Manor Lodge

The following is a true story – well, almost a true story. I stumbled across a newspaper article from 1876 in which a Sheffield boy had dug up an old snuff box. Then followed a week of piecing the story together. But one question remained. Whatever happened to the snuff box? And so, fact meets fiction, embellished by my own hand. But realistically, there is the chance that somebody out there did inherit a tarnished old snuff box.

***

It was 1584, and Mary Stuart sat in the long grass beneath the shade of her favourite walnut tree. It was summer and everything was green. She gazed down at the castle that she had come to despise, but her eyes were drawn towards the hills, valleys, and moorland that stretched beyond. Soon, the sun would disappear, and the sky would become a sea of red, orange, and then deep blue.

“There you are Mary,” said a voice. She looked up at the solemn face of George Talbot who sat beside her. “I see you are taking a last look at Sheffield.”

“That’s right. This is a view I shall not forget, nor shall I forget the past fourteen years. I am grateful that you allowed me to spend so much time up here and not in that dark and gloomy castle.”

George Talbot, 6^th Earl of Shrewsbury, reached into his pouch and pulled out a tiny snuff box. He took a pinch and offered it to Mary who placed a small amount between her thumb and index finger and sneezed after taking it.

“Where am I going?”

“I have come to tell you that you are going to Fotheringhay.”

George thought she looked old and had noticed how unsteady she had become on her feet and summoned two servants to help her back to the lodge.

It was the last time they spoke.

That night, George realised he had left his snuff box underneath the walnut tree and sent his manservants to retrieve it. But there were hundreds of trees, and it was dark, and they were unable to find it.

***

In 1876, a boy called George Martin, son of a man of the same name, was clearing long grass and weeds beside an old walnut tree that had been felled the day before. His master, Henry Fitzalan-Howard, Duke of Norfolk, had instructed the men to chop down more timber to make charcoal for the melting of iron and steel. But this was walnut, and George knew that this tree would end up in the workshop of a London cabinet maker.

George liked Old Crofts, and he sat on a patch of newly exposed soil to rest. He looked across the valley and was glad that he was here, away from the grime and smoke that belched out below. Once, a strong wind had briefly blown the smoke away and he had seen a glimpse of what lay beyond the rooftops and factory chimneys. There were more hills like the one he was sitting on.

He began chopping at the vegetation again, piled it against the dead tree, and used a pick and spade to loosen the soil. Then he noticed something buried underneath and started digging deeper.

***

Later, George Martin showed the snuff box to his father who lived on Bernard Street. It was incredibly old, studded with several stones, but they weren’t sure if it was worth anything. His father had a brother who lived in Hermitage Street, who mentioned his nephew’s find to Thomas Jowitt, landlord of the Rising Sun.

Jowitt was interested in antiquaries although professed not to be an expert. He asked to see the old snuff box and it was brought to him at the pub. He inspected it carefully and despite it being tarnished, was convinced that the box was made of gold. He was also of opinion – although upon this point, he was no means certain – that the stones might be precious ones, even – to go a little further – diamonds.

Jowitt bought the box for what he considered a fair sum and cleaned it up the best he could before putting it on the sideboard.

***

Michael Ellison, the Duke of Norfolk’s agent, was paid a considerable wage to know everything about his nobleman’s estate. One morning, Ellison had become irritated with his master, who had grumbled that the Sheffield newspapers had reprimanded him for the ruinous condition of the Turret Lodge.

He sat in his office at The Farm and went through the notes before him. There were tales of rebellious tenants, trespassers, and poachers. But one thing struck him as being unusual.

There was a note from one of his rent collectors who drank at the Rising Sun public house in the town. It spoke of the landlord who had come into possession of an old snuff box that had been found at the Old Crofts, near to the Turret Lodge.

More peculiar, were the landlord’s claims that the old box had been the property of one or other of the distinguished personages who in ancient times had resided at the Manor.

Ellison summoned the rent collector who repeated the story and added that antiquarians had been profane enough to suggest that the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots may have used its contents to titillate her Royal nose.

“Bring the snuff box to me,” exclaimed Mr Ellison. “Let me have a look at it.”

A day later, the rent collector arrived with the snuff box, but Ellison was too busy and put it aside to be inspected later.

Days went by. Ellison got a cold, then a fever, and was laid up in bed for weeks. In the meantime, his assistant had found the snuff box and asked Ellison what he should do with it.

“Oh! Send it back. Write a note saying that his Grace is not regarding it as a relic belonging to the Howard family, nor anybody else for that matter.”

***

The snuff box remained on Thomas Jowitt’s sideboard for years afterwards. Occasionally, when drink got the better of him, he would retrieve it and regale customers with increasingly romantic and far-fetched stories about its provenance. His regulars played along and told Jowitt that it might be worth a fortune.

This was lost on a stinky little urchin called Alfred March, who, one day, was surprised to find the back door of the Rising Sun wide open. March slipped inside and stole three bottles of ginger beer but not before pilfering the intriguing old snuff box.

He struggled along Hermitage Street, careful not to drop any of the bottles, and when he reached Porter Brook decided that the little box was more trouble than it was worth and flung it into the water.

And there the snuff box lay, trapped between rocks, until winter snows caused the river to become angry and send raging torrents along its course. It was sent down river, bounced along the stony bed, until it reached the Sheaf and the Don, from which the dented snuff box was lost in the mud forever.

*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 15^th 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 16^th 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 18^th-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.

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