Shortly before Christmas, I came across this picture in the local Oxfam shop. Unusually, for Oxfam, it was very reasonably priced, and I bought it - although not without running home first to look up whether the artist was local, and thus whether it might be a local scene.
The artist, Arthur Hickman (who died in 1987) was in fact from Rotherham, and the general consensus of those I have canvassed is that this is likely to be a scene of that town, but no one can pinpoint exactly where. It was painted in 1960.
It cetainly looks like the Don in Rotherham. The artist is stood on Don Street,where the new football ground is, looking Southeast. The big building in the foreground is possibly the old Ingleby and Lofthouse warehouse. The dark building on the skyline is the old Alma Road workhouse - later Alma Road hospital. Now all gone except for the old nuses home which was the Florence Nightingale pub and is now some kind of Chinese eatery.
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