant expanded, the now-disused rail line was built and the business went from strength-to-strength.
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Employees once estimated at over 6,000 are believed to have shrunk now to a few hundred. However the plant was once at the forefront of steel technology - mixing materials such as alloys and manganese to create specialist steels.
By the pre-WW2 era there were four large melt shops plugged directly into the national grid, producing items such as landing gear for aircraft.
Andrew says in the early 2000s an “unfortunate” decision was made to stop melting scrap steel in Stocksbridge but to have the melted steel brought in by rail to be rolled at Stocksbridge and then sent back out - which he believes was the start of the decline.
“At the risk of being controversial,” said Andrew, “Stocksbridge should have been left as a stand-alone unit. Then everything would have been in-house.
“Then anyone struggling in the rolling mill could walk to the melting shop for advice.” Because Stocksbridge no longer receives scrap metal it has “no control” over the melting and mixing stage and ultimately the quality of the finished product, says Andrew.
Speaking about the period prior to major decline in around 2005, Andrew can remember buses every 15 minutes to Sheffield as opposed to less than two each hour nowadays.
Andrew is not alone in saying Fox Valley Retail Park - which opened in 2016 on land that was part of the steelworks - has had a detrimental effect on the town’s high street on Manchester Road.
Georgios Kalogerou, owner of Poseidon fish Bar on Manchester Road, says the retail park “killed” Manchester Road.
He said: “We used to have a convenience store opposite and a butchers next door. I used to open every lunchtime. But it’s changed for the worse now - it’s left the high street with nothing.”
Georgios remembers taking £150 orders from the steelworks alone when it was busy.
He said: “Now I get nothing. I used to know a lot of the people who worked there and they would place a big order every Friday at 5pm and at Christmas.”
Andrew Ockerby, 76, who has lived in Stocksbridge for over 30 years, recalls the steelworks were “absolutely night and day 24/7”.
He said: “They used to move everything around on diesel engines billowing out smoke and you’d hear them honking the vehicle horns at night - they were wild and crazy. Everybody worked at the steelworks.
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“They used to blow purple smoke out of the chimneys but as the days got longer you could see it. About 4am every night you used to hear what sounded like scaffolding being clanged together, echoing around the valley.
“You still hear it occasionally but they’ve not brought steel in for years because the railway line is all overgrown.
“It was funny when the works went into two-week shut down during the summer because it was completely silent.”
Stocksbridge has lost the majority of its pubs over the years - including the Coach and Horses which is now Indian restaurant Rajasthan Spice, the New Inn which was opposite the town hall but it now a private house, the Silver Fox which was demolished for a new housing estate, the Miners Arms above Bracken Moor, the Peggy Tub and the Rock Inn at Green Moor.
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Although the opening of the A616 Stocksbridge Bypass in 1988 relived “horrendous” traffic long Manchester Road, says Andrew, little else has improved in terms if transport for the town.
He said: “The steelworks has gone and Fox Valley retail park has arrived but don’t have the tram link bus anymore - out transport system is crap. We have a railway line here that doesn’t get used.
“I’ve been here 30 years and am still a newcomer. I think Stocksbridge is more attractive for newcomers but people born and bred here have been let down. “