South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 23 April 1949

Round Your Way – Wombwell

They were unloading a barrel in Wombwell, one of those stout heavy casks with the girth of a friar.

“Tha’ll ave ter watch thi’ step wi’ that,” said the little man in the road..

“Aye. I reckon so. Tha’d soon see it roll,”

The little man chuckled, “Aye–an’ I wonder where it’d stop if it did?”

Where, indeed? The little man sighed in sweet contemplation.

He reminded me of the man in the market place who told me Wombwell had ideas bigger than its pocket.

Saturday is general market day in Wombwell. There is a nominal mid-week market, but nothing to compare with Saturday, and surely a town of Wombwell’s size could support a couple of markets a week!

“They started a cattle market here, too,” he said, “but it petered out.” Same thing. Lack of support. Not enough money.

Perhaps there was a grain of truth in what he said; perhaps Wombwell has too attractive a near neighbour (though you’d better not say too much about Barnsley to a true Wombwellian!)

Wombwell is rather like a child with a box of toys; they are scattered about here and there, and you have to look for them.

Centrally, like Mexborough, it has packed its narrow shopping centre, with windows and busy with traffic. Wood Walk, near Wombwell Main station, has all the air of a residential suburb of Scarborough; walk down Station Road and you are back in industrial South Yorkshire.

And Wombwell is still growing. The new Wombwell has already cloaked the old. It is a not unattractive new Wombwell, an attraction heightened by a pleasant choice of nameplates: “Kingsway,” reminiscent of Strada Reale in Valletta; “Rutland Place,””Bondfield Crescent”—political, perhaps, but pleasant.

Hough Lane offers a pleasant surprise to a visitor. I could well imagine a stranger entering the town from that side and wondering if he were ever going to find it. A red traffic light, winking at you as you come down the hill by the church, suggests that if you close your eyes there’ll be a surprise round the corner. The light changes to green and suddenly you realise you have arrived.

It was Friday morning, and the wind was blowing paper and straw about in the almost deserted market place. There were rabbits for dinner, and already a couple of dozen empty skins slung over a stall beam—a mark of the early shopper. I found no queues in Wombwell, but I was struck by the number of radio shops. Wombwell should have a keen ear! There was a pleasant rattle of milk bottles and that unmistakable voice of a town — the passage of many feet—passing fragments of conversation –and the constant surge of traffic, coming and going.

A little girl, carrying a string shopping bag, was eyeing an outsize in onions. Mother was lost in

conversation. She was looking for dress material for Whitsuntide. Pink satin, pink socks, and black patent leather shoes. Things were a little easier now. Wombwell went its rounds on the eve of another week-end.