The derelict houses of Long Sandall

A few miles north east of Doncaster, bound by industrial estates, a noisy glass factory and a lock lies the village of Long Sandall.

Once an unloading point for cargo from the river Don, the place went from prosperity to near abandonment - according to A Brief History of Wheatley, boasted two inns as late as the 1860s.

This excellent report goes on to note:

...whilst the spread of  industrialisation caused Doncaster and its immediate neighbours to grow rapidly in the 19th Century, the same force eventually caused Long Sandall to decline as a major settlement.

The abundance of local sand encouraged the establishment of two major glass factories in the vicinity. Homes for the workers were built in the daughter village of Kirk Sandall and on the site of an old clay pit across Barnby Dun Road from Long Sandall. This latter became Clay Lane estate and grew rapidly to overshadow the older settlement.

By the 1970s, the number of households in Long Sandall had shrunk to less than twenty. Now there are just six, hidden from the outside world behind the huge Rockware Glass factory.

There are at least three still-upstanding abandoned buildings, though their gardens are now sometimes inhabited by a few tethered horses. There are a few mounds of bricks and so may well be more remains around the site.