Wath upon Dearne

Wath can be traced to Norman times. It appears in the 1086 Domesday Book as Wad and Waith. It remained for some centuries a rural settlement astride the junction of the old Doncaster–Barnsley and Rotherham–Pontefract roads, the latter a branch of Ryknield Street. North of the town was a ford across the River Dearne. The name has been linked to the Latin vadum The town received a royal charter in 1312–1313 entitling it to a weekly Tuesday market and an annual two-day fair, but these were soon discontinued. The market was revived in 1814. Until local government reorganisation in 1974, Wath was in the historic county of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Until the mid-19th century the town had a…

The local coal industry succumbed to a dramatic decline in the British coal-mining industry precipitated by a change in government economic policy in the early 1980s. This had knock-on effects on many subsidiary local industries and caused local hardship. The 1985 miners' strike was sparked by the impending closure of Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow, a neighbouring village often seen as part of Wath. Along with the whole of the Dearne Valley, Wath was classified as an impoverished area and received public money, including European funds. These were put to regenerating the area from the mid-1990s onwards, causing a degree of economic revival. It made the area more rural, as much land…

]] live at Montgomery Hall, Wath-upon-Dearne, Sunday 1 November 1987 (left to right: Heather Brady, Lal Waterson, Rachel Waterson, Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, Mike Waterson, Dave Brady, Jim Boyes)]] Wath upon Dearne centres on Montgomery Square, with the town's main shops, the library and the bus station. To its west is the substantial Norman All Saints Church, on a small leafy green, with Wath Hall, the Montgomery Hall and a campus of the Dearne Valley College. Today Wath is still emerging from the coal-industry collapse, although jobs and some low-level affluence have returned. After a hiatus between the clearing of former colliery land and recent redevelopment, when the area felt…