Work to make the River Don navigable to enable bulk goods and raw materials to be carried more easily and cheaply started in 1722, working upstream and downstream from Doncaster. The work was carried out with a mixture of improved stretches of the river with side cuts to bypass existing weirs. One of these side cuts left the river at Eastwood Old Lock and rejoined the Don just upstream of Rotherham weir.
Above Rotherham Lock the navigation followed the river to Bromley Sands where a short cut bypassed Ickles Mill, rejoined the river as far as Deadman's Hole and then entered another cut to Tinsley, the head of navigation, which was reached in 1751.
The exact date of the first lock on this site is unclear. Benjamin Rotheram's 1774 map of Rotherham seems to show a single set of lock gates at the entrance of the cut but there may have been stop gates to prevent flood water entering the cut. Fairbank's shows no lock at Rotherham. In 1835 the Navigation dug a new cut from Jordan past Holmes rejoining the original cut just below the present lock. The 1840 one inch Ordnace Survey map shows a set of stop gates at the Rotherham end of this cut but nothing on the site of the present lock. The 1851 OS 5ft plan, however shows the present lock with a bridge to the north and another lock, marked as 'Rotherham Lock', at end of the Jordan Cut.
The 1835 cut did not last long. In 1850 the Don Navigation was absorbed by the South Yorkshire Railway which was in turn absorbed by the
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Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire [later Great Central] railway in 1864 The MSLR decided to build a new line along the north bank of the Don from Sheffield To Masborough. The only way to get this line under the line of the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway into Westgate Station was to use the line of the 1835 cut. The canal was accordingly filled in and the railway built along it from Ickles to Rotherham. The main line of the canal was then diverted through the present lock into the river and a new cut was made from the Don near Bow Bridge to join with the 1835 cut. The railway was opened to Rotherham in 1868 and to Mexborough in 1871.
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At some date between 1851 and 1888 two extra sets of gates were added to the lock, and the present footbridge was constructed. The extra lock gates were angled downstream and would only have been usable if the level of water in the navigation was hgher than that in the river. Possibly there was a period when this was the case or they may have been preparing for the eventuality. The site of these extra gates is shown by patches of brickwork in the walls of the lock. The earlier footbridge as replaced with a swing bridge carrying a railway line from the Central Station into Rotherham Forge and Rolling Mills. The pivot and recess for the swing bridge can still be seen. Such awing bridges were once common along the Navigation but remains are now rare. The present lock gates occupy the site of the 1851 lock gates.
The area now occupied by Tesco's car park has been known since 1754 as Forge Island. In that year the Walker brothers took a lease of a plot of land between the river and the canal to erect a water-powered forge. These works grew to occupy almost the whole of Forge Island and only ceased operations, as the River Don Stamping Co. Ltd. in 1981. Tesco's was opened (as Hillards) in 1984.
The new Court House, opened in 1994, and the police headquarters opened in 1983, are built partly on the site of the original Rotherham Central Station (closed 1965) and partly on waste land which for many years was the site of the annual Statutes Fair.
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