Barugh Green in Barnsley

Dearne Hall Road, Barugh Green, Barnsley

Barugh Green is a village on the A635 two miles north west of Barnsley town centre.

Barugh Green was transformed from a farming hamlet to an important mining, then manufacturing locality, following the Industrial Revolution.

Historically Barugh Green was part of the Township of Barugh that also included the adjacent hamlets of Higham to the south, Gawber and Redbrook to the east and Barugh to the north. Settlement in the district probably began in the Anglo-Saxon period as Barugh derives from the old Anglian word berg meaning hill – which is still used in modern German.

Barugh Green Crossroads, Barugh Green, Barnsley

Barugh Green first appears in the historical record as Berg or Barg in the Domesday Book of 1086 where it’s recorded that there were just five households and some plough land. There is documentary evidence that Barugh has been continuously occupied since then. The nearby village of Higham, on a hill to south almost 500 feet above sea level, is first mentioned in 1271 as Hegham meaning ‘high homestead’. The oldest surviving buildings in the district are probably farms in Higham dating from the 16th century. The old manorial hall, Barugh Hall was located in Barugh Lane near the Crown & Anchor but it no longer exists, nor does Barugh Mill, a water mill on the River Dearne which had been operational since the early 13th century. Corn was milled at the site, just upstream from The Millers Inn, on Dearne Hall Road until 1904. Incredibly the mill and its machinery remained intact until 1968 when the building was demolished and the mill wheel removed to a museum in York. Only the weir, wheel pit and remnants of the mill house walls remain now.

The Chestnut Tree, Barugh Green, Barnsley

It’s likely that the district remained largely agricultural until the end of the 18th century and the start of the Industrial Revolution. Good quality coal had been mined on a small scale from the shallow seams around Barnsley from as early as the 14th century. By the mid 18th century mines south of Barnsley were able to export their coal in much greater quantity by canal along the River Don Navigation which by 1740 linked Tinsley east of Sheffield to the sea. Coal owners around Barnsley realised that to fully exploit their own coal reserves they would have to have a canal too. In 1793 permission was granted for the construction of the Barnsley Canal which would run for 16 miles from Heath near Wakefield on the Aire & Calder Navigation via Barnsley to Barnby ½ mile west of Barugh Green.

Methodist Chapel, Barugh Green, Barnsley

Work on the canal was completed by 1802 at a cost of £95,000 – an investment which brought the industrial age to Barugh Township. The canal prospered for the first half of the 19th century exporting coal and manufactured goods from Barnsley and district and bringing back corn and limestone which when converted to lime brought acidic moorland soils into agricultural use. The canal above Barugh was abandoned in 1893 but parts of its route around the north and west of the township can still be traced from the site of a flight of five locks which ran under Dearne Hall Road from the railway embankment to Barnsley Road (A637), before curving south and west through the countryside to the canal terminus at Barnby Basin beside Lane Head Road (A635). Here barges were loaded with coal brought to the wharf on the Silkstone Wagon Way.

In 1801 the population of all the villages in Barugh Township was just 362. By 1841 after 40 years of canal trade it had risen to 1,266 with miner and farm worker being the commonest occupations. Around the same time the railway system was starting to develop across the country and soon a branch line of the South Yorkshire Railway shadowed the route of the canal from Barugh to the collieries in the valley to the west of Higham. A further 30 years on in 1871 the population had risen to 2,030 with mining now the predominant occupation. The census of that year also reveals that large numbers of inhabitants were new to the township having been born as far afield as Aberdeen, Ireland and South Wales.

Dearne Hall Road, Barugh Green, Barnsley

Higham Colliery at Higham Bottom was the scene of a fatal explosion on 15th February 1860. Thirteen men and boys were killed when naked candles ignited firedamp (methane gas) in the workings. The mines inspector had issued warnings about the firedamp risk at Higham in 1857 and 1858 advising that only safety lamps should be used underground. An inquest was held at the Farmer’s Arms (now the Engineers Inn, Higham) and delivered verdicts of accidental death.
The bituminous coal mined at Higham and across the South Yorkshire coalfield was known to produce firedamp, indeed there were many fatal mine explosions in the district during the mid 19th century but coal production continued to increase through the Victorian period as railways made moving coal to its markets quick, reliable and cheap. One virtue of the local coal was its excellent coking qualities. Coke was needed in large quantities by the iron and steel industry and was produced by burning coal at high temperatures with little oxygen to drive off the volatile constituents leaving a pure carbon fuel.

During 1910-12 Old Silkstone Collieries Ltd which owned six local mines, including Higham and Redbrook, paid £102,000 for the construction of 80 coke ovens and a coal washery on the site of an old sandstone quarry on Claycliffe Road which became known as the Barugh Coke Works. A coal by products plant produced tar, benzol and ammonium sulphate and a powerhouse used waste gas to generate electricity. In 1929 a new ‘Coalite’ smokeless fuel plant was built nearer the railway line. The industrial complex provided valuable local employment until operations ceased in 1961.

In the 1950’s two new employers came to Barugh Green. Brook Motors of Huddersfield opened a factory on Barugh Green Road in 1953. At the time the company was one of the largest manufacturers of a.c. electric motors in the world employing over 2,000 people and generating an annual turnover of £4.5 million. In 1969 839 people were employed at the Barugh factory alone but by 1982 it had been closed and production moved to Huddersfield and Wakefield. EB Equipment started production in the late 1950’s next door to Brook Motors and is still in operation today. The company began producing livestock feeding systems and has since been expanding into bulk storage, conveying and renewable energy systems.
Today little remains of the traditional industries in the Barugh Green locality; all the collieries and their subsidiary industries have gone, as has the varied transport infrastructure (canal, wagon way, haulage incline and railway) that developed to sustain it. Now the modern equivalent, the M1 motorway which was constructed in the mid 1960’s crosses the A635 ¼ mile west of Barugh Green crossroads. New businesses have moved into retail and light industrial zones established along Claycliffe Road and Barugh Green Road to take advantage of rapid motorway access at junctions 37 and 38.

The author acknowledges research by the Barugh Township Local History Group which contributed to this article.

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