Barnsley, bold as brass
In the latest in our Yorkshire towns series, takes a look at Barnsley, a town with a big heart and a fascinating history.
Wentworth Woodhouse, says they were benevolent landlords and good employers. “Elsecar – now a much-loved Heritage Centre – had mines, an ironworks, forges and engineering workshops. It had a canal to transport goods and later a branch line taking coal to the main railway. It also had, at one point, an overseer who convinced the earl that fresh air would improve the lives of his workers. A revolutionary thought for those times.”
The family certainly left their mark. “It is difficult to go a short distance in Barnsley today without finding streets or lanes named after the family. The Fitzwilliams understood the value of people and they supported ‘their’ families.”
And they were great innovators, too. “Elsecar is the home of the only Newcomen pumping engine in the world still in its original location. The 4th Earl had it installed in 1795 to pump out water from the New Colliery. At its peak, it could draw an amazing 600 gallons a minute. Even today, that is astonishing.”
Railways pushed their way into Barnsley’s story during the time of the great “Railwaymania”, where dozens of companies created new tracks all over Britain, each in competition and vying for custom and freight trade.
You won’t be surprised to learn that places like Leeds, York and Sheffield had more than their fair
date back to the 12th century, but there are always contemporary references in its changing exhibitions.
On a ridge that overlooks the road to Sheffield and Elsecar is the magnificent Wentworth Castle – which isn’t a castle at all, although there is a mock ‘folly’ of some picturesque ruins of one in the stunning gardens, now managed by the National Trust. These are the only Grade I listed parklands in South Yorkshire. This, for many generations, was home to the families of the Earls of Strafford, until the last of the owners, Bruce Vernon Wentworth, sold the house and gardens to Barnsley Corporation in 1948.
Barnsley is a curious and wonderful juxtaposition of facts and figures, people and events. The first glass recycling bottle bank was opened here in 1977. Members of the Arctic Monkeys studied music at Barnsley College and Penistone-born Kate Rusby is one of the UK’s finest folk singer-songwriters.
The town has also produced the likes of Sir Michael Parkinson, Joanne Harris and Tommy Taylor, one of the ‘Busby babes’ who died in the Munich air disaster. Then there’s the Grimethorpe Colliery Band that featured in the box office hit film Brassed Off. The town is home to a statue of the legendary cricket umpire Dickie Bird (the handiwork of Graham Ibbeson, himself a Barnsley lad) and has its very own Bard – the splendid Ian McMillan.
The local accent is so impenetrable that those from nearby towns – like Rotherham and Doncaster – claim that to understand what is being said,they have to carry a Barnsley-English dictionary when they visit.
Ken Loach filmed his 1969 classic Kes here – it was based on the best-selling book A Kestrel for a Knave, by the Hoyland-born Barry Hines. The film has never been out of the British Film Institute’s Top Ten of UK films, and there are thousands of fans of the movie who can recite, verbatim, the lines spoken on the sports field by the muchmissed actor Brian Glover, who played the teacher, Mr Sugden. It was the prelude to a glittering career for Glover.
And does it need to be said that Barnsley Bitter is one of the best beers brewed in all of Yorkshire? Raising a glass of that unique and flavoursome ale, we could all happily toast this remarkable town.