heather when i was a young lad the road what is now hardwick road was a old cart track that we called old laneand there were fields at both sides of the track the first field going down towards the old mill pond was the jubilee fieldwhere all the kids played there was rugby posts in that field.the rest of the fields belonged to Joe and Eddie Williams who had a farm on the one way street in purston ,they use to bring the cows out of the fields and back twice a day for milking ,they would have a hell of a job trying to do that today
Hi Clayton,
That road of which you speak is part of the old coach road which originally went from East Hardwick to Streethouse. Eric Houlder of the West Yorkshire Archeological society explained this to me a few years ago. The road is thought to be of medieval origin but there are possibilities which are yet unproven that it was originally Roman.
The road starts it's life in East Hardwick, follows the Sandygate lane road, then onto the old coach road, across Purston park, through the Katrina estate, through Girnhill lane allotments, down Hardwick road, through Priory estate, through the Lions pitches, through the garden centre and onto Winney lane Streethouse which is the original route, then it met High street at the railway crossing. Imagine if you were coming from Roman Doncaster along Erming street with the thought of getting onto High street which is a trade route to western Britain, normally you would have to go to the Crematorium area where the two roads crossed, then turned left onto High street. This road is a short cut where you get to East Hardwick while travelling along Erming street heading to Pontefract then turn left and make a B line for High street which would cut approx 4 miles from the journey and the need to go to the crossroads at all.
Between Doncaster and Roman Castleford there were located many Roman camps and forts, one was at Adwick Le Street, another at Campsall, one at Wentbridge and finally at Tanshelf Pontefract where an hoard of around 400 Roman coins were found many years ago. Also it is a possibility that the municipal golf course in Pontefract park was also a location when artifacts and evidence of an encampment was found when building the water tower on park hill.
These were at some stage the Roman frontier as they progressed Northward and were continually attacked by local Celtic tribes of the Corieltuavi (us). So in essence we have a proud history of resistance to invaders such as the Romans and when they left around 400 AD your ancesters, the Celts knocked down all the buildings they had put up and went back to living a simple life. Why? Because we wanted the freedom to make our own choices and not be dictated to. Your ancesters lived very close by in Purston, Ackton and Nostel Priory and we should all be proud of the fact that we once belonged to the Corieltauvi tribes of this land.
