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The Lost Cemetery: Enclosed by high walls and the happy hunting ground for adventurous boys

Jewish Burial Ground, Bowdon Street. July 1964. Image: Picture Sheffield

“I saw him in the cells at the Town Hall. he appeared very delirious there: his face was swollen, and his eyes had turned yellow. I’m afraid the wretched cell in which he was placed had turned him delirious: it was a most wretched place. He was innocent of the charge against him; but, of course, it preyed upon his mind, and being in that wretched place would tend to make him delirious. The charge against him weighed heavily on his mind.”

These were the words of Henry Levy in 1862. He was a clothier on the High Street, and he was speaking at the inquest of his friend and neighbour, Benjamin Cohen, a jeweller.

Days before, Mr Cohen, aged fifty-five, had been taken into custody on the charge of having stolen gold and silver watches in his possession. They had been taken in Swansea five years earlier, the crime unsolved, until detective officer Brayshaw in Sheffield received information that watches bearing the victim’s name were in the ownership of Cohen.

Mr Cohen was released on bail, but confined himself to bed, and would not eat.

Henry Jackson, his surgeon, was summoned on the Tuesday morning.

“I found him lying on his right side in bed. The clothes were wrapped around him in a disordered state. His face was pale, his eyes closed, and his skin cold. On turning down the clothes I found his hands bloody. His shirt was saturated in blood. On turning him on his back I found a razor fully open and bloody. On lifting his shirt, I found a large portion of bowels protruding, with a considerable quantity of blood under and about him. I did what was needful in replacing the bowels and relieving him.”

Cohen died from his self-inflicted wounds that night.

“I had been with him all day,” added Mr Levy. “He kept saying ‘position, once, twice; I did it nicely.’ I don’t know what that referred.”

With tradition, Mr Cohen was buried the next day. A hearse and two mourning coaches trotted through the streets of Sheffield until it arrived at Bowdon Street, where there was a small Jewish cemetery. He was interned and became one of the last people to be buried here.

Unbelievably, this sad story became known after a friend made a chance remark in the pub. He’d been working on the conversion of Eyewitness Works on Milton Street into trendy apartments.

“If you look at Google Maps, it shows that there is a cemetery nearby, or at least there was.”

To prove the point, he showed me his mobile phone and zoomed in on the area around Milton Street. Sure enough, on the road that runs parallel to Fitzwilliam Street, between Charter Row and Milton Street (near Corporation), was a red label showing Bowdon Street Cemetery. I’ve since tried this on my own phone and can find no evidence of it.

But my friend is right, because there was a Jewish cemetery on Bowdon Street, but no trace of it remains.

According to Sheffield Archives, the earliest reference of Jews in Sheffield is in the trade directory of 1797. It grew from about sixty people, belonging to ten families, in the 1840s to about 800 in 1900. This was due to immigration, those fleeing from persecution in Eastern Europe, and settling in Sheffield on their way from Hull to Manchester, Liverpool and eventually America. Benjamin Cohen had been born at Posen, then in Prussia, now part of Poland. Most families lived around the Scotland Street and West Bar area, many becoming watchmakers, jewellers, and tailors.

“The Sheffield Hebrew Congregation is about 120 years old,” wrote Rabbi Barnet I. Cohen in 1926, “though there were a few Jewish families here some time before the congregation was formed. One of the first acts was to provide a burial ground.” This turned out to be a small plot on Bowdon Street that was suitable for the handful of Jewish residents at the time.

The land was acquired in 1831 but closed in 1874, although burials took place afterwards where a plot had been reserved.

“The present cemetery is in Blind Lane, Ecclesfield,” reported Rabbi Cohen (who might have been a relative of Benjamin Cohen), “and there is also a cemetery in Walkley belonging to the Central Synagogue on Campo Lane.”

“The congregation has constantly had trouble through the desecration of the graves by urchins, who not content with climbing over the (high) walls, actually found delight in breaking up the tombstones and digging up the graves, and so recently had a stout door erected and pieces of glass placed on top of the walls.”

The graveyard was surrounded by industry, stables, and back-to-back houses, one of which belonged to Percy Richardson in the 1920s.

“A cemetery enclosed by high walls and the happy hunting ground for adventurous boys. The graveyard is spread over with stones and old tin cans.” It was described as the untidiest graveyard in Sheffield.

Jewish Burial Ground, Bowdon Street. Image: Picture Sheffield

I mentioned Bowdon Street Cemetery to my 94-year-old dad, who couldn’t have been one of Rabbi Cohen’s urchins but may or may not have been a wartime urchin and remembers it from the time he lived on Milton Street.

The graveyard survived until 1975 when Sheffield City Council imposed a compulsory purchase order on the site, the ‘mortal remains of 35 grave spaces re-interred in Colley Road, Ecclesfield’.

Through an old map I’ve managed to find the exact location of Bowdon Street Cemetery, and on a rainy day this week, I visited the old site.

Bowdon Street is at the back of the NHS Substance Misuse building that fronts Fitzwilliam Street. The tiny plot would have run from Bowdon Street, the site partly landscaped, and would have taken up the back end of the Fitzwilliam Centre as it is now.

I thought about the tormented soul of Benjamin Cohen and trust that his remains are at peace in Ecclesfield.

Site of Bowdon Street Cemetery. Image: David Poole
Another view of former Bowdon Street Cemetery site. Image: David Poole

© 2024 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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“Best not to explore as there are rumours that the Old Bramall Lane Bridge troll eats anything.”

Bramall Lane Bridge, near former Staples Car Park. Image: DJP/2023

It was one night last summer, and I was taking photographs of skateboarders who had requisitioned the former Staples car park at the corner of St. Mary’s Gate and Eyre Street. There were about thirty of them, showing off to each other, trying to be cleverer than the next.

A small group noticed my interest and obliged by making their skateboards do remarkable things, but the resulting photos weren’t particularly good and soon forgotten.

Staples had long gone, so had Office Outlet that replaced it, and we forget that Mothercare had a shop here, later home to Theatre Delicatessen. The retail park was emptied, bought by Lidl for a new store, but plans had faltered, and the site had surrendered itself to broken windows and graffiti, hastening the rapid descent into decay.

Wooden gates had been erected, preventing entry into the car park, and allowing skateboarders to takeover.

The recent posts about St. Mary’s Church and Ladies’ Walk made me think about the conversations I’d had that night.

Taking a breather from their enactment, three boys sat on the tarmac, drinking bottled water, and chatting about their hallowed space.

I told them that where they were sitting had once been Ellin Street, still listed on maps, named after Thomas Ellin, who used waterpower from the adjacent Porter Brook where it widened into Bennett’s Dam. Here, he founded Vulcan Works with cutlery shops and a steel furnace, and the makeshift skateboard park was where the dam had been.

“That’s cool,” one said, “the dam disappeared, but the river’s still here.”

He was referring to nearby Porter Brook, and the reason Lidl withdrew their planning application last autumn. The discounter was aggrieved about calls to deculvert the river where it flowed under the site, with the loss of car parking spaces .

On the other side of Porter Brook is St. Mary’s Gate, where I took them to see an information board about an ancient structure called Bramall Lane Bridge. Like many Sheffielders, they had no idea about it, and were surprised to learn that it still existed, yards from where they skateboarded.

“Look here,” one of the boys said, pointing to a tongue in cheek warning on the sign.

“Best not to explore under the bridge as there are rumours that the Old Bramall Lane Bridge troll eats anything, especially with her carefully guarded bottle of Henderson’s.”

When told not to do something, lads of that age will do the opposite.

Days later, I saw them again, and they told me that they’d followed the river under the bridge, and then bottled it for fear of meeting the troll that protected it.

Their reaction is common because people don’t realise that Eyre Street, where it joins Bramall Lane Roundabout, is really built on a bridge that starts at the edge of the former Staples car park and ends on the other side of the dual carriageway near Decathlon.

The underside of Bramall Lane Bridge looking towards the former Staples car park end. Image: South Yorkshire Local Heritage List

These days, there is a Friends of Bramall Lane Bridge Facebook group that is responsible for the information board, and for getting the bridge listed on the South Yorkshire Heritage List. That was no mean feat because until the group had applied for its listing, the heritage body was also oblivious to its existence.

But what of its history?

I remembered a letter that had been published in the Sheffield Independent from 1831: –

“Permit me, Sir, through the medium of your valuable miscellany, to call the attention of the Town Trustees and others to this hitherto neglected, though now highly improving part of town. The bridge over the river Porter cannot remain as it is, and if all the owners of adjacent property were to come forward, I am certain the town trustees would not be appealed to in vain for their assistance in connecting Eyre Street, by means of a quadrant or an angle, with Brammall Street. This may be accomplished at considerably less expense than might be at first imagined, and most assuredly it would not only very much increase the value of property in the neighbourhood but would become a highly acceptable substitute for Porter Street, at the entrance to the new part of the town, by throwing open to view that most elegant structure, St. Mary’s Church.”

The letter showed remarkable foresight and within years, a new bridge had been built and Eyre Street eventually connected with Bramall Lane. Had this not been the case, then Bramall Lane might never have become home to Sheffield United FC.

The bridge’s history goes back to days when this was countryside, still a distance from the town that ended where Moorhead is now. At this time, Porter Brook had to be crossed by a narrow wooden footbridge, and horses and carts had to splash through the water to get to the other side.

When the file manufacturing Brammall family built White House and Sheaf House (now a pub), the road leading to the houses became known as Brammall Lane, later shortened to Bramall Lane, and extended across the Porter and would have finished near to where Moor Market is now.

By the 1835 Highways Act, Sheffield Corporation was allowed to replace a wooden bridge with a stone-built structure, and is thought to have been completed by 1845-1846, opening land for development to the south of the town, in places like Highfield, Little Sheffield, and Heeley.

For a long time, it was known as Porter Brook Bridge, and was widened in January 1864, but there were already concerns that the bridge might not be strong enough to carry the traffic that might pass over it. The bridge was now 100metres wide and curved as it followed the course of the river.

This was the height of the Industrial Revolution, and rural land had been swallowed by the town. In 1876, Sheffield’s Medical Officer, F. Griffiths, reported that Porter Brook was full of sewage and the putrid remains of cats and dogs.

In 1877, the Corporation proposed plans to demolish houses between the west of Eyre Street, and the junction of Hereford Street, Porter Street, and Bramall Lane, allowing the extension of Eyre Street to the Bramall Lane Bridge where roads converged.

Once the roads connected, factories and houses were built, even on the bridge itself, but these have long disappeared, and the modern landscape is quite different.

These days, the only visible signs of the bridge are near Staples car park because the other end remains hidden, and most people are oblivious that Eyre Street runs directly over it.

Halfway under the bridge is the well preserved tail goit from the old Vulcan Works (Staples site) that joins the riverbank and has yielded finds such as a Victorian inhaler and oyster shells.

There is also a visible join in the structure about 25metres from the Decathlon end (75metres from the Staples end) that is thought to be the 1864 extension, while the Porter was culverted further from the Decathlon end of the bridge from the 1890s onwards.

Bramall Lane Bridge has stood the test of time, unlike the later culverted section that famously collapsed, forcing part of the Decathlon carpark to remain closed.

The Staples car park is now fenced off and the skateboarders have gone. This week Lidl announced that a revised planning application is pending, and it might include deculverting of another stretch of Porter Brook.

Joint in structure, towards Decathlon end. Image: South Yorkshire Local Heritage List
The other end of the bridge, hidden from view under the Decathlon car park. Image: South Yorkshire Local Heritage List

©2024 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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He asks if I’d noticed the dodgy character who’d followed us

We cut through an alleyway that had once been the driveway to Clough Place, a house that had once belonged to William Hall, a file manufacturer, and which stood on the left. A substantial portion of that house has been demolished, but a section remains at the end of Charlotte Road looking onto St Mary’s Road.

To the right is a narrow basketball court that was once part of the garden to the house and had been adorned with carefully planted trees and shrubs.

I tell my colleague that I call this stretch of footpath ‘death alley,’ not as a joke, but because this was where a Sheffield solicitor had been shot dead by two assassins. My colleague is shocked.

It is broad daylight but there is a dark and looming presence that is St. Mary’s Church, and which casts a huge shadow over everything.

We continue up the path to where it opens into the graveyard. A man walks his dog on a stretch of grass, oblivious that the ground beneath him had once been the final resting place of the dearly departed, the gravestones removed. People sit on benches and appear harmless, happier drinking from their cans of beer. This is now called St. Mary’s Church Park, still a pleasant place to sit amongst the few remaining graves, but there is menace around.

There is a man loitering under a tree and he moves towards us. I don’t want to alarm my colleague, but I tell him to keep walking. I’m used to situations like this, but the best option is to keep a distance.

We cross Clough Road and head into Chaucer Yard where there is a vintage clothes shop and coffee house. My colleague goes in search of a bargain while I remain outside and light a cigarette.

The man appears on the other side of the road and stares. I recognise him and stare back. This isn’t a street drinker but someone who will rob for a living. He decides that I’m too tall, too clever, or perhaps not worth the effort, because he turns and disappears.

I lean on the wall and see Bramall Lane at the end of Clough Road where there is a constant flow of traffic, people walking up and down, and not the place where misdeeds are going to happen.

A police car turns into the road and hovers outside the gates of St. Mary’s Church, before making a left turn and cruising slowly along its driveway and vanishing on the other side.

Two men appear at the end of the road and walk quickly towards me, all the time casting furtive glances at the church gates. In no time at all, they pass, but before disappearing around the corner into Countess Road, they look back to make sure that nobody has seen them.

Moments later, a female comes from Bramall Lane, a student, but she is being followed by two more shifty characters. She knows that they are behind her and when she is level, stops and pretends to look for something in her bag. The two men pass and turn into Countess Road. Her eyes are alert, glad to see the back of them, and when she smiles, I know that she is grateful that I was there.

I finish my cigarette and cross the road to where I can see through the church railings. The old graveyard is empty, the loiterers have disappeared, and the guy who I thought was a robber had gone. They have seen the police car and know that it hasn’t returned, and that danger lurks for them too.

When my colleague returns, we go for coffee, and he asks if I’d noticed the dodgy character who’d followed us. I tell him not to worry.

But there is an issue because we are only a stone’s throw from the city centre and all its problems.

St. Mary’s Church Park is a bolt hole for those wanting to escape something or someone and is also a suitable retreat for peace and quiet. I consider that the church is for everyone: fellowships of every denomination, no social class, where God’s love can be shared, and that should apply to the outside.

Days after writing this post, I return to St. Mary’s alone and take photographs. It is a fabulously sunny day, and the light makes the old church shine. There are cars parked outside and I remember that this is still a working church, the website would indicate a thriving one, but today the former graveyard is deserted.

I sit on a bench, take in the surroundings, and think that this is quite a picturesque spot, and that its troubles are no different to those elsewhere in the city centre.

At that moment, a robin descends and hops on the ground in front of me. I notice that the flagstones are really gravestones, laid flat to form a path. I take it as a sign that our descendants are still around, and, in the spiritual community, it might be a visit from someone dead whose gravestone is missing.

©2024 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.
All images / DJP / 2024

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Pound’s Park – The sun shone and it finally felt like spring

The sun shone and it finally felt like spring. A handful of people sat on contemporary seating, mostly looking at their mobile phones, and two down-at-heel men basked in the sunshine and said what a lovely place it was. A City Centre Ambassador joked with them, but warned that she wouldn’t tolerate street drinking, or ‘needles,’ under any circumstances.

The sound of children filled the air. They excitedly climbed the three-by-eight metre climbing boulder, reminiscent of a Peak District rockface, and played on two large pyramids, stainless steel slides, climbing structures, playhouses, a seesaw, and wheelchair-accessible play equipment.

Sheffield’s latest green space has opened in time for Easter. Pounds Park, on the site of the old Wellington Street Fire Station and Headquarters, is named after John Charles Pound (1834 -1918) who was the city’s first Fire Superintendent responsible for laying the foundations of Sheffield’s modern fire service.

It may have to temporarily close later this month to allow for power and water connectivity that will allow new public toilets to open and for water play features to be turned on.

Pounds Park – Day and Night. All images: DJP/2023

©2023 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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The Big Wheel – from Llandudno to Sheffield

Sheffield’s ‘Big Wheel’ on The Moor. Image/DJP/2022

When it was located on Fargate, we called it the ‘Sheffield Eye’. But this year’s big wheel was relocated to The Moor because the ill-fated Container Park had stolen its place.

It is 21 metres high with 18 fibre-glass gondolas capable of holding up to 108 people, with six passengers to a gondola, and fits snugly between buildings.

For the second year running, the Ferris wheel has been loaned from Llandudno Pier, where it has been dubbed the ‘Llandudno Eye’.

It was commissioned by the pier owner, Adam Williams, at a cost of £1m, built by Italian manufacturer Lamborghini, and was initially unveiled in August 2021.

The wheel looks impressive by day, but after dark, things get even better with over 10,000 lights on the wheel.

During the winter months, the wheel goes on tour. It can be seen, and ridden, at Sheffield Christmas Market until January, before returning to Llandudno Pier in early Spring.

“We’re trying to pump North Wales and Llandudno so that people in Yorkshire who would normally go to Skegness will come here instead,” says Mr Williams.

“Even if we can get 10 per cent of people at the Sheffield market to come, that is a lot of people.”

Image/Lamborghini/Italy
While some shoppers are pleased about the move from Fargate, many have said they now have a “brick wall view” while on the attraction. Image/DJP/2022
Back home. The ‘Big Wheel’ seen at its Llandudno home. Image/North Wales Live
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Sheffield Deer Park – ‘the avenue of walnut trees that stretched from the Lodge to the Castle.’

Sheffield Deer Park. Image: Friends of Manor Lodge

Once upon a time, in medieval England, there were deer parks that stretched across the country. These enclosed areas were bounded by a ditch with a wooden, stone, or brick wall to keep the deer in.

To establish a deer park a royal licence was required, and they quickly became status symbols for the lord of the manor.

At the end of the 15th century there were about 2000 deer parks with most having a range of about one to two miles.

One of the biggest was Sheffield Deer Park, spanning a circumference of eight miles, 2500 acres, established in Norman times by Thomas de Furnival, but is believed to have Anglo-Saxon origins.

At its zenith it contained about three thousand deer (mainly fallow) and some of the largest oak trees ever recorded in England

Turret House, Manor Lodge, Sheffield. Image/Friends of Manor Lodge

According to Friends of Manor Lodge, which provided much of this information, Sheffield Deer Park was a Baronial Castle Park, with the castle located at the edge of the park and extended away like a large balloon

It was referred to as ‘Ye Greate Park,’ and was a place of recreation, somewhere to ride, joust, practise archery, to fish and to boat, and to engage in falconry. It is thought by most scholars that it was not primarily for hunting, but to provide food for the lord of the manor.

The deer were often chased, but the ‘drive’ or ‘bow and stable’ method was used which involved driving the deer into nets or towards archers. The deer were pickled for the winter, because fresh meat was unavailable between November and April.

A forgotten part in Sheffield’s history. Sheffield Deer Park was one of the largest in England. Even now, deer are sometimes seen in parts of the old park, and people are shocked to see them. But this was once their habitat. Image/Shutterstock

“Sheffield Park commenced below the Castle entrance where the Park gates were situated and followed a northerly direction tracing the river Don before turning eastwards towards Attercliffe. After several miles, it ceased following the river Don and turned in a southwards direction tracing a line close to and parallel with what is now the modern Sheffield Parkway.

“On reaching Bowden Housted woods at Darnall, it then turned in a westerly direction following the Car Brook and parallel to what is now the modern Sheffield Ring Road (Prince of Wales Road). On reaching its highest point at what is now called Manor Top, we come across the other main gates, called the Intake gate. Entry through here (private by invitation only) would have led direct to the Park gate. It followed a line parallel to the present City Road and was a superb walnut avenue of trees creating a major landmark in the town.

“From the Intake gate, the edge of the park continued in a southerly direction until reaching what is now referred to as Gleadless Valley and a wooded area called Buck Wood (named Berrysforth Wood in earlier times.)

“This is the most southerly point and then continuing through Buck Wood in a westerly direction we reach Heeley and then on to the outer reaches of the town (as it was then) through to the present Bramall Lane, The Moor, Union Street, Norfolk Street and finishing at the starting point of the Park Gate.”

The Manor Lodge was at the heart of the Deer Park, and it was said that it was possible to travel under the avenue of walnut trees that stretched from the Lodge to the Castle without getting wet.

Sheffield Deer Park provided food in days when most of the land was unenclosed. Deer lived, and thrived, upon the land, but it was said that most of Sheffield’s shops were supplied with venison stolen from the park.

There is a curious record that the Earl of Shrewsbury, who once had a thousand fallow deer in Sheffield Park, graciously allowed ‘a holiday once every year to the apron-men or smiths of the parish, when a number of bucks were turned into a meadow near town, and the men were sent into it to kill and carry away as many as they could with their hands, and would sometimes slaughter about twenty, on which they feasted. Money was given to them for wine. Such is said to have been the origin of the famous Cutlers’ Feast, but it was not until 1624 that the Cutlers’ Company of Hallamshire was incorporated by an act passed ‘for the good order and government of the makers of knives, sickles, shears, scissors, and other cutlery ware.’

Medieval deer hunting. Image/Medievalists

From around the 16th century and into the seventeenth century it ceased to be totally a deer park. Large parts were converted into pasture and arable land with tenants renting strips of land to grow crops. Isolated farmsteads sprang up with other parts for quarrying and a coal mine.

By 1637, Harrison’s survey indicated 1,200 deer in total with the deer park only about 40% of its original size.

“The common people would trespass this park and were allowed certain privileges of coming and going but insisted on taking more. In 1692, the Duke of Norfolk, then Lord of the Manor, brought an action against certain people because of their use of a road between Intacke and Parke Hill and then into Sheffield, pretending that it was a public highway.”

It was a problem that recurred over the centuries.

In 1822, Michael Ellison, Agent to the Duke of Norfolk placed an advertisement in local newspapers warning locals after tenants complained that people had been going over their lands in pursuit of game, or other idle purposes, and had thrown down walls and fences.

“That, with a view to preventing the continuance of such Trespasses, proper Persons have been appointed for the purpose of detecting those who may commit them after this Notice, and all Persons so detected will be proceeded against in the manner prescribed by the Law.”

In 1913, the deer park had long disappeared, and Thomas Wilder gave a lecture in Sheffield:-

“The venerable trees of the Park had gone to build the country’s ‘wooden walls,’ to make charcoal for the melting of iron and steel, to supply ‘kidds of wood’ to the town bakery on Baker’s Hill, and their very roots had been grubbed up for fuel for the blast furnaces. The numerous streams and fishponds had disappeared into the wastes, gobbs and grafs of the ancient coal and ironstone workings with which the Park was honeycombed.”

What made the deer park so special were the thousands of veteran oak trees with some listed in John Evelyn’s 18th-century book ‘Silva.’ Several were mentioned, including the great oak tree situated in the Conduit plain, located above City Road Cemetery in modern times. This tree, its arms stretching 45 feet or more from the trunk, could shelter more than 250 horses under its foliage and there were many other trees with similar magnitude.

All these years later, there is still evidence of the old deer park. Norfolk Park, Buck Wood, Manor Fields Park, and other wooded areas are all remnants of the deer park, and small sections of the wall remain in the most unlikely places.

One of the most unusual sections, virtually unnoticed, is at Manor Top, where old stonework can be seen under a later brick one, beside the road opposite the TA Centre.

Remains of Deer Park wall at Manor Top. Image/David Templeman/Ecclesall Design

Manor Lodge survives and was a ‘standing’ or ‘prospect house’ from which the park could be viewed. An inventory of 1582 suggests that the Hall in the Ponds (The Queen’s Head) was a park banqueting house.

“This great house stood near the middle of Sheffield Park; part of it is very ancient; but one part being brick, with stone corners, is not older than 1500. The Duke of Norfolk, in 1609, destroyed it. This is the place where Cardinal Wolsey, that proud Prelate, when under house arrest for high treason, took the fatal draught whereof he died at Leicester Abbey; and here also Mary Queen of Scots was kept prisoner at large more than sixteen years.” – Extract from a manuscript, written in 1647.

If you discount the Manor Lodge itself there were at least 4 lodges, plus a hunting stand. There’s nothing left of any of them, but some later became farms, the most obvious being Park Farm at Gleadless.

And there is evidence of the old ‘Intacke gate’ that stood at the entrance to the park. This would have been near where the stretch of wall remains at Manor Top. Old wooden gates were replaced with stone ones in 1685 and were later bought by Burrows Trippet from the Duke of Norfolk who moved them to his farmhouse where they stand to this day at Richmond.

See also: Friends of Manor Lodge

Intake Gates. Now positioned at Richmond. Image/HistoryDude/Sheffield History

©2022 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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Tales of the riverbank. Where does your water come from?

River Derwent, North Yorkshire

Water has been a big topic this summer. We haven’t got enough of it. But things might have been worse if it hadn’t been for a pioneering scheme in the 1960s that allowed Sheffield to source water from an unlikely source.

South Yorkshire has at least fifteen reservoirs and more minor ones, but according to Dr Jenny Stephenson in her book ‘The History of Water – the Sheffield reflection’ (2019) not all these service water to the area. Some act as ‘balancing’ or ‘service reservoirs’ which receive water, pumped, or channelled into them, their purpose being to balance supply with demand. Others are ‘impounding’ reservoirs into which a river flows naturally.

The biggest shock is that Sheffield’s water is mainly from the River Ouse and River Derwent, in North Yorkshire, only in part being from the reservoirs on high ground above Sheffield.

The water from rivers is typically classed as hard water because the water gathers minerals (mainly calcium and magnesium) as it runs through and over rocks. Water from reservoirs is normally softer as it comes from high ground and moorlands.

Increasing demand in the 1960s, in which Sheffield used nearly 38 million gallons of water daily for industry and domestic use, meant that the city’s water supply from the Pennine hills had reached its limit.

In 1965, it was supplemented with the Yorkshire Derwent Scheme, which involved river water being treated at Elvington, near York, and delivered along 37 miles of pipeline to an underground service reservoir at Hoober Stand near Rotherham.

You might be surprised that the scheme was instigated by Sheffield Corporation, because of the Sheffield Water Order 1961, and it designed and executed the work at a cost of over £8m. It was cleverly designed so that Leeds, Barnsley, and Rotherham, also received a share of the water and paid contributions to Sheffield.

The treatment works at Elvington softened, clarified, and filtered water to remove impurities and sterilise it.

The first pipe was laid in May 1962, built by John Brown Ltd, land and marine constructors, and used bitumen lined welded steel pipes, involving four river crossings, including the Ouse and Aire,  13 railways crossings, and 53 road crossings. Once completed it allowed 15 million gallons of water to be pumped into the city daily.

The first water arrived in Sheffield in December 1964 and was celebrated at a Town Hall luncheon hosted by the Lord Mayor, Alderman Albert Smith, who toasted his 80 guests with water mixed with wine and brandy.

It was inaugurated in September 1965, eight months ahead of schedule, and the last weld was made by Alderman Charles Ronald Ironmonger, chairman of the Sheffield Corporation Water Committee and John Staniforth, managing director of John Brown Ltd.

The last section of the 37-mile all-welded pipeline linking the river Derwent at Elvington, seven miles east of York, with the Sheffield Corporation reservoir at Hoober. Picture Sheffield

At the official opening of the Elvington treatment works, Sir William Goode, chairman of the Water Resources Board, referred to Sheffield needing to increase water flow to 25 million gallons a day and suggested that a reservoir might be built on land owned by Hull Corporation at Farndale on the North Yorkshire Moors. This would have meant flooding the valley, like previous schemes at Ladybower, Derwent, and Howden, in Derbyshire, and provide water for Hull and Sheffield.

However, the scheme was derailed in the 1970s, and Sheffield’s municipal water company was amalgamated into a regional board in 1974 and privatised in 1989 and is now part of Yorkshire Water PLC.

The Yorkshire Derwent Scheme subsequently became a segment in the Yorkshire Water Grid which allows transfer of water around the region to balance supply and demand.

By the way, water from the Ladybower dams, is largely used in the East Midlands.

Hoober Stand Reservoir, Rotherham. Image: Google

©2022 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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Sheffield’s clean air programme to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary

There is an important anniversary coming up in Sheffield’s story.

In 1972, Sheffield completed its clean air programme, and one person who had cause to feel proud was Joseph Batey, nicknamed ‘Smokey Joe,’ who had just retired as the city’s smoke control officer.

Fifty years on, many of us won’t appreciate the importance of this milestone. We are used to clear skies, (mostly) fresh air, and spectacular views across the city.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Concern over Sheffield’s air quality stretched back at least 400 years. As early as 1608 Sir John Bentley expected to be ‘half choked with town smoke’ while visiting Sheffield.

A traveller’s diary of 1798 said: “We had an excellent view of the town of Sheffield enveloped in smoke.” ; and in 1828: “Others have become so accustomed to regard an increase in smoke as an indication of improving trade that they can see nothing in a clear sky but ruin.”

By the 19th century it was apparent that measures were necessary to reduce atmospheric pollution in urban areas.

In 1819, industrial firms were being fined for undue smoke emissions. And in 1843, the Select Committee on Smoke Prevention issued its report, and locally, the Borough Council’s Watch Committee directed the police to enforce Smoke Byelaws.

“The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council’ disallowed the city’s smoke byelaws in 1852, but the council tried again the following year and were successful.

The Sanitary Act of 1866 permitted local sanitary authorities to act against smoke nuisances. It was not until 1875 however, with the passing of the Public Health Act, that attempts were made to control air pollution across the whole country.

In 1890, Sheffield’s first chief smoke inspector noted that the average smoke emission of all chimneys observed by his staff was ‘80 minutes smoke an hour.’

The real break-through came with the Clean Air Act of 1956 which established ‘smokeless zones’ in which only smokeless fuels could be burned. Here was a piece of legislation (and the city’s representatives were consulted when it was being drafted) which swept away the old, misconceived notions and gave any city that cared to have a go the chance for clean air for all.

The citizens proved worthy of their heritage. With power to prohibit smoke from domestic premises, now recognised as the biggest smoke producer, and a 40 per cent grant from the Government towards the cost of domestic conversions to smokelessness (a bonus that few Yorkshiremen could resist) the first area, in the city centre, became smokeless on December 1, 1959.

There was a clean wind blowing into the city from the Derbyshire moors, and the strategy adopted was to work for smoke elimination into this clean wind direction, namely into the south-west sector of the city, but there was not a large volume of heavy industry in the south-west, and smoke gauges in the north east sector, where heavy industry was located, only started to show a steady decline in the early sixties as the programme gained momentum in the south west.

Another advantage which accrued from working in what was largely the ‘domestic’ area was that industry was being alerted to the necessity of ‘getting it clean’ and ‘keeping it clean.’ There was little hope of clearing smoke from a house in the industrial belt if an adjacent factory chimney was pouring out smoke. The Clean Air Act of 1968 forced certain industries to use tall chimneys, and the cooperation of most managements was positive.

A final programme of complete domestic smoke control was forwarded to the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government in 1960, showing the completion date as 1972. This programme was adhered to, and the promise kept.

By turning over to smokeless fuels there was a welcome reduction in the sulphur dioxide measurements, using measuring stations.

Fog or smog days disappeared by the late 1960s and Sheffield Transport’s manager stated, in reply to a query regarding bus time-keeping – “I can say that it is the opinion of all my staff that over the years with the introduction of smokeless zones, the problem has almost entirely disappeared.”

The effect on health was carried out at Sheffield University, but few needed convincing that cleaner air, more sunshine, and less dirt, was conductive to good health.

By 1972, the city of 71 square miles with over half a million population, and 186,000 houses, had tamed air pollution in 12 years, even though its basic industry, producing three million tons of steel, was notorious for its pollution problems.

The creation of smoke control areas was so successful that by the early 1980s they covered the whole of the urban parts of the city, and the transformation of Sheffield’s air was thought to have been complete. The 1956 and 1968 Clean Air Acts were repealed by the Clean Air Act 1993, which consolidated and extended the provisions of the earlier legislation.

However, the new threats from traffic emissions became the next clean air challenge.

In early 2023 Sheffield’s Clean Air Zone is due to start. This is a class C chargeable zone for the most polluting large goods vehicles, vans, buses, and taxis that drive within the inner ring road and city centre.

©2022 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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County lines – the fight to keep Sheffield out

It was 1990, and the Boundary Commission was blitzed by worried Derbyshire ratepayers who feared a big part of their county could be gobbled by Sheffield.

Thousands of householders were issued with specially printed postcards by North-East Derbyshire District Council to send to the commission urging them not to make more than 100 square miles of territory part of Sheffield.

A bid by the city to grab Killamarsh, Eckington, and Dronfield, as well as parts of the Hope Valley in the Peak District, had been withdrawn after a high profile campaign by residents and neighbouring Derbyshire councils.

But despite the climbdown, the commission was still duty bound to examine the possibility of changing the boundary.

The story had begun in 1987 when the Boundary Commission wrote to Sheffield City Council announcing its intention to undertake a review of Sheffield as part of its review of the Metropolitan County of South Yorkshire.

Sheffield City Council made it known that there was a substantial case for extension of its boundary by absorbing the Hope Valley and Dronfield, Eckington, and Killamarsh. It resulted in a petition bearing 16,000 signatures, 800 postcards and 1,500 letters from people living in the areas concerned, opposing any transfer into Sheffield.

The three parishes of Dronfield, Eckington and Killamarsh had strong links with the city and despite Sheffield’s withdrawal, the Boundary Commission felt obliged to consider the proposal.

However, the Hope Valley, although falling within Sheffield’s travel to work area, and favouring Sheffield for shopping visits, had a large moorland divide, and the Boundary Commission dismissed the investigation.

Historical boundary changes had allowed Sheffield to expand in former years, and some districts that had once been part of Derbyshire, included Dore, Totley, Frecheville, Meersbrook, Hackenthorpe, Norton, Woodseats, and Beighton.

In 1991, the Boundary Commission published its findings, and the three Derbyshire parishes escaped becoming part of Yorkshire.

However, there were minor changes, including the former Lightwood Traffic Training Ground at Norton being transferred to Sheffield and using Bochum Parkway as the identifiable boundary.

It also transferred Birley Wood Golf Course to Sheffield, mainly because it was owned by Sheffield City Council and used by city’s residents.

And there was a stumbling block over land between White Lane and Birley Lane, in which Sheffield Supertram would later travel.  It was argued that the tramway should fall within Sheffield, and unless somebody corrects me, this section of tramway still runs across a tiny part of Derbyshire.  

This might have happened 32 years ago, but as one academic recently said to me, it is only a matter of time before Sheffield expands further into Derbyshire.

©2022 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

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Places

Castlegate – Geoarchaeological work begins on Sheffield Castle site

The next major phase in Sheffield City Council’s plans to regenerate the historic area of Castlegate is underway as essential geoarchaeological work begins.

Geoarchaeological investigations will be carried out by archaeology and heritage specialists, Wessex Archaeology, as they conduct 33 borehole surveys across the site of Sheffield Castle to examine the characteristics and conditions of the site’s underlying groundworks. The findings will then be analysed to give insights into what is underground and in turn inform the council’s redevelopment proposals for the area.

It marks a significant step in propelling the council’s plans to revitalise Castlegate after securing £20m from the government’s Levelling Up Fund last year.

Plans include the de-culverting of the River Sheaf, interpretation of the castle remains and the creation of attractive green public spaces; the creation of a cultural destination providing S1 Artspace and Sheffield Music Academy and Sheffield Music Hub with new state-of-the-art facilities; the preparation of land for future uses and investment; better connectivity and improved infrastructure for active travel.

In consultation with South Yorkshire Archaeology and Historic England, each borehole’s location has been carefully planned based on a need to further investigate the site, in order to add the information to the previously conducted archaeological evaluations, including the one carried out by Wessex Archaeology in 2018, after the Castle Markets were demolished.

This phase will supplement the information gathered from earlier assessments to produce a report, a detailed deposit model and archaeological sensitivity map to feed into a constraints plan for the area. The drilling is expected to last 6 weeks.

Castle Market Site. Illustration of the proposed mixed use development and open space from Sheffield City Council.