page_title: Transport in Sheffield
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Transport in Sheffield / History / Early history
context_page_description: Transport in Sheffield, England is developed around the city's unusual topography and medieval street plan. Once an isolated town, the transport infrastructure changed dramatically in the 19th and 20th centuries. The city now has road and rail links with the rest of the country, and road, bus and trams for local transport.
context_section_description: The earliest known roads in the Sheffield area date from the Roman occupation of Britain between 43 and 410 AD. The Romans built a fort at Templeborough c55. Two roads were built to this fort. Icknield Street ran south towards Derby, and another road ran south-west to Brough-on-Noe near Hope in Derbyshire. The exact course of these roads is unknown but both are likely to have passed within the modern boundaries Sheffield. In the centuries after the end of the Roman occupation the Sheffield area was at the border of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia. The village of Dore (literally a Door) lay on an important route between these kingdoms.
  Following the Norman Conquest of England a castle was established in the village of Sheffield c1150. Sheffield began to grow into a small town, the first bridge was built over the River Don (Lady's Bridge) and the street pattern that would persist for centuries was laid out. Lady's Bridge may represent the main route out of Sheffield in this era, travellers followed the Wicker and then climbed Spital Hill to follow an ancient Dyke called the "Roman Rig" to Mexborough. This may be the route into Sheffield described in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. A route to the south passing through Little Sheffield, Heeley, and Newfield Green, to Gleadless Moor existed by 1692, but was a difficult route to follow. There was also a route to the west, known as Long Causeway, that followed the old Roman Road toward Stanage Edge, however Sheffield remained relatively secluded, a fact which may have influenced the choice of Sheffield for the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1570.
  In the 18th century, turnpike roads were built improving Sheffield's connections with the outside world. A turnpike to Chesterfield was built in 1756 and another through Ringinglow to Chapel-en-le-Frith or Buxton was constructed in 1758. Roads were also built to Barnsley, Tickhill, Worksop, Intake and Penistone. The Baslow turnpike (Abbeydale Road) opened in 1805 and Glossop Road opened in 1821. In 1774 a wooden waggonway was laid over a distance of 2 miles from the Duke of Norfolk's collieries into the town, this was later relaid with cast-iron L-shaped rails by John Curr; one of the earliest railways to use this type of rails.
caption: A map of Sheffield in 1736
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