Along the canals and riverbanks on the north-western fringes of Rotherham, soapwort is enjoying its last few days of flowering. A member of the pink family, it isn't widespread in the British Isles, but owes its presence here in South Yorkshire to commercial growing. Not for the horticultural trade, but for the woollen industry of 200 years ago. When bruised and boiled in water, the fleshy green parts of the plant produce a liquid soft soap, hence its common name.
Apparently, it was brought to Britain during the Middle Ages from the continent, presumably as the woollen industry grew and prospered. Why is this flower on the edge, even in the centre, of a town noted more for its iron and coal industry than for agriculture? The answer is that 250 years ago, it was grown commercially on the slopes of the Don Valley. In Sheffield City archives, there is a mid 18th-century map showing the area around Droppingwell. On either side of Green Lane, an ancient trackway leading towards the Pennines, were fields marked "Soapfeld". Others nearby were marked pasture or coppice. Whether the crop for these soapfields was used locally is a matter of conjecture, but it is a relatively short wagon journey from Droppingwell, over through Penistone to Holmfirth and sheep country.
It is suggested that soapwort is a native plant of Devon and Cornwall. and well it may be. Here in South Yorkshire the seedpods often fail to ripen, but it spreads vegetatively via creeping rhizomes. That they are typically found close to watercourses suggests that the network of colonisation is via broken roots washed up in suitable places having been carried downstream on floodwaters.
Flowering from late June through to the very end of October, soapwort blooms in vast swathes of pink and white flowers. Even its fleshy, light green leaves stand out as you walk along the pathways. Just imagine what a whole field would have looked like, before being harvested and carted up the valley to wash the wool that produced the wealth which built Huddersfield, Halifax, Leeds and Bradford.
