Scunthorpe

For other uses, see Scunthorpe (disambiguation).

Scunthorpe
St John's Church, Scunthorpe
Scunthorpe  Scunthorpe shown within Lincolnshire
Population	65,163 (2011)
OS grid reference	SE893102
– London	145 mi (233 km)  S
Unitary authority	North Lincolnshire
Ceremonial county	Lincolnshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SCUNTHORPE
Postcode district	DN15 – 17
Dialling code	01724
Police	Humberside
Fire	Humberside
Ambulance	East Midlands
EU Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Scunthorpe
List of places UK England Lincolnshire

Scunthorpe is a town in North Lincolnshire, England. It is the administrative centre of the North Lincolnshire unitary authority, and had an estimated total resident population of 72,514 people in 2010. A predominantly industrial town, Scunthorpe, the United Kingdom's largest steel processing centre, is also known as the "Industrial Garden Town". It is the third largest settlement in Lincolnshire after Lincoln and Grimsby. The Member of Parliament for Scunthorpe is Nic Dakin (Labour).

History

Scunthorpe was made up of 5 small villages. These were Scunthorpe, Frodingham, Crosby, Brumby and Ashby. They later joined up to make Scunthorpe as we know today.

Etymology

The town appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as Escumesthorpe, which is Old Norse for "Skuma's homestead", a site which is believed to be in the town centre close to where the present-day Market Hill is located.

Geology

Scunthorpe was close to the epicentre (this was centred at Ludford, near Louth) of one of the largest earthquakes experienced in the British Isles on 27 February 2008, with a magnitude of 5.2. Significant shocks were felt in Scunthorpe and the surrounding North Lincolnshire area. The main 10-second quake, which struck at 00:56 GMT at a depth of 9.6 mi (15.4 km), was the second largest recorded in the British Isles. In 1984 a quake with a magnitude of 5.4 struck north Wales.

The town itself lies on a rich bed of iron ore and limestone – crucial in the manufacturing of steel. In 1981 it was decided to close all the local mines and quarries and bring in iron ore from abroad, the local ore being around 20% iron and the foreign ore being 60–70% iron. At the same time, British Steel closed all its other mining operations around the UK. There are still many millions of tonnes of proven reserves of ore in Scunthorpe but it is cheaper to use imports for the time being.

Industrial history

Houses built for the steelworkers.

Ironstone was mined in the area as early as the Roman occupation, but the deposits lay forgotten until the 19th century. The rediscovery of iron ore in 1859 by Rowland Winn on the land of his father, Charles, resulted in the development of an iron and steel industry and rapid population growth.

Iron ore was first mined in the Scunthorpe area in July 1860. Owing to the lack of a mainline railway the ore was transferred to a wharf at Gunness (or Gunhouse), initially by cart then by a narrow gauge railway, for distribution by barge or mainline rail from Keadby. Winn knew that the best way of exploiting the iron ore fields was for a rail link to be built from Keadby to Barnetby. He campaigned tirelessly for the link; construction work started in mid-1860 and was complete in 1864. He persuaded the Dawes brothers, to whose ironworks the ore was being supplied, to build an ironworks at the site of the iron ore fields at Scunthorpe. Construction of Scunthorpe's first ironworks, the Trent Ironworks, began in 1862, with the first cast from the blast furnace being tapped on 26 March 1864.

Other ironworks followed: building of the Frodingham Ironworks began in 1864; North Lincoln Ironworks in 1866; Redbourn Hill Iron & Coal Company in 1872; Appleby Ironworks blew in their first blast furnace in 1876; and the last constructed being Lysaght's Iron and Steelworks in 1911, with production starting in 1912. Crude steel had been produced at Frodingham Ironworks in 1887 but this proved not to be viable. Maxmilian Mannaburg came to Frodingham Ironworks in 1889 to help build and run the steelmaking plant and on the night of 21 March 1890 the first steel was tapped.

Rowland Winn is remembered in the town by three street names: Rowland Road, Winn Street and Oswald Road. He assumed the title Lord St Oswald in 1885. Nostell Road was also named after the family seat Nostell Priory.

The Flixborough disaster in June 1974 damaged local buildings.

Government

Scunthorpe within Humberside (1974–1996)

Scunthorpe forms an unparished area in the borough and unitary authority of North Lincolnshire. The town forms six of the borough's seventeen wards, namely Ashby, Brumby, Crosby & Park, Frodingham, Kingsway with Lincoln Gardens and Town. The Scunthorpe wards elect 16 of the borough's 43 councillors. As of 2008, all are members of the Labour party. The councillors form the charter trustees of the Town of Scunthorpe and they continue to elect a town mayor.

North Lincolnshire Council is based in Pittwood House off Ashby Road (former A159) next to Festival Gardens. It opened in 1963 as the Civic Centre, and was the home of Scunthorpe Borough Council until 1996. It was named after Edwin Pittwood, a local Labour politician, who worked in the opencast ironstone workings near Normanby Park. There are also offices at Church Square House near the Scunthorpe Market. Pittwood House has since been renamed as Civic Centre due to the relocation of the Register Office from its old premises in Oswald road

Civic history

Historically part of Lincolnshire, in 1889 the area was included in the Lincolnshire, Parts of Lindsey administrative county. Separate local government began in 1890 when the Scunthorpe local board of health was formed. In 1894 the local board was replaced with an urban district council. Ten years later the neighbouring townships of Brumby and Frodingham (including Crosby) were also constituted an urban district. The two urban districts were amalgamated, along with the parish of Ashby in 1919 to form a new Scunthorpe urban district. Scunthorpe received a charter incorporating the town as a municipal borough in 1936.

Local authority boundary changes brought the town into the new county of Humberside in 1974, and a new non-metropolitan district, the Borough of Scunthorpe was formed with the same boundaries as the old municipal borough. The opening of the Humber Bridge on 24 June 1981 provided a permanent link between North and South Humberside but did not secure Humberside's future. To the relief of its many detractors, the county of Humberside (and Humberside County Council) was abolished on 1 April 1996 and succeeded by four unitary authorities.

The previous Humberside districts of Glanford and Scunthorpe, and that part of Boothferry district south of the northern boundaries of the parishes of Crowle, Eastoft, Luddington, Haldenby and Amcotts, now compose the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire. On amalgamation charter trustees were formed for Scunthorpe, and they continue to elect a town mayor.

Coat of arms

File:Scunthorpe arms.png

Arms of former municipal borough of Scunthorpe.

When Scunthorpe was incorporated as a borough in 1936, it also received a grant of a coat of arms from the College of Arms. These arms were transferred to the new borough council formed in 1974, and are now used by the town's charter trustees.

The green shield and golden wheatsheaf recall that the area was until recently agricultural in nature. Across the centre of the shield is a length of chain. This refers to the five villages of Crosby, Scunthorpe, Frodingham, Brumby & Ashby linking together as one. At the top of the shield are two fossils of the species Gryphaea incurva. These remains of oysters, known as the "devil's toenails", were found in the rock strata from which ironstone was quarried. The crest, on top of the helm, shows a blast furnace. This is also referred to in the Latin motto: Refulget labores nostros coelum or The heavens reflect our labours popularly attributed to the glow observed in the night sky from the steelmaking activities.

Geography

Scunthorpe central park fountain

Central Park.

Scunthorpe lies on an escarpment of ridged land (the Lincoln Cliff) which slopes down towards the Trent. The surrounding environs are largely low lying hills and plains. Although the town itself is heavily industrial it is surrounded by fertile farmland and wooded areas. In terms of general location it lies a mile east of the River Trent, 8 miles (13 km) south of the Humber Estuary, 15 miles (24 km) west of the Lincolnshire Wolds and 25 miles (40 km) north of Lincoln. The town is situated at the terminus of the M181, 42 miles (68 km) from Sheffield. Nearby towns and cities are Hull (18 miles northeast), Doncaster (20 miles west), Grimsby (22 miles east) and York (46 miles northwest). From its position at the heart of North Lincolnshire it is roughly 5 miles (8.0 km) south/south-east to Lincolnshire proper, 10 miles (16 km) west to South Yorkshire, 8 miles (13 km) north by northwest to the East Riding of Yorkshire and 15 miles (24 km) east to North East Lincolnshire

Climate

Like most of the United Kingdom, Scunthorpe has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb).

Climate data for Scunthorpe
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	5.8 (42.4)	6.1 (43.0)	8.9 (48.0)	11.4 (52.5)	15.2 (59.4)	18.4 (65.1)	20.3 (68.5)	20.1 (68.2)	17.7 (63.9)	13.8 (56.8)	8.9 (48.0)	6.5 (43.7)	12.8 (55.0)
Average low °C (°F)	0.6 (33.1)	0.5 (32.9)	1.9 (35.4)	3.6 (38.5)	6.5 (43.7)	9.5 (49.1)	11.4 (52.5)	11.4 (52.5)	9.5 (49.1)	6.8 (44.2)	3.2 (37.8)	1.4 (34.5)	5.5 (41.9)
Average precipitation mm (inches)	48 (1.9)	38 (1.5)	48 (1.9)	48 (1.9)	51 (2.0)	53 (2.1)	53 (2.1)	64 (2.5)	48 (1.9)	48 (1.9)	56 (2.2)	53 (2.1)	610 (24.0)
Source:

Economy

Industry

Scunthorpe steelworks (2006)

As of 2012 the steel industry is the major employer in the area and the largest operator within it is Tata Steel. The Normanby Park works (also known as Lysaght's) and the Redbourn complex closed in the early 1980s; the number employed in the industry fell from 27,000 at its height to around 4,500 (excluding outside contractors). The remaining Scunthorpe Steelworks works is still one of the three major integrated steel works in Britain. facilities include four blast furnaces (named after Queens: Mary, Bess, Anne and Victoria), continuous casting and rod mill.. There is also a lime works nearby; limestone is provided by Singleton Birch from the nearby quarry in Melton Ross. According to the Environment Agency (2000), Corus (Scunthorpe, Llanwern, Port Talbot, Redcar) was the biggest industrial polluter (Dioxin) in the United Kingdom. The environmental charity Greenpeace has listed the town as a PVC toxic hotspot.

Whilst the predominance of the steel industry could classify Scunthorpe as a UK monogorod; other industries in the town do exist. They include those associated with the steelworks such as engineering, along with food production, distribution and retailing – most of these now employing a large Polish and Slovak workforce. BOC have a plant just north of the town next to the A1029. Near to BOC is the well established waste management firm, Bell Waste Control, which services the majority of industry in Scunthorpe and the surrounding areas. On the Foxhills Industrial Park, north of the A1077 northern bypass, are many distribution companies, notably a large building owned by the Nisa co-operative type mutual organisation which has its UK headquarters there. Also on the Foxhills Industrial Park is a 500,000 square foot factory occupied by Wren Kitchens, employing 350 full-time workers. 2 Sisters have a large chicken processing plant in the town. Key Country Foods produces meat products on an industrial scale. The Sauce Company produces sauces, soups and other foodstuffs for the catering and supermarket sectors. Ericsson produces printed circuit boards for the telecommunications industry. There are a number of other firms, mostly involved in manufacturing and light engineering.

The town has struggled to develop after the downsizing of traditional heavy industry in the 1980s and 1990s, and while the town was made a priority development area in that period no multinationals or blue chips have moved in to fill the gap – as a consequence the local labour force mainly comprises semi-skilled and unskilled labour. In the 2001 census 19.3% of the working age population were economically inactive.

Retail

High Street.

Scunthorpe has two major shopping centres, effectively a single site: the Foundry Shopping Centre and the Parishes Centre. The former was constructed in the late 1960s/early 1970s during a wholesale reconstruction of the old town; the latter was constructed in the early part of the 2000s decade on the site of the town's old bus station. There are also many well known retailers on High Street. On 6 January 2011 Marks and Spencer closed their High Street store after 80 years of trading in the town, but a new Marks and Spencer store opened near the football ground in 2014.

However the size of the remaining retail units reflects the size of the area's population and with larger shopping facilities within reasonable travelling distance in Grimsby, Hull, Doncaster, Lincoln, Leeds and at Meadowhall Centre, Sheffield many locals often travel to these towns for major purchases.

All the big food retailers are represented in the area; There is a Tesco Extra opposite the football ground, while Sainsbury's (formerly a Safeway) have their store on the site of the old Scunthorpe United stadium, The Old Show Ground. Morrisons have a store at the bottom of Mortal Ash Hill (known locally as "Motlash") (A18 road) at the Lakeside Retail Park, on the eastern entrance to the town, while Asda have a store on Burringham Road In 2011 Asda opened another store in the former Netto, on Charlton Street.

In October 2014 Marks and Spencer's returned to the town after almost a 4-year absence. The store is housed in a purpose built location at the North Lincolnshire Shopping Centre, beside Glanford Park. Debenhams, Boots, Costa Coffee and Subway have also opened stores at the centre.

Transport

Scunthorpe railway station lies on the South TransPennine Line which has trains from Manchester Airport to Cleethorpes. The town lies five miles (8 km) north of the M180. Before this motorway was opened in 1979, all the east-west goods traffic took the A18 to Grimsby. Humberside Airport is a short drive to the east along the M180. The town's bus station is off Fenton Street. The bus station is predominantly used by Stagecoach in Lincolnshire, that operate services within and out of the town, followed by Hornsby Travel.

Religion

The church of St John the Evangelist, in Church Square, was completed in 1891 and consecrated on 15 April that same year. The church was built, at a cost of £20,000 (£ as of 2024) on land given by Lord St Oswald.

Built of Frodingham ironstone, and comprising a nave with five bays and a clerestory, a chancel, north and south aisles, two porches and a tower, it could accommodate up to 500 worshippers. It was designed by J. S. Crowther in the perpendicular style. The original striking clock was installed, in 1890 by William Potts and Sons of the Guildford Clock Works in Leeds. In 1897 quarter chimes were added. The peal of eight bells were hung in 1893, in memory of the Lord St Oswald. The organ, built in London, cost £1,000.

The final church service was held on 29 April 1984 and the building is now an arts centre.

Culture

The North Lincolnshire Museum.

The North Lincolnshire Museum is on Oswald Road, near the railway station. The former church of St John the Evangelist is now the 20–21 Visual Arts Centre. The Plowright Theatre, named after Joan Plowright, is on Laneham Street (off the west end of High Street and also near the railway station). It was built in 1958 as Scunthorpe Civic Theatre. The Baths Hall, reopened in 2011, a 1,700 capacity venue also hosts visiting musical and theatrical events.

The Scunthorpe Co-operative Junior Choir from Scunthorpe won the title of BBC radio 3 Choir of the Year 2008 at the Grand Finals on 7 December 2008 at the Royal Festival Hall, London. The main choir is made up of 90 members aged between 9 and 19 years whilst also having 2 training choirs taking children as young as 3 years old. They have made several CDs, perform numerous concerts in the area and further afield, have been subject of documentaries and are internationally renowned as having travelled the world.

Media and entertainment

Television

• Estuary TV broadcasting via Freeview Channel 8 is part of the Government's network of local community Channels.

Radio

• Viking FM broadcasts on 96.9 FM from Kingston upon Hull, having some of its coverage given to North Lincolnshire, which includes Scunthorpe;
• Lincs FM broadcasts on 102.2FM from Lincoln, covering the whole of Lincolnshire including the Scunthorpe area.
• BBC Radio Humberside is broadcast on 95.9 FM from Kingston upon Hull, with its coverage given to the old county of Humberside, now including the East Riding of Yorkshire and all of North & North East Lincolnshire & all Lincolnshire at certain times. Coverage often includes broadcasts of local football team Scunthorpe United;
• BBC Radio Lincolnshire broadcast from Lincoln, its coverage covering the entire current county of Lincolnshire.

Regional news programmes

• BBC Look North broadcast by the BBC from Queen's Gardens in Kingston upon Hull with news offices in Grimsby, covering the East Riding of Yorkshire and North & North East Lincolnshire;
• Calendar, broadcast by ITV Yorkshire from Leeds, West Yorkshire with a local crew based in nearby Grimsby, covering all of the boroughs of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

Print

The local newspaper is the Scunthorpe Telegraph (formerly the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph) with an online version called this is scunthorpe.co.uk.

Venues

Scunthorpe The Pods

Scunthorpe has a leisure centre (The Pods) next to Pittwood House, museum, galleries, craft centres, several clubs, pubs and bars, a Vue multiplex cinema adjacent to the bus station. The Baths Hall in Doncaster Road was a popular music venue, before it was closed because of the costs of bringing the building up to scratch, and dealing with industrial contamination on site. The Labour Council prevented the Baths from being demolished in 2007 and commenced a major rebuild of the venue, which has involved demolishing all but the facade of the building. The building re-opened in November 2011.

Education

Scunthorpe's primary schools include Berkeley Junior School, Brumby Junior School, Crosby Primary School, Frodingham Infant School, Oasis Academy Henderson Avenue, Oasis Academy Parkwood, St Augustine Webster's Catholic Voluntary Academy, St Bernadette's Catholic Primary Voluntary Academy, St Peter and St Paul CofE Primary School, Scunthorpe CofE Primary School and Westcliffe Primary School.

Secondary schools within Scunthorpe include Outwood Academy Brumby on Cemetery Road, and Outwood Academy Foxhills on Foxhills Road. Frederick Gough School is to the south of the town in Bottesford. Melior Community Academy, to the east of the town, was formed by the merger of South Leys Business & Enterprise College on Enderby Road and Thomas Sumpter School. St Bede's Catholic Voluntary Academy on Collum Avenue is the main Roman Catholic secondary schools for the area, while the St Lawrence Academy on Doncaster Road is a Church of England secondary school in the town. It was formerly known as High Ridge Specialist Sports College and became the town's first academy opening on 1 September 2008. St Hugh's Communication and Interaction Specialist College, is a school for pupils aged 11–19 with moderate to complex learning needs associated with physical and social problems.

Scunthorpe currently has two study support centres, Study United FC and Study Heslam set up with funding from the government's Playing for Success scheme. These are based at Glanford Park, the home of Scunthorpe United Football Club and Heslam Park, home of Scunthorpe rugby & cricket clubs.

Further education

John Leggott Sixth-Form College (JLC) on West Common Lane. North Lindsey College is close by on Kingsway (A18).

On 30 November 2010, as part of the 2010 UK student protests students and members of the public joined a series of nationwide outside John Leggott College. The protest was against the Parliamentary plans to increase University tuition fees.

Law and order

The area is served by Humberside Police. According to Home Office data the area has crime rates higher than the national average, especially in the categories of violence against the person, sexual offences, burglary and theft of motor vehicles.

Sport

Football

File:1222276 b2ba3905-by-Paul-Harrop.jpg

Glanford Park.

The town has a Football League club, Scunthorpe United (nicknamed "The Iron") who play at Glanford Park. For most of its existence in the professional game (since only 1950) it has been in the basement league of the English game. At the end of the 2006–7 season they won promotion to the Football League Championship as champions of League One, amassing a total of 91 points, being promoted at home to Huddersfield Town: having been top since January: despite being outsiders for a considerable amount of that time, and being promoted with 3 games to spare. This being the first time they have played at this level for 44 years. This was to last just one season as the club were relegated on 12 April 2008, with three games to spare, away to Crystal Palace. However, they returned to the Championship after one season, winning the League One playoffs in May 2009.

In the last financial year for which accounts are available (the year ending June 2009) the club made a loss of over £1,500,000 with turnover down by over 17%.

Kevin Keegan and Ray Clemence both played for Scunthorpe United in the early 1970s before being signed for Liverpool. Former England cricket captain Ian Botham played a number of games for the club, being a resident of nearby Epworth at that time and in an attempt to keep fit during the winter months. The team mascot is called the "Scunny Bunny".

Local teams play in the Scunthorpe & District Football League.

Rugby

Scunthorpe Rugby Club play in the National League 3 Midlands, the fifth tier of the English rugby union system. Their home ground is at Heslam Park, close to Brumby on Ashby Road. Scunthorpe Barbarians play rugby league also at Heslam Park.

Motorsports

Scunthorpe also has a speedway team known as the Scunthorpe Scorpions who compete in the British Premier League, the sport's second tier in Britain. The speedway team has been running since 2005 and won a grand slam of the Conference League trophies in both 2006 and 2007 before claiming the Premier League title in 2012, alongside this Speedway world champion Tai Woffinden was born in Scunthorpe, riding for the Scunthorpe Scorpions in his youth. It runs at the Eddie Wright Raceway, which is a mile north of the town on Normanby Road (B1430).

The Eddie Wright Raceway is also host to the sport of stock car racing, the town has featured stock car racing at two other venues in its past, 2009 saw a return to the town of the oval racing sport

• Scunthorpe Scorpions – Premier League team
• Scunthorpe Saints – National League (formerly Conference League) team

Golf

Forest Pines, a championship golf course which also has a spa retreat and conference facilities.

Athletics

The Appleby-Frodingham Athletic Club uses the 34-acre (140,000 m²) site near the Civic Centre for many types of sport. They have a clubhouse and also use Brumby Hall next-door. There is also the Scunthorpe and District Athletics Club. They train at Quibell Park Stadium, Scunthorpe's athletic track on Brumby Wood Lane named after David Quibell, the town's former Labour MP. Around the running track is a cycle track used by Polytechnic Cycle Club.

The leisure centre was on Carlton Street opposite the bus station via a footbridge. After The Pods opened this was demolished. The Scunthorpe Anchor swimming club are based at the Riddings Pool on Enderby Road next to South Leys School in Yaddlethorpe.

The Pods, a leisure centre near Central Park has now opened, having two swimming pools, a state of the art gym, a dance studio, a creche and a cafe.

As part of the project, Central Park is being improved. These expensive improvements are also in their final stage. North Lincolnshire Council's website regularly show photographs and videos of how the work is progressing.

Controversies

Internet obscenity filters

Main article: Scunthorpe problem

In 1996 there was controversy when AOL's obscenity filter (among others) refused to accept the name of the town due to its inclusion of the embedded word cunt, which the filter rejected as obscene. Some online forums such as Ultimate Guitar forums (which has recently been resolved) display the name as S****horpe, while Fark.com would display it as Scoonthorpe. This form of censorship over-reach is known in the computing world as the Scunthorpe problem.

Notable people

• Roy Axe, car designer for Chrysler and Rover was born in Scunthorpe.
• Darren Bett, television weather presenter
• Ian Collins, talkSPORT radio presenter was born in the town
• Neil Cox (footballer) (Assistant manager of AFC Wimbledon)
• Howard Devoto, singer with the Buzzcocks and Magazine
• Stephen Fretwell, singer-songwriter
• Tony Jacklin, golfer
• Reece Mastin, singer and winner of 2011 X-Factor Australia, was born in Scunthorpe
• Iain Matthews, singer with Fairport Convention
• Rob McElnea, 500cc grand prix rider, team manager of the Virgin Mobile Yamaha team
• David Plowright, television executive and producer
• Jake Quickenden, former X-Factor and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! contestant
• Peter D. Robinson, Archbishop in the United Episcopal Church of North America, was born in Scunthorpe and grew up in nearby Barton-upon-Humber
• Martin Simpson, guitarist and singer-songwriter, was born in Scunthorpe
• Liz Smith, actress
• Alan Walker, musicologist and biographer of Franz Liszt, was born in Scunthorpe
• Tai Woffinden, speedway world champion

Twinned municipalities

• Clamart, France
• Lüneburg, Germany
• Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Poland

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• North Lincolnshire Council
• Scunthorpe – The Heavens Reflect Our Labours, Documentary on Scunthorpe history made by local schoolchildren
• Pathe newsreel, 1958, Queen visits Lincoln, Scunthorpe, Grimsby