South Yorkshire Times August 20 1949

Round Your Way – Goldthorpe

It was Goldthorpe, I think, that set me in a sober mood, away through the trees,              Hickleton village, and Hooton Pagnell, villages of green and pleasant thoughts which have withstood the modern march and here, part of urban Dearne by no means pleasant contrast.

Goldthorpe looked as though it could do with a good coat of paint and a sweep with a giant vacuum cleaner.

There are two Goldthorpes: the grey Goldthorpe of shops and offshoot streets, of brick houses and accommodating doorsteps; and the green Goldthorpe, of not unpleasant municipal housing, offset by that lovely modern school, now be-creepered and bordered by pleasant lawns and flower beds. This dip in the road to Bolton, just below the Buxton Arms, is the beginning of the green Goldthorpe. There are pleasant bungalows, their gardens green with sycamores and bright with roses; and there is the Welfare Park, a lovely green centre in a grey world.

Goldthorpe

To a stranger those two syllables might offer promise of a pretty village. But modern Goldthorpe is a thriving little mining township, well served with its cinemas and long shopping centre, on a main bus route, and alone in this Dearne area, possessing the more modern touch of traffic lights. There are clubs and there are churches.

It is a peculiarity of Goldthorpe parish church that its “pepper pot” tower can be seen from almost anywhere else but in Goldthorpe,

It was a natural step when Goldthorpe was merged with Bolton and Thurnscoe into the greater Dearne, but whatever amalgamations there may be, townships such as this will always retain something of their identity long after housing developments have linked them up with their neighbours.

On the one hand, Goldthorpe has already merged with Bolton and it is dificult to know where the one ends and the other starts, but on the other there is still a green gap between Goldthorpe and her near neighbour, Thurnscoe.

There is one Dearne, a composite of three — but as there will always be one Bolton and one Thurnscoe so will there always be, to old South Yorkshire folk, one Goldthorpe.