Scunthorpe

Scunthorpe (popularly known as Scunny) is a town formerly in Lincolnshire, England. It is the administrative centre of the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire. It is also known as the 'Industrial Garden Town'. The town appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as Escumetorp, which is Old Norse for "Skuma's village". The current population is around 72,000. The town is situated at the terminus of the M181In 1996 there was controversy when AOL's obscenity filter (among others) refused to accept the name of the town due to its inclusion of a character string which the filter rejected as obscene. Certain .. forums display the name as S****horpe. This situation is known in the computing world as the Scunthorpe Problem.Ironstone was mined in the area as early as the Roman occupation, but the deposits lay forgotten until the 19th century. The rediscovery of iron ore in 1859 by Rowland Winn on the land of his father, Charles, resulted in the development of an iron and steel industry and rapid population growth.[1]Iron ore was first mined in the Scunthorpe area in July 1860. Owing to the lack of a mainline railway the ore was transferred to a wharf at Gunness (or Gunhouse), initially by cart then by a narrow gauge railway, for distribution by barge or mainline rail from Keadby. Winn knew that the best way of exploiting the iron ore fields was for a rail link to be built from Keadby to Barnetby. He campaigned tirelessly for the link; construction work started in mid-1860 and was complete in 1864. He persuaded the Dawes brothers, to whose iron works the ore was being supplied, to build an iron works at the site of the iron ore fields at Scunthorpe. Construction of Scunthorpe's first ironworks, the Trent Ironworks, began in 1862, with the first cast from the blast furnace being tapped on 26 March 1864. Other ironworks followed: building of the Frodingham Ironworks began in 1864; North Lincoln Ironworks in 1866; Redbourn Hill Iron & Coal Company in 1872; Appleby Ironworks blew in their first blast furnace in 1876; and the last constructed being John Lysaght's Iron and Steel works in 1911, with production starting in 1912. Crude steel had been produced at Frodingham Ironworks in 1887 but this proved not to be viable. Maxmilian Mannaburg came to Frodingham Ironworks in 1889 to help build and run the steelmaking plant and on the night of 21 March 1890 the first steel was tapped.Rowland Winn is remembered in the town by three street names: Rowland Road, Winn Street & Oswald Road. He assumed the title Lord St Oswald in 1885.The town is occasionally known for its football team, Scunthorpe United (nicknamed 'The Iron') at Glanford Park. For most of its existence in the professional game (since 1950) it has been in the basement league of the English game.However, they won promotion to the current League One (The third tier of English football) at the end of the 2004/2005 season, and for the first time in recent history, retained that spot by finishing 12th in the 05/06 season.Scunthorpe enjoys relatively good shopping facilities, with both the uncovered Foundry shopping centre and the part-covered Parishes centre. The former was constructed in the late 1960's/early 1970's; the latter was constructed in the early part of this decade on the site of the town's old bus station.However the size of the retail units reflects the size of the area's population and with larger shopping facilities within reasonable travelling distance in Grimsby, Hull, Doncaster, Lincoln and at Meadowhall, Sheffield many locals often travel to these towns for major purchases. Retail parks can be found near the football stadium and the steelworks.All the big food retailers are represented in the area; There is a Tesco Extra opposite the football ground while Sainsbury's have their store on the site of the old football ground. Morrisons have a store at Mortal Ash Hill, on the eastern entrance to the town while Asda's are planning to relocate to a site off Glebe Road. MyGen Profile Generator..I got my MySpace Extended Network Banner from MrDoe.com !