During the Iron Age, over two thousand years ago, the new tribal system changed human society, so that territorial boundaries had to be roughly defined and defence against hostile neighbours organised. People of the Highland Zone of Britain, from the Don and Mersey almost to the present Scottish border, formed themselves into a confederation of minor tribes dominated by a particularly-warlike group called the Brigantes. This mixed tribe became the most troublesome to the Romans when they invaded Britain in the first century A.D. Our men of Wincobank were on the fringe of things - the southern frontier of the kingdom of Brigantia.

These Celtic Wincobankers lived in a wetter, cooler climate than ours and they had to defend themselves against the brown bear, wolf, lynx, and wild cat, while the golden eagle hovered and swooped. They hunted the moose, reindeer, wild boar and deer, and trained horses and dogs to help in their work. They bred sheep and cattle, and grew crops. We still use a few words from their language : Rother, Don, Eccles. And it has been suggested that Winco (meaning Wen-coed or wooded hill') is of Celtic origin.

On the highest point of Wincobank Hill, 525 feet (160 metres) above sea-level and 400 feet (about 120 metres) above the River Don at Brightside, they built a 3-acre fort, one of a series of such defences stretching from Mam Tor to Mexborough. This Wincobank hill- fort, remains of which may still be seen today, had in its initial stage a single rampart, in appearance like a three-metre-high dry stone wall, rubble filled and about a metre and a half thick, on top of which was a pallisade of stakes. The fort was oval in plan with a main entrance at the north-west. On the outside was a continuous ditch, about nine metres wide and three metres deep. The face of the rampart rising from this ditch was faced with smooth mud. The fort was quite capable of withstanding attacks from neighbouring tribes and was used as a place of refuge to which Wincobank inhabitants could flee in times of danger; there was enough room inside for women, children, sheep and cattle, with the fighting men lining the ramparts. In peaceful times corn would have been stored in pits within the fort. There appears to have been a spring just outside the rampart on the north.

Romans on Wincobank.

When cohorts of the roman ninth legion crossed the Rother at Canklow and arrived at the Don Valley they found the Bngantes ready and waiting Barring the way to a further advance were wide swamps with higher land and the Wincobank hill-fort dominating the valley.

The earthwork fort had been further strengthened some time before the Roman invasion by the addition of a second, outer rampart to keep back slingers, archers and siege machines. Wincobank was an important part of the southern defences of Brigantia, possibly devised by Venutius king of the Brigantes, who was to present the Romans with problems for twenty years.
The Roman response was to establish a fort at Templeborough controlling a crossing- point of the Don - Dead Man`s Ford - and built in 54 A.D. by the Fourth Cohort of the Gauls with accommodation for 800 soldiers. The Templeborough fort the name of which was possibly Morbium, had a garrison of about 200 cavalry and 600 infantry. The regiment was known as Cohort IIII Gallorum Equites. The fort was subjected to attacks, being rebuilt on two occasions.
For almost twenty years the northern frontier of the Roman Empire rested on the Don Valley and there was an uneasy peace until the Romans had gathered enough strength to launch a winning attack. They used three legions about 24,000 men - to strike in a pincer movement that out- flanked the southern defences of the Brigantes by advancing through the country east of Doncaster and coming in from York and across the Pennines. They used two of their finest generals, Petilius Cerialis and the famous Julius Agricola.
It is likely that the destruction of Wincobank hill-fort occurred at this time and, if you visit the position today you will notice the collapsed and flattened ramparts. deeply silted-up and overgrown with grass. On the top of the north-east rampart some of the core sandstone pieces have been burnt black and fused together. What appear to be entrances on the north and south of the fort ramparts have been identified as later paths through the site, and an eastern gap was made by soldiers manning antiaircraft guns and searchlights in the First World War when a gun was sited on the inner-south rampart.
After the defeat of the Brigantes at the Battle of Stanwick in North Yorkshire the Wincobank fort was occupied by the Romans and probably used as a signal station as it is visible from points many miles distant in all directions. A hearth and Roman pottery were found by the curator of Sheffield Museum when he made a small excavation in the 1890s.
The Duke of Norfolk presented Wincobank fort to Sheffield earlier this century and the site is now under the protection of the Department of the Environment as a monument of national importance.

Outside the fort at Templeborough a Roman town sprang up at Brinsworth, and reliable authorities believe that at least two Roman roads passed through our area; one along a route generally following that of the present Shiregreen Lane and on to Southey, and another which came from Castleford (Roman Lagentium) and was on the line of Grange Lane and Bellhouse Road, via Firvale and Pitsmoor Road to the crossing of the Don at Bridgehouses. This latter road forded the Blackburn Brook at the bottom of Grange Lane at the now-obsolete Staniforth.
Iron implements were made at the Templeborough fort, and it is thought that the Romans mined ore and coal at Wincobank Hill and Kimberworth.
The Blackburn hoard and other finds.
In 1891, when the Midland Railway was making a branch line up the Blackburn Valley, the Roman Ridge was cut through at Tyler Street. Workmen uncovered a flat stone in the ditch of the Rig, and beneath it were 19 Roman coins of the 1st and 2nd Centuries C.E. Of this so-called Blackburn hoard only 3 coins have survived as the others were given away, or sold, by the workmen. It is strange that, after almost four hundred years of occupation, not one Roman place-name remains today to remind us that here stayed the ancient world's greatest empire builders. As they love to tell us.

The Mystery of the Roman Ridge

It is generally agreed that this huge building operation was undertaken by the Britons, but whether it was pre-Roman (Brigante) or post-Roman is not clear, despite finds of Roman coins and pottery in the Ridge ditches. Majority opinion is that it was an attempt by the Brigantes to block the Roman advance to the north after invasion of 43 A.D., but that it was also used by the descendants of the Brigantes when defended themselves against Angle and Scandinavian invaders during the Dark Ages following the Roman withdrawal from Britain about 410 AD

A careful survey has shown that the embankment was continuous, with gaps only where streams cut through. Parts of it remain and are listed as Ancient Monuments, and it is known as the Roman Ridge, Roman Rig, or, by Wincobankers, as T'Rigs. Other parts are known, locally as Danes flank, Scotland Balk, Barber Balk, and Kemp Ditch

In our area the Ridge rises up Wincobank Hill from Grimesthorpe, passes along the south- eastern side of the hill below the fort, then descends to the Blackburn Brook, being built upon the prominent natural fault which has been quarried at Tyler Street - part of the Middle Don Faults - which shows well where the road cuts through. A gap in the rampart between Barrow Road and Meadow Hall Road, through the former-Yorkshire Engine Company Works, indicates that the valley was marshy and impassable without added protection from the Ridge. The rampart appears again on the left-hand side of Meadow Hall Road where it is prominent, and before the houses of Richmond Park are reached it divides, with the northerly branch turning to pass through the housing estate and the southern one flattened by building and farming.
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