In 1860 the township of Wheatley, bounded by Wheatley Lane, Broxholme Lane and Thorne Road, contained but few houses, the principal ones being Broxholme, Highfield House and the Green House (the Cumberland). The eastern part of the township was occupied by Wheatley Hall, the ancestral home of the Cookes, with its lodge on Thorne Road, parkland, woods, ponds, and farmland.

Much of the available building land in the township was acquired in the 1850s and 1860s by W H Forman, an old Doncastrian who had made a fortune in Welsh ironworks. His aim was to prevent the area being covered with rows of poor houses as had happened on the west side of the town.

The development of Wheatley into the town's principal residential suburb began in 1868. A portion of the Wheatley Hall estate, slightly over five acres, was purchased for £1790 by John Elwis, timber merchant, Henry Shaw, gentleman, John Athron, and Harold Arnold, builders. A road 30 feet by 960 feet was laid out and the land was divided into 11 building plots for detached or semi-detached houses, not more than two a plot, the former to cost not less than £700 each, the latter £1,000 a pair. This development forms the east side of Avenue Road - John Elwis lived at Avenue House and John Athron at 5 Avenue Road.

The villas stood in isolation amid fields for many years. By 1871 the population of Wheatley had only risen to 183.

The first place of worship to be erected in the township was a mission room, in connection with St George's church. The Holmes chapel was opened by the Mayor in July 1873. It was built near the bottom end of Broxholme Lane in a field owned by the builder, John Athron, part of which was used as a sand quarry. The road to the mission room was called Chapel Street, later re-named Athron Street. The cost of the building was £195. 1sh. 10½d.

Although the mission room was in Wheatley it was built to serve the Holmes, an outlying area of Doncaster. Holmes is an old name meaning low land beside a river. The name was applied to the land between Wheatley Lane and the river Don.

A wayside inn, the Cheshire Cheese, was built in 1821, adjoining Wheatley Lane.  A tree lined walk led from near the inn to the river at a point known as the Ladies' Harbour. There were a few cottages near the inn. Nearer Doncaster there was a row of stone cottages. The Holmes chapel of 1873 as it is today.

Still nearer Doncaster stood the Gas Works, erected in 1826.  At the approach to the Gas Works a terrace of houses known as St Leger Place sprang up and, on the corner, adjoining the highway to the town, the Stag Inn was built.  Many of the inhabitants of the Holmes worked on the river or on the land, possibly on the Wheatley Hall estate. The census of 1851 shows that of heads of household seven were agricultural workers, two were cow keepers, six were boatmen or sailors, two were ship's carp­ enters, three were stone masons, who probably worked at Anelay's stone yard which lay between the Holmes and Docken Hill, two were employed at the Gas Works, two were laundresses, two were flax weavers and two were tailors. There was also a linen weaver, a butler, a maltster, a brewer's labourer, a coal porter, a police sergeant and a gunmaker. In addition, there were three annuitants.

 

A stone building near the Cheshire Cheese was occupied by John Sharrett, a tobacco pipe (clay) manufacturer, who employed four men. This business was later carried on by a man known as "Pipey" Ward.

 

 

 

In 1860 six Elizabethan style alms-houses were built. Known as Stocks's Alms-houses they formed the centrepiece of the Holmes and it was opposite them that the chapel was built. Four of the alms-houses were paid for by money received from the Great Northern Railway Co which acquired the earlier alms-houses in Factory Lane and two were built at the expense of John Hatfield, the Mayor, for the use of decayed servants of the Corporation.

 

In 1872 a sewage pumping station was erected near the Ladies' Harbour and a new wharf was constructed. The builder was John Athron. Sewage was no longer discharged into the river at Dockin Hill but was pumped to irrigation fields at Sandall. The two pumps together could deliver two million gallons of sewage in 12 hours. A pair of ornamental cottages was erected for the chief engineer and his assistant.

Also, in 1872 the Corporation opened a depot in the Holmes adjacent to the pumping station for the deposit of the contents of the town's midden steads and other refuse. It was clear that the Holmes was not going to develop as a fashionable residential area:

The death of W H Forman in August 1869 opened up the way for the development of the Wheatley township. His Doncaster estate passed to his nephew, Alexander Henry Brown, but litigation ensued re conditions in the will and it was not until Aug 1875 that the first sale of the estate took place.

Nearly 16 acres of land between Thome Road and the Holmes, including Broxholme Close, Jenny Garth and Gifford's Close, were purchased for £7,860 by John Elwis, Henry Shaw, John Athron and Harold Arnold. In February 1876 the Highfield Estate was advertised as being set out in lots suitable for the erection of villa and other residences. Highfield Road was laid out on the line of an old field path and King's Road and Queen's Road were laid out at right angles to it.

 

A number of plots were sold off and in March 1879 the rest of the land was· partitioned between the four participants with an agreement that houses built on Thome Road should have a value of £600 for a detached house, £900 for a pair of semis, and £400 for terrace houses; on King's Road and Queen's Road, south of Highfield Road, terrace houses were to have a value of £300 except the east side of King's Road near the junction with Highfield Road where they were to be of a value of £250.

The first part of the Highfield Estate to be developed was the Broxholme Close near to the Holmes. It was chosen because gas, water and drainage connections were at hand. Most of the houses were built by Harold Arnold. The long curving terrace on Broxholme Lane is all his work. Harold Arnold always took care to make his houses attractive in appearance, even humble cottages like those on Broxholme Lane. These cottages lost their ornamental dormer gables when they were re-roofed in the 1930s.

In 1876 AH Browne decided to develop the Nether Hall Park Estate having come to the conclusion that it would be more profitable to lay out the roads and sell the land in building plots rather than selling whole fields. On 1 December 1876 the Nether Hall Park was advertised as being laid out in lots of 320 sq., yards and upwards; the roads being fenced off and about to be formed.

 

Nether Hall Road was constructed to link with Highfield Road, Christ Church Road was laid out as an avenue connecting Thorne Road with Nether Hall Road and Park Road ran across the Park joining Christ Church Road to East Laith Gate. The first buildings to be erected on the estate were at the Sunny Bar end of Nether Hall Road. Here Mr A Wilburn, a house furnisher of 11 High Street, commenced building a warehouse in January 1878. Mr Wilburn was a member of the Priory Place Wesleyan church, at that time the most easterly of the Methodist churches in the town. In September 1878, the Wesleyans commenced using the ground floor of the warehouse as a mission room on Sundays with Mr Wilburn taking a leading role in the services.

 

This move seems to have prompted the Primitive Methodists from the Duke Street Chapel to consider establishing a base in the newly developing suburb. On 7 April 1879, a meeting was held at which it was proposed that a plot of land be bought on Highfield Road and that a church to seat 200 be erected there. On 29 April, the tender of Mr D Crow of London for the erection of an iron building for £250 was accepted. A plot of land at the corner of Highfield Road and Queen's Road was bought from John Athron on 1L, May 1880 hut between May 1879 and the date of completion, permission was given for the holding of open-air meetings. The church was opened for worship on 15 August 1880.

 

The early years in the iron church on the edge of the town were troubled ones. In 1881 the church had a membership of 28 but this declined steadily to 15 in 1886. Nevertheless, a suggestion that the church be sold and the members re-amalgamated with Duke Street was not agreed to.

 

Development on the Highfield and Nether Hall Estates proceeded steadily but rather haphazardly, especially on the Highfield Estate where much of the land was sold off in small plots. King's Road was not built up until 1887 and Queen's Road was even later, Alexandra Terrace, named after the newly crowned queen, was not built until 1903. The first part of the Nether Hall Park Estate to he put on the market

- the area between Christ Church Road and East Laith Gate - was sold off in a large number of plots. The last plot on Christ Church Road was built on in 1888 and on Thorne Road in 1889.

 

In 1880 A H Browne offered for sale by auction Nether Hall with its grounds extending from Nether Hall Road to Dockin Hill and the Holmes. The property was not sold but in March 1881 it was bought by Wilson & Masters, architects, who laid the land out in building plots and drew the plans for most of the houses that were built thereon. Whole streets of terrace houses were built at a time.

The area to the west of Christ Church Road, including Harrington Street and Allerton Street, was built in 1882, mostly by H Flowitt, who took up residence at the Hall. The area to the east of Christ Church Road, including Montague Street, Milbanke Street and Penistone Street, followed on.  A Co-operative store was built on the corner of Broxholme Lane and Copley Road in 1884 and by the following year the development of the estate was nearly finished. Many of the houses have interesting details, especially those built by Benjamin Wortley of Wharncliffe Terrace, Copley Road - he made great use of decorative brickwork.

 

The erection of such a mass of housing in proximity to the Holmes mission room resulted in the need for a larger building. A H Browne was approached, and he agreed to give an acre of ground as the site for a new church. Major Browne offered a choice of three sites; the plot selected was garden ground on Holmes Hill adjoining the footpath which ran from the Holmes to the bottom of Avenue Road.

The new church, which was built by Athron Brothers & Gill, was opened on 5 November 1885 - the cost was £3,870. The church was the work of amateur architect Sir Edmund Beckett QC, who apart from designing Big Ben at Westminster had played a part in the design of St George's Church, St James' Church, and the Grammar School. He gave £200 towards the cost of the church, his sister, Miss Beckett Denison gave £100 and Beckett's Bank gave £500. It was not surprising that the new road to the church, on the line of the old footpath, was named Beckett Road.

 

The population of Wheatley had grown to 996 by 1881 and in 1891 it was 1795. In 1884 A H Browne planned to develop his Wheatley Estate up to Avenue Road and laid out Beckett Road and St Mary's Road (top part). However, building progress was slow and the jubilee commemorated by Jubilee Road was that of 1897, not 1887.

 

Major Browne's Wheatley Estate was separated from the Highfield Estate by the grounds of Highfield House and he had to buy land from the Corporation for the construction of Beckett Road. In 1887 the Cheshire Cheese was rebuilt with an ornamental spire and substantial houses began to appear in St Mary's Road, but the area was too far from the industrial works on the west of the town to allow workers to get home for their mid-day meal in comfort (pneumatic tyres for bicycles weren't invented until 1888).

 

Housing for the workers was built between the mid-1880s and the mid-1890s beyond the narrow streets and the pubs of the new town that had been built in the St James' Street area to accommodate the first influx of railway employees. The new streets were wider and the houses were better built - the type of development that is known as bye-law housing - and were generally treeless and pub-less, relieved only by an occasional corner shop. The new development stretched from Chequer Road via Beechfielcl Road, Apley Road, Elmfield Road, Cunningham Road, Somerset Road, Carr House Road, Cooper Street, North Street, South Street, Cemetery Road, Exchange Street, Prospect Place, Green Dyke Lane, and Arbitration Street to Littlemoor Lane, Littlemoor Street, and Stanley Street; across the railway tracks similar streets such as Mutual Street (for the Co-op) and Stone Close Avenue were being built at Hexthorpe. All were nearer to the industry than the Wheatley Estate.

 

A considerable amount of infill was also taking place in Wheatley in the same period. The bottom of Beckett Road, St Mary's Crescent, and the bottom of Queen's Road were developed in 1888/9. Athron' s sand quarry having become exhausted; a number of cottages were erected in the hole in 1887; the mission room was used as a school until the building of the Holmes Church of England School in Docking Hill Road in 1888, this school continued until 1930 when it was converted into the School of Art. The mission room was taken by the Wheatley Parish Council 1, the first meeting of which was held at Wheatley Farm in 1871. Wheatley was created an Urban District Council in 1900 and was absorbed into the borough in 1914.

 

Cottages in Spencer Avenue, just south of Arthron’s sand quarry were erected in 1887, and in 1892 six alms-houses paid for by the Hunt Committee were erected in the Holmes to the east of Stocks' s Alms-houses. The largest area of infill was between Christ Church Road and Broxholme Lane, which at that time was still a narrow lane. In 1891 A H Browne disposed of almost the whole of the land to F Masters of Wilson & Masters who erected the distinctive houses built of white brick with red brick dressings.They were considered to be superior to the bye-law development of the time in that they all had bathrooms and front gardens and the footpaths had trees planted in them.

A plot at the corner of Broxholme Lane and Nether Hall Road was sold to the Wesleyan Methodists by A H Browne for £927. The congregation which had established itself in Mr Wilburn's warehouse in 1878 had flourished and after several years had moved to more spacious accommodation in an outbuilding to Nether Hall It was intended to erect a fine church on the site but as a first stage a school hall was built which could act as a church for an initial period. The school church was opened on 17 February 1892. The architect was J G Walker of Doncaster, Benjamin Wortley was the builder and the work cost £3,427 including the site. The building which was entered from Broxholme Lane had a 50 feet high tower and a semi-octagonal projecting porch.

 

In 1895 a new road, Town Moor Avenue, was built across the Town Field linking Thorne Road and the Racecourse.  The road was built at the joint cost of the Corporation and Major Browne who had acquired the sole ownership of the Town Field. Under the arrangement, the part of the Town Field to the west of the new road was protected from future development. Major Browne lost the right to build on the land, but the value of his adjoining estate was enhanced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doncaster was entering a period of considerable prosperity - the railway works were flourishing, and coal was being prospected in all directions. By 1895 practically all the plots in St Mary's Road had been taken up and A H Browne extended St Mary's Road to Wheatley Lane and laid out Auckland Road.

 

Although many of the children from Wheatley went to the Holmes School it was not in Wheatley but was within the borough. Wheatley was required to establish a School Board, the first meeting of which was held in the parish room, Chapel Street, in June 1895. A site was purchased at the corner of Beckett Road and St Mary's Road, opposite the church, for £675.  A quarter of the site was a deep sandpit which had been filled with burnt grain refuse resulting fror.1 the fire at Hanley & Robinson's mill in Fisher Gate in 1881. £318 was spent on making the ground good. Athron & Beck designed the new schools and Mullins & Richardson were the builders.  The schools were opened in May 1897.

 

Part of the land between Auckland Road and Avenue Road was used as a sports field by the Grammar School. The Wheatley Jubilee Celebrations tool, place on this field in June 1897 when 700 children were given tea in a large marquee, Harrington Street and Copley Road celebrated the Jubilee with tea in Hr Flowitt' s Assembly Room, followed by sports in a field lent by Mr. Clayton of Broxholme. Dancing and singing continued in the Assembly Room 1 until 4,00 am. This room appears to have been the one used by the Wesleyans, after they vacated the room it was taken by a group known as the Church of Christ which carried on the doctrines expounded by Thomas Campbell in the early 19th Century. A treat for 7,000 children was organised on the Common at which there were 250 children from the   Nether Hall Road Church, 80 from Highfield Road Church, and 67 from the Copley Road Church.

 

The west side of Auckland Road, apart from a large house at the top, was developed by H and C Flowitt in the form of three terrace blocks enlivened with a carefully balanced arrangement of gables and gablets. The six-bedroomed houses were being advertised to let at £28 and £30 a year in 1897.

 

The east side of the lower part of St Mary's Road was developed by Duckitt & Carr in 1895 with superior terrace houses for the workers. The houses had front gardens and bay windows and were neatly detailed - the firm used the same design on other projects. They were of a much better standard than the plain terraces erected the previous year by H & C Flowitt in Charles Street and Wheatley Lane opposite the Cheshire Cheese.

 

A H Browne laid out Jubilee Road in 1896 followed two years later by Lockwood Road, Stanhope Road, Lowther Road, Cranbrook Road, and Carlton Road; Captain Lane which led from the termination of Beckett Road through fields to Wheatley Lane was transformed into Morley Road. Within a few years, the area was built up except for a part of Lowther Road and Carlton Road which remained unbuilt on until 1911. Most of the houses were built by members of the Flowitt family.

 

The houses on this development followed the pattern that had been set at Wheatley over the preceding 20 years with the quality of the houses declining as the land falls. Large, detached houses occupy the ground on Thorne Road, the upper parts of the streets branching off Thorne Road have a substantial terrace or semi-detached houses, the middle ground is taken by more modest terraces, lower still the standard falls and frontages become narrowr, bay windows are omitted and front gardens are dispensed with, at Wheatley Lane, the lowest level, there are plain, straight onto the street terraces.

 

In March 1898 Dennis Gill and Son's tender of £1,098 for the building of St Mary's Clergy House was accepted. The building was designed by Lord Grimethorpe (Sir Edmund Beckett) and John Simmons of Wheatley. St Mary's had been a daughter church of St George's now it was to become a separate, ecclesiastical parish church.

In April 1898 Major Browne died at his home, Callaly Castle, Northumberland, aged 54. A phase in the development of Wheatley had come to an end.

 

 

 

• 1875 Broxholme Lane, builder Harold Arnold, 2 up and 2 down cottages of ornamental appearance, in local stock brick, pressed brick to the door and window openings, coloured brick band decoration. Arnold built larger houses with bay windows in King's Road, Highfield Road, and Queen's Road but repeated the window opening details with corbelled cills and brick and stone arches at the first-floor level.
• 1878 Cook's Terrace, architect William Watson, well-proportioned houses in selected stock brick, coloured brick band decoration, well-detailed timber bays, brick and stone arches to openings. Daniel Cook, a brewer, was the owner of the terrace and lived at the end house, 41 King's Road. In 1878 he helped start the Wesleyan meetings in Mr. Wilburn's warehouse. As a chapel steward, he was much involved with the building of Nether Hall Road Church in 1903.
• 1887 Velinheli Terrace, 3 up and 3 down with attics, the first houses to be built in St Mary's Road, in pressed brick, horizontal bands of moulded clayware, timber porches, square bays, decorative fascia board, ornamental chimney stacks. Built by Joseph Cooper, a slater (Velinheli is a slate quarry); he had previously built houses on the Nether Hall Park Estate.
• 1895 St Mary's Road, builders Duckitt & Carr (Abner Carr, Mayor 1918), Conisbrough pressed brick, dark grey mortar, moulded brick enrichment, substantial brick bays, narrowr fronted houses lower down the street have timber bays and then no bays. Similar houses were built up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

 

In 1898 H & C Flowitt applied to the Brewster Sessions for a license for a hotel they wished to build in Jubilee Road, Mr. Clegg for the Temperance Society said that people in Wheatley Lane and Jubilee Road were near the Cheshire Cheese and houses in Beckett Road were let for £25 a year so the occupiers could afford to keep wines and spirits in, The application was refused - however, the number of off-licenses that eventually appeared in the Wheatley area showed that the residents were by no means total abstainers,

 

A critic in the local press found it surprising that houses with such small rooms should be built "in these enlightened times", Nevertheless tenants seem to have been forthcoming; a six roomed house in Jubilee Road could be had at 5sh 3d a week and a six roomed house, with bay window, in St Mary's Road at 6sh 0d a week. CG Steadman commenced running a penny horse bus from Station Road. to Avenue Road.

 

In 1900 a church room was built opposite the west doorway of St Mary's church and in the same year, a classroom was added to Beckett Road Board School. In 1903 the West Riding County Council took over the running of the schools, in 1905 extra accommodation had to be found and classes were held in St Mary's church room.

Broxholme, with its grounds of nearly five acres, had been in the possession of CD Clayton, a gentleman with colliery interests, since 1896. In 1902 he sold the lower portion of the grounds to Duckitt & Carr who built 2-32 Highfield Road and all the houses in Royal Avenue on the land. The Wesleyans had only been in their school chapel in Broxholme Lane for ten years when they felt able to go ahead with the building of the church. The foundation stone was laid on 11 December 1902.

 

The church was formally opened for worship on 3 December 1903. At that time the membership was 100 with 250 scholars in the Sunday School. The architects for the new building were Gordon & Gunton of London and the builder was Benjamin Wortley who had erected the school chapel. Conisbrough pressed bricks were generally used for facing work in the Wheatley area but the bricks used on the church were from Accrington and are very even in shape and clear red in colour. The brickwork is still some of the best in Doncaster, The stone came from Ancaster and the carving was carried out by Tom Scrivens who had been foreman carver on the rebuilding of St George's Church. He was 75 years old when he worked at Nether Hall church.

 

The cost of the entire development was said to be £9,800. The building was described as the most handsome free church in the town. Also, in 1903, the Church of Christ decided to leave Mr. Flowitt's room in Copley Road and build a chapel in the Holmes to the east of the alms-houses, The chapel, which was designed by H Beck, was a simple but not unpleasing building with a schoolroom under the main room. Attractive Art Nouveau railings separated the area in front of the basement from the footpath,

 

The demand for workers' houses in the Wheatley area seems to have declined, Don Street was laid out on the line of the walk to the Ladies' Harbour in 1899 and 12 plain cottages were built on the northeast side, but it was not until 1908 that the other side of the street was developed. The main new areas of workers' houses were at Hexthorpe where the Great Northern Railway Co. was building the Crimpsall Shed and at Carr View Avenue, Balby, where brass works and wire works were being established,

 

In 1903 tramway services were introduced into the Wheatley area, Trams ran via Nether Hall Road and Thome Road to Avenue Road and via Broxholme Lane and Beckett Road to the top of Morley Road. The public shelter at the latter tram terminus still exists. In March 1904 Harold Arnold & Son's tender for paving, kerbing, and metalling Avenue Road was accepted, until then it had been a private road.

 

In June 1904 Henry Flowitt died at Nether Hall, aged 67, having been in failing health since being kicked three years previously by a horse at Carr House farm which he then occupied, He was foreman to Harold Arnold before starting on his own. He built about 1,200 houses in the Doncaster area.

 

 

 

Nether Hall Church c, 1905

The school church of 1892 is in the foreground

 

Henry Flowitt had been in partnership with his son Charles for some years. Charles who lived at Belle Vue House continued on his own for some years before retiring to Blackpool. In July 1904 AH Browne's son sold the whole of his Wheatley estate and land on the Town Field, 700 acres in all, to Earl Fitzwilliam.

 

The sight of the Wesleyan church being erected just down the street must have made the Primitive Methodists feel like the poor relations. Membership had increased since the low point of 1886 and in August 1903 it was decided that there was a need for better premises. A committee was appointed to secure a new site, but the search took some time.

 

Harold Arnold & Son who bought the land to the east of Town Moor Avenue from Major Browne started developing the site in 1901. The original layout plan showed an island site for a church where Windsor Road now is. This would have been an attractive location, but nothing came of the proposal.

The Primitive Methodists were not the only religious body looking for a site - the Methodist New Connexion was similarly engaged, Alexander Kilham, who was born at Epworth, founded the New Connexion in 1797 after having been expelled from the Wesleyan Conference for his radical views - he wanted the Wesleyans to severe all connections with the Church of England and become dissenters. The Kilhamites or New Connexion fitted up a room behind a house in French Gate for worship in 1817. In 1821 they built a chapel in Duke Street but in 1842 the congregation broke up and sold the chapel to the Primitive Methodists.

The New Connexion reappeared in Doncaster in 1899 when they began holding services in the. Temperance Hall. This building, situated behind some property on the northwest side of St Sepulchre Gate, had been built as a music hall but was taken by Mrs. EH Walker, mother of JG Walker, the architect, for the temperance cause, In October 1902 the New Connexion sought the use of the former mission room in Chapel Street but were refused permission by the Wheatley Urban District Council on the grounds that the building was used for storage, In December 1904 the Methodist New Connexion bought the plot on the comer of Beckett Road and Morley Road, near the tram terminus, for £568.

 

In 1905 the first building was erected on the site. Ebenezer Chapel was a corrugated steel structure, timber-lined, seating about 200 people. It was affectionately if irreverently, known as the 'Tin Tabernacle', and was intended as temporary accommodation until a permanent church could be built. In fact, it survived unti1 1964 when a church ha11 was bui1t on the site. In 1906 membership was 77.

 

In 1905 and 1906 Charles Flowitt developed the east side of Morley Road with large semi-detached houses at the top and smaller houses lower down. In November 1904 CD Clayton sold Broxholme and just over three acres of land to F Masters for

£6,150. Broxholme was demolished and the land was developed between 1905 and 1908. St Vincent's Road and St Vincent's Avenue took their name from F Masters' own house on Thome Road which was called St Vincent's although its name was later changed

to St George's. Most of the substantial terrace houses on the two roads were built by W Flowitt. The attractive houses on Thome Road, between Broxholme Lane and St Vincent's Avenue, were built between 1905 and 1909 to the designs of Fred Masters and his son F Norman D Masters.

The Primitive Methodists had examined various sites and were almost on the point of acquiring a site at the comer of Wheatley Lane and Milethorn Lane, near Straw­ berry Island when they asked the Rev J Redhead, who was coming to the circuit in the next year, to inspect the site. He reported unfavourably and suggested that a site be sought in the vicinity of the existing church. In 1904 Harold Arnold and Son bought a field of nearly two acres, part of the grounds of Highfield House for

£1,500. In October 1905, the trustees agreed to buy 1,200 sq. yds. of the field for £675 as the site for the new church. The Doncaster Lawn Tennis Club which had occupied the field for several years had to make way for the building of a new road.

Highfield House was bought for use as a vicarage for the vicar of St George's. The house had been occupied by Patrick Stirling, locomotive engineer to the Great Northern Railway Company, and previously by Robert Baxter, solicitor, who had fought. hard to get the bill authorising the construction of the Great Northern Rail­ way through Parliament. As Doncaster already had a Stirling Street the new road was n& ed Baxter Avenue. By this time Arnolds rarely built small houses preferring to buy land and lay out the roads and provide the sewers and sell building plots to smaller builders. Most of the houses in Baxter Avenue were built by C Sprakes & Son. Like other modest terrace houses of the period, they were built without bathrooms. The plans for the last houses to be built in the street in 1908 show a bath in the back bedroom. Other houses being built in Doncaster around this time had a similar unsatisfactory arrangement,

Once the Primitive Methodists had secured the site things went with a swing. Harry Harper of Nottingham was appointed architect. In a little over a fortnight, his plans had been approved. It was decided to build the church only and leave the schoolroom to a later date. Arnolds' tender of £2,200 was accepted. The foundation stone was laid on Whit Monday 1906.

 

For 26 years the Society had worshipped in the iron church and membership had risen to 60 with an average evening congregation of 180. On 3 January 1907 members and friends met at the iron church for a short service and then marched in procession through the streets of the town, headed by the Oxford Place Brass Band, returning to Highfield Road for the opening ceremony of the new church.

Although the building contract for Highfield Road Church was only £2,200 compared with £5,800 for Nether Hall Road Church the seating capacity of both was the same - 750. Highfield Road had a traditional gallery whilst Nether Hall Road only had a small gallery for 80 over the narthex (porch at the west end of the church). Of Highfield Road's 750 seats 200 were free and the rest were rented. Nether Hall Road had so many generous benefactors that the outstanding debt on both churches was very similar.Although Harry Harper was constrained by cost, he managed to produce a building· that was not without architectural interest. His modest tower capped by a spire made a suitable contrast to that of Nether Hall. Highfield Road, with a Methodist Church at both ends, had a more interesting skyline than any other suburban street in the town.  Nether Hall Road Church was described as being 16th century Gothic in style, but Highfield Road Church was described as Composite, what is now known as Edwardian Free Style; the only distinctive Gothic feature being the main window.

 

Arnolds' workmanship, as usual, was very good. The facing bricks were Conisbrough pressed bricks laid with a very fine joint in dark grey mortar so that the joints looked as though they had been drawn. The facing brickwork of most of the better houses in the area that were built between 1880 and 1910 was similar. Music in the church was at first provided by an American organ supplemented by violins, bass fiddle, and cello. In 1910 an organ was installed at a cost of £300, half of which was met by the Carnegie Trust.

 

 

 

Highfield Road was extended from its junction with Queen's Road to provide access to Baxter Avenue and the houses opposite the church, with two-storeyed bays, were built by C Sprakes & Son in 1908. In the same year, Earl Fitzwilliam commenced developing his estate with the laying out of Axholme Road, Avenue Road having been almost fully built on.

The development of Wheatley had resulted in the Board schools, becoming overcrowded. The West Riding County Council decided another school was required and obtained a site on favourable terms from Earl Fitzwilliam at the northerly end of Beckett Road, opposite Axholme Road. The new mixed school, which was thought to be one of the most attractive in the district, was opened on 4 April 1907. It provided accommodation for 350 children. The old schools were retained for junior and infant purposes. At the opening ceremony reference was made to the superiority of the German educational system - this was no new theme. Two years later two classrooms were added to the old infant school.

Substantial detached villas started appearing on Thorne Road from 1878. They were generally the homes of the town's successful businessmen, several of whom were also councilors. Such was John Tomlinson who started a hatter's business in St Sepulchre Gate about 1860. He was elected to the Town Council in 1875 and in 1883 he was chosen as Mayor, the same year in which he built a house known as 'Polton Toft' on Thorne Road. In 1887 he published a substantial history 'Doncaster from the Roman Occupation to the Present Time'. His home is simple, well proportioned, and with very limited use of moulded bricks (to door and window openings).

 

Much more flamboyant is this house which was built in 1894. It was named 'Belvedere' on account of the observation turret at the 2nd-floor level from which a view could be obtained across the Town Field. Houses of this period often contained interesting, coloured glass.

Like many other houses in this area 'Belvedere' has carved stone features on the front elevation. Although the houses on Thorne Road varied in design, they were given a sense of unity by the common use of pressed brick and slate - two materials with a smooth, sophisticated character. In a mistaken effort to improve the look of the house the brickwork and stonework have been painted white and as a result, have not only lost their character but now look incongruous.

The Arts & Crafts Movement of the late 19th century was based on a dislike of mechanical ornamentation and a belief in a return to handcraftsmanship and simpler forms. The design of these houses at the top of St Mary's Road, architect JG Walker, 1895, may have been influenced by the Movement; there is an absence of ornamentation, the rendering of the upper part of the wall gives a lighter effect, as does the use of cottage style casement windows with small panes instead of sliding sash windows. The use of half-timbering in places is a man-made form of decoration, not machine-made.

 

These are large houses with four bedrooms at second-floor level, but an attempt has been made to keep a two-story look by the use of a mansard roof. The lower part of the roof is at a steeper pitch than the upper part thus giving more accommodation in the roof space.

Arnolds' started to develop their Town Field Estate in 1901. These houses at the top of Windsor Road, architect Frank Tugwell of Scarborough, set new standards in estate development in Doncaster. The houses in carefully composed groups have a light airy feeling - the red brickwork being relieved with rendering at first-floor level and half-timbered gables. There is no mechanical ornamentation, but the subtle arrangement of the glazing bars gives an intricacy to the design that is all too easily destroyed by the purveyors of modem replacement windows.

Roofs become a more conspicuous feature, being at a steeper pitch in order to provide space for attics and are covered in plain tiles, not slates.

The houses at the comer of Thome Road and Avenue Road were designed in 1910 by Bunney & Makins, Henrietta Street, London, and show the full influence of the Arts & Crafts Movement: hand made bricks and tiles, cottage type windows, tile hanging to the gables and roofs sweeping low with dormer windows. They may appear to be modest houses but they have five rooms on the ground floor and five on the first. Although they are attractive houses, they draw their inspiration from the cottage architecture of the south and would look more at home in the Surrey countryside than in South Yorkshire.

Axholme Road is an interesting road for apart from containing works of at least seven architects it illustrates developments in house design over a period of 15 years or more. Most of the houses were built between 1908 and 1914 and are generally large,mostly three-storeyed, and often ornate; the type of house where a servant would be employed.

The 1914-18 war opened up new opportunities for women in industry, offices, and shops and at better wages than could be obtained in service. In the years justbefore the war a wallpaper factory, a woollen spinning mill, and Parkinson's sweetfactory in Milethorn Lane, and Nuttall's sweet factory in Athron Street were established creating a considerable and growing demand for female labour.

Post-war developments were influenced by this shortage of servants and houses became smaller and with an emphasis on saving labour. The early 1920s bought a bungalow boom. This was thought to be the most labour-saving type of dwelling and was also cheap to build. The end of the war resulted in many surplus army vehicles being converted to buses, which were much speedier than trams, and it became possible to build in the country where land was cheaper. Many bungalows were built at Wheatley Hills and Bessacarr, but one bungalow was built in Axholme Road for Mr. T Watmough in 1921 the architect being J B Richardson.

 

The houses of the 1920s are mostly on the east side of Axholme Road and may be identified by their lower eaves level, resulting from reduced room heights, and the relative simplicity of their red brick and render elevations.

Earl Fitzwilliam commenced the next phase of his development in 1912 with the extension of Beckett Road and the laying out of the lower part of Wentworth Road, on the line of the main sewer from the pumping station to the sewage farm, Rockingham Road and Strafford Road. Most of the development was of modest terrace housing with bathrooms though some in Strafford Road were planned with baths in the back bedroom.

 

In 1912 the Corporation had to rehouse people made homeless by slum clearance. Some of the poorest people came from Marsh Gate where their crowded homes had been demolished to make way for the building of the North Bridge. In 1909 they had been housed in temporary wooden dwellings in the Holmes, known as the White City. C Sprakes & Son had been sold land in Don Street by the Corporation on condition that the houses that were built would be of a type suitable for persons displaced by the Marsh Gate development.

 

However, the plain three up and three down terrace houses that were built seem to have been beyond the means of most of the Marsh Gate people. The Corporation proposed to build houses at Balby and Carr House Road to let at rents of 4sh 9d to 6sh 6d a week and to build flats at Wheatley to let at rents of 2sh 6d to 4sh a week. The Wheatley Urban District Council objected strongly to the intrusion of flats into their residential area - they had visions of Doncaster becoming like Sheffield.

 

However, the Local Government Board approved the scheme, and the two-story flats were built on a site at the comer of Wheatley Lane and Milethorn Lane. Some flats had two rooms and a scullery and some had three rooms and a scullery. They were demolished several years ago. In 1912 a chancel was added to St Mary's Church, built by Arnold & Son at a cost of £1,800. In 1914 Earl Fitzwilliam's estate was further developed with the laying out of Norborough Road, Raby Road, Lifford Road, and Ferrers Road but the war brought the development to a halt.

In 1907 the Methodist New Connexion united with the Bible Christians and the Methodist Free Church to form the United Methodist Church. Membership at the Beckett Road church fell to 41 in 1912 but the arrival of the Rev W Vivian in 1914 seems to have turned the tide of events. Plans for new church buildings were approved by the Wheatley Urban District Council in May 1914. The architects were George Baines and Son of 5 Clement's Inn, Strand, London who had already designed a number of Methodist churches. Their scheme included the church, school, and caretaker's house. Despite the war, it was decided to proceed with the first of these. In February 1915, the tender of Pattison & Sons of Ruskington, Lincolnshire, at £3,714 13sh 5d was accepted. The new church was formally opened on 2 March 1916. It had seating accommodation for 450; built-in red brick with stone dressings it was described as a free and attractive rendering of the Gothic style. A report of the opening ceremony stated that £1,500 was outstanding on the church.

The weather on the opening day was described by a local newspaper as 'Siberian'. After the opening ceremony, a tea was held in the adjoining 'Tin Tabernacle' and was described by a contemporary thus: 'Starched white sheets covered the long tables and at the head of each table was one of the men wearing a white apron and a tall chef's hat, ready to carve into the home-baked hams. Just think of that in the middle of a war.

'

The 'Tin Tabernacle' continued in use as a school hall and was equipped with electricity in 1920. These two buildings, church, and school continued to serve the needs of the society without any major alterations for 48 years after the opening ceremony described above.

 

Norborough Road and the roads leading off it were built up in the 1920s, but Wheatley had lost its position as Doncaster's leading residential suburb. The prime development was now taking place in the more rural setting of Bessacarr and Wheatley Hills.

At Highfield Road, the membership had increased to 112 by 1921 and it was decided to proceed with the introduction of electric light. Until the Corporation resolved to extend Highfield Road to St Mary's Road and to continue the electricity mains it had been impossible for electric light to be put in. The debt on the church had been wiped out by 1923 and plans were obtained for the building of a Sunday School. The contract was let to Harold Arnold & Son. The foundation stones were laid on December 11, 1924, followed by a public tea in St Mary's Church room. The School was opened in May 1925. Over 300 names appeared on the Sunday School attendance register. The cost of the premises, excluding seating, came to £4,249 14sh 7d.

In the summer of 1924, all the seats in the church were made free. In 1925 pew rents were abolished at Nether Hall Road Church and a caretaker's house was erected on land adjacent to the original church building. It was unfortunate that Highfield Road Church should have taken on such a heavy debt just before the General Strike of 1926. For many people, the next ten years were a struggle for survival. In 1927, for the first time, the debt on the church increased.

In 1929 the Beckett Road tram service was withdrawn· and a trolley bus service took its place with a terminus at Wentworth Road. In October 1929 Wentworth Hall was dedicated to having been built to further the work of St Mary's Church. Also, in 1929 work started on British Bemberg's factory (ICI Fibres). This led to a demand for additional houses at Wheatley and the extension of the industrial estate to Long Sandall was accompanied by the transformation of Wheatley Park into a large housing estate.

 

Methodist Church Union in 1932 opened the way for the eventual fusion of the three Methodist churches in Wheatley. Highfield Road survived the occupation of its Sunday School by the army in the 1939-45 war. In 1939 Beckett Road Church cleared the outstanding debt on the church building and Highfield Road extinguished its debt in 1948.

 

In 1962 the membership at Beckett Road was 102 and at Highfield Road 139. In 1963 the trustees and members of Highfield Road Church volunteered to close their church and amalgamate with the society at Beckett Road. The new society was named Saint Andrew's in recognition of the fact that it had a missionary task to perform in the area, and the former Beckett Road Church became Saint Andrew's Methodist Church.

 

In 1965 new lighting was installed and alterations were made to the communion area. The organ from Highfield Road Church was transferred to Saint Andrew's and built into the south transept. The 'Tin Tabernacle' was demolished, and a new church hall was built, the total cost of the works was £19,000. In 1971 the Nether Hall Road Church · closed and amalgamated with the new society at Saint Andrew's.

 

 

 

The construction of the East By-pass in the late 1960s resulted in a considerable amount of property in the  Holmes being demolished, including the Church of Christ. One of the old Cheshire Cheese cottages survives as a reminder of the rural past. The Holmes is now reached by pedestrians via a subway that would scarcely pass for a rat hole. The Athron Street mission room is used for tyre fitting, the old iron church in Highfield Road survived for many years as part of a garage. A proposal to erect a petrol filling station on the site of Nether Hall Road Church was refused planning permission and the building was acquired by the Doncaster Borough Council for community use.

The Highfield Road Church was used as a stationery warehouse but has recently been demolished. Planning consent has been given for the erection of three-story flats on the site. The Trust objected to the substandard design of the flats, particularly the lack of amenity space and the back of footpath siting. The interior of Saint Andrew's remains much as it was when it was first opened. The unusual style of the interior roof is said to be unique among churches in Doncaster.

On 2 and 3 March 1991, there will be celebrations to mark the 86th anniversary of Methodist witness on the site and the 75th anniversary of the opening of the present church. There will be a Flower Festival when the Church will be open to all friends.

The following were the trustees when the Church was opened in 1916:

Joseph Ward                                John Charles Marr                     Edward Watson Taylor

William  Leeming                        Jeremiah Carney                         John W Oldfield

Thomas A Ledger                        J Arrol Williams                           Samuel Lineham

John Godfrey                                John Moore                                  James Henry R Kain

References: Highfield Road Methodist Church 1907-1957 by J B Goodwin,

Saint Andrew's Methodist Church 1916-1966 by Philip Crowther,

additional material has been supplied by G. Heald.

Author - E. L. Braim