Did you know? Scunthorpe exists because of some rocks in a field

Did you know? Scunthorpe as a town only exists because of the rocks underneath it. The area sits on a seam of ironstone, about 25 per cent iron, dating from the Early Jurassic.

Older than your nan. Older than the Old Show Ground pies. Digging it up began in 1859.

Iron production started in 1864, and steelmaking in 1891. Before that, this was a sparsely populated, farming area. The arrival of the Trent, Ancholme and Grimsby Railway in the 1860s made all the difference.

Ironstone was dug by open-cast methods from the 1850s, and mined underground from the late 1930s. Underground mining here finally stopped in 1981. From the 1970s, the steelworks increasingly used imported ore with a higher iron content.