Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 8 November 1924
Conisboro’ In Early British Times
There can be little doubt that in prehistoric days a settlement existed on the site which we now know as Conisborough, and many legends the writer must have often speculated on the reason why its original inhabitants settled upon the location the village occupies.
What little we know of the people who inhabited Britain in pre-Roman times we learn not from any records they themselves have left, for it is probable that the art of writing was to them a mystery, but from meagre accounts of the Britons and their customs given by Roman historians dwelling in their island prior to the Roman occupation, moreover less “savage” though those who dwelt near the southern coast had learned to cultivate patches of land. In the interior, however, hunting and fishing with, may be, a little cattle-rearing as a stand-by, provided the means of existence, and it would be in this manner that the original inhabitants of the place we now designate as Conisborough, sustained themselves.
In the opinion of the writer of this note there must have influenced the original dwellers in their choice of this particular site for the original settlement.
The first of these is the Don, a stream which formed the boundary between the areas occupied by two distinct tribes of Ancient Britons, each of which recognised a chief or king. In the remote times in question the greater part of the country was covered with forest, and no doubt the Don Valley would then be covered with trees and tangled with undergrowth. The land adjoining streams would be marshy and difficult to traverse. The forest would afford good hunting; the river would teem with fish, even salmon would be common in season; and the high ground would give security.
The various tribes, however, were not always content to dwell side by side in peace, and though under pressure of threatened invasion they might combine to resist a common foe, they had their little differences which sometimes developed into war. The Don guarded the southern border of the powerful tribe of the Brigantes, but any point in the course of the river where the stream could be forded would call for special observation, and this renders the second factor in the choice of Conisborough as a place of settlement.
If any of my readers will take his stand at a point in the lane to the east of the gasworks, say near the new house occupied by the manager of the sewage works, and look up the valley towards Mexborough, he will notice on his left front the north cliff, and to his right front a corresponding elevation on the Cadeby side of the river. The similarity in height, arrangement, and general appearance of these two hills will strike him very forcibly, and meditation will lead to the inevitable conclusion that originally these two hills were one, and the gap between them which now exists, and through which the river, road and railway run, has, by some means, been cut out. It is really no part of this note to hazard an explanation as to how nature performed this stupendous excavation, though geologists could prove that in hundreds of places glacial action has scooped out large gaps than the one referred to; but that is by the way.
This gap afforded an approach to the river bank on each side which was hard and gave a good foothold, and the line under water between the two hills, the base of the excavation, would be firm and unyielding, and the water would be shallow. Here, if anywhere in the neighbourhood, the river could be forded, and was therefore a weak place in the defensive protection it afforded to the people on its northern bank. It would be therefore only practising elementary precaution to establish an outpost on the south side of the river where duty it would be to keep a sharp lookout for danger.—This brings me to the third of the factors I postulated earlier.
Where would the huts of this outpost be built? The instinct of these people was to erect their rude dwellings on hill tops, or at any rate on high ground and I suggest that it was the high ground in the neighbourhood of Wellgate that formed the site of the original settlement, for here was a spring of water, the prime necessity of existence, gushing out of the ground. Higher ground there is to the west alongside the Old Road to Hill Top, but it is waterless. We can therefore rule it out.
But what of the tribe whose hunting ground was to the south of the Don? Were they satisfied that no danger threatened from their northern neighbours. Take a walk, reader, towards Clifton, and after passing over the stream which runs under the Clifton lane at the foot of the hill going south from Manor Farm, note in the field on the right the double line of almost circular patches of rough ground which runs along to the south, and well above the course of the stream. (I am informed that similar patches are to be found in the wood to the left of the road, but this I have not verified by actual inspection). These form, according to archaeologists, the site of a British camp, and this I suggest was the reply of the tribe who dwelt south of the Don to the establishment of a strong post by the Brigantes on Conisborough hill.