Constructed whilst King Edward VII was on the throne, Swinden House in Rotherham, Yorkshire was the residence of TW Badger, a member of a prestigious local family of lawyers.
However, the grand building with oak panelling, huge windows and rooftop spires was barely complete when its owner disappeared. After a listing in the local press the property was sold to the wealthy owner of the local ironworks.
This precious metal was, of course, what transformed the region into one of the economic powerhouses of the day and when the building moved out of residential use post-war there is little surprise it was the big employer United Steel that purchased the site.
But as British industry was buffeted by an ever-globalising market for raw materials the mansion’s purpose changed again, becoming a research and development facility.
Swinden House, and the other grand mansions which comprised the Swinden Technology Centre, were eventually abandoned by owner Tata Steel when it relocated the Rotherham R&D division to the Midlands.
In the years that followed, the scientific buildings where a bright future was once imagined grew dusty and the palatial gardens of the Badger family overgrown.
Ben Hindley, the regional land and partnerships director in East Yorkshire at housebuilder Keepmoat, remembers encountering the site in this creepy dormant state.
“There were lots of laboratory buildings, all kinds of testing space, basements and general office buildings,” he told the Express.
“It was very much a brownfield [industrial] site, probably two thirds covered in buildings when we got there.”
In Hindley’s role at Keepmoat he is tasked with envisioning how fields might be filled with gardens of semi-detached family homes or ordered into sleek two-bedroom apartments for young professionals. It was a task which the historic landscape of Swinden made slightly harder.
He added: “[It was] unusual, when you go to do a site visit usually you can see a field and think, ‘oh yeah, [I] see where the house would be’. [But with Swinden] when I walked down the entrance way I’ve not really seen much of a site. To be able to see what it could become [it needed] quite a lot of demolition and remediation.”
Buried behind woodland, the Swinden Technology Centre loomed in the background of the people of Rotherham’s daily lives for many years. A piece of history in need of a new lease of life, but not necessarily a visible eyesore.
Hindley was clear in his mind that opening up the site for the first time to a range of homeowners represented a major opportunity to address the housing pressures in the region that are felt more keenly.
He said: “I think the main benefit is that it is located in that Sheffield city region where we know there is a big housing need across the Doncaster, Sheffield, Rotherham borough.
“From Tata’s perspective it was a site that was no longer of use and was no longer viable therefore bringing it back into use in terms of housing was the key regeneration element [of the project]. We’re getting rid of old asbestos-riddled offices constructed in the 1970s and 80s and bringing new modern housing with a sense of purpose.”
The rebranded Moorgate Boulevard development will retain listed-buildings like Swinden House in an effort to open up what has been for so many years a secretive private pocket of the town.
One thing we can be sure of is that the new residents are likely to last longer than the two years TW Badger managed in his mansion.
