Category Archives: Exploring Attercliffe

The most haunted pub in Sheffield

Carbrook Hall, Sheffield

Some historians suggest that the fact that Attercliffe is mentioned first in the Domesday Survey of 1086 – “Ateclive & Escaveld” – is an indication that Attercliffe was more significant than Sheffield before the building of the Norman castle.

Certainly there was a manor house belonging to the Blunt family by 1176 and this house was rebuilt in 1462 and became Carbrook Hall.

It was purchased by Thomas Bright, lord of the manor of Ecclesall, in the late-sixteenth century and the surviving stone-built wing was built c1620 for Stephen Bright (1583-1642), bailiff of the Earl of Arundel’s Hallamshire estates from 1622 and later lord of the manor of Ecclesall.

Stephen Bright’s son, Sir John (1619-1688) helped co-ordinate the siege of Sheffield Castle in 1644 from the Hall.

The Brights’ Carbrook estate passed repeatedly through the female line, and it seems that later generations let the building from early in the eighteenth century.

The house was more extensive than the surviving remnant: it was surveyed by William Fairbank in 1777, and E Blore’s engraving in Joseph Hunter’s Hallamshire: the history and topography of the parish of Sheffield in the county of York (1819) shows an elaborate jettied timber wing and other outbuildings.

There remain two elaborate interiors with fine oak panelling and plasterwork, possibly the work of the same craftsmen who decorated the Little Keep at Bolsover Castle.

The lower room has an oak chimney piece dated 1623 with Corinthian columns and strapwork and a depiction of Wisdom trampling on Ignorance, with scrolls containing mottoes. A very similar fireplace, originally at Norton House, is now preserved at the Cutlers’ Hall.

The stone fireplace in the upper chamber has, instead of columns, unusual caryatids. In a nearly circular cartouche is an image of the pelican in her piety.

Carbrook Hall became a public house sometime in the nineteenth century – all surviving photographs show it without the timbered wing – and in that guise it became an unlikely survivor of the days when Attercliffe was rural: http://www.sheffieldcamra.org.uk/2016/10/heritage-pubs-with-dave-pickersgill-carbrook-hall.

In recent times it has traded on a reputation as “the most haunted pub in Sheffield”, giving rise to investigations and reports that lose nothing in the telling: http://www.project-reveal.com/carbrook-hall-ghosts/4540202323.

In February 2017 the Carbrook Hall closed as a pub, to the distress of CAMRA and local workers. The new owner, West Street Leisure, did not at first disclose future plans for the building, beyond saying that its status as a Grade II* listed building would be respected. Conservationists are concerned that if it stands empty it will be vulnerable to vandalism: [http://www.thestar.co.uk/our-towns-and-cities/sheffield/fight-to-protect-historic-haunted-pub-in-sheffield-passes-first-hurdle-1-8539851].

This rare survival, a fragmentary reminder of the days when Attercliffe Common really was common land and Meadowhall was surrounded by meadows, contains one of the finest historic interiors in the city.

The next chapter in its long history is a transformation into a Starbucks coffee shop.

The 60-page, A4 handbook for the 2017 ‘Sheffield’s Heritage’ tour, with text, photographs, maps and a reading list, is available for purchase, price £15.00 including postage and packing. To order a copy, please click here or, if you prefer, send a cheque, payable to Mike Higginbottom, to 63 Vivian Road, Sheffield, S5 6WJ.

’Ackydoc

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Worksop Road Aqueduct, Sheffield & Tinsley Canal (1977)

I’ll journey some distance to hear Mike Spick, the distinguished Sheffield local historian, and indeed I travelled as far as Chesterfield when he gave his ‘Sheffield Canal’ presentation to the North-East Derbyshire Industrial Archaeological Society.

At the risk of showing disrespect I took issue when Mike referred to the Worksop Road Aqueduct as “T’ackydoc”. The “t’” may be useful in print, but in Attercliffe dialect it was a pure glottal stop, as in “Weer’s thi dad?” “’Is on ’closet.”

Otherwise I listened to Mike’s presentation with admiration for the accuracy of his account, the richness of his illustrations and his adept use of PowerPoint to animate and explain.

The Sheffield & Tinsley Canal, not quite four miles long, climbs from the River Don at Tinsley, very near to the latter-day M1 viaduct and the much-lamented cooling towers that were demolished in 2008, by a flight of eleven (originally twelve) locks to its terminus on the edge of Sheffield city centre.

For over a century before it was built the nearest navigable waterway was the River Don Navigation at Tinsley; the next nearest was the River Idle at Bawtry, over twenty miles away.

The canal was financially supported and its route along the south side of the Don Valley was directly influenced by the estate of the Duke of Norfolk, the ground-landlord for much of Sheffield.

To please the Duke a branch canal was built to his Tinsley Park collieries. The course of the Greenland Arm is now Greenland Road, part of the Sheffield ring-road.

Authorised in 1815, four years after Attercliffe Common was enclosed, the Sheffield Canal opened with much celebration in 1819.

It was the first effective means of breaking Sheffield’s physical isolation, surrounded by seven hills.

Its heyday lasted barely twenty years, until the Sheffield & Rotherham Railway opened in 1839, following (as it still does) the north side of the valley.

For thirty years rail passengers and goods from Sheffield headed east to Retford or north to Rotherham in order to travel south to London. Only in 1870 did the Midland Railway complete its direct line southwards to Chesterfield, the present-day route via Dronfield that to this day is known to railwaymen as the “New Road”.

The canal continued to serve the city under railway ownership well into the twentieth century. Indeed, a new warehouse was built, for lack of anywhere else to put it, over the quay in 1896 and is known for obvious reasons as the Straddle Warehouse.

The last commercial cargo went down the canal in 1980. It never became unnavigable but it was practically derelict by the time the opening scene of The Full Monty was filmed near Bacon Lane in 1997.

Now, as part of the regeneration of the Lower Don Valley, the canal has become almost unrecognisably emparked. The terminal basin is a marina called Victoria Quays, presumably commemorating the defunct Victoria railway station. The Quays, like the former station, is out on a limb, not easily accessible from the city centre.

There are hotel boats offering an alternative pied-â-terre to the corporate hotels, and a trip-boat offering “cruising for all occasions”, along the surprisingly silvan Attercliffe Cutting, over ’Ackydoc and down the locks to Tinsley.

In fact, it’s an ideal venue for a birthday party.

Benjamin Huntsman

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Britannia Inn, Worksop Road, Attercliffe Sheffield (2010)

Benjamin Huntsman (1704-1776), a Quaker clockmaker from Doncaster, was dissatisfied with the inconsistent quality of the blister steel manufactured in cementation furnaces. He needed consistent quality in the steel he used for the springs of his timepieces.

He evolved cast steel during the 1740s by melting bars of blister steel in closed fireclay crucibles and went into commercial production in 1751.

Huntsman’s process generated steel of far higher, more consistent quality, but it was expensive.

He moved to the outskirts of Sheffield to be nearer to collieries, first to Handsworth, and then to a larger site at Attercliffe before 1763, by which time he was producing up to ten tons of cast steel a year.

Hunstman did not patent his process and Sheffield cutlers at first refused to use cast steel. He sold his entire output to French cutlers, and in the face of competition his neighbours surreptitiously spied on his works and stole his expertise.

His business nevertheless prospered and was passed to his son, William Huntsman (1733–1809).

The site of his Attercliffe works was commemorated in the name of the now-demolished Huntsman’s Gardens Schools.

The only remaining reminder on the site now is the cast numerals which form the date 1772 on the Britannia Inn, Worksop Road.

Benjamin Huntsman is buried in the graveyard of Hill Top Chapel, Attercliffe.

Steel workers’ resting place 2

Reformed chapel

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Wesleyan Reform Chapel, Bodmin Street, Attercliffe, Sheffield (1977)

Former Wesleyan Reform Chapel, Bodmin Street, Attercliffe, Sheffield (2012)

Some buildings stick in the memory for entirely sentimental reasons. I passed the Wesleyan Reform Chapel, Bodmin Street, Attercliffe, Sheffield every morning in my first five years of schooling.

My Auntie Nellie lived literally next door. It formed the background to my earliest memories of backyard Bonfire Nights when Uncle Charlie was in charge of the box of matches: in Coronation year the biggest bang of all came when Auntie Nellie’s new pressure-cooker, inexpertly screwed down, exploded and spattered mushy peas all over the kitchen ceiling.

My latest memory of this thriving temple of Methodism is of my cousin Cathryn singing at a chapel anniversary in the early 1960s.

It’s an austerely attractive, utterly unremarkable building, unlisted, invisible in the Sheffield Local Studies Library index.

Built in 1890, its foundation stones were laid by a star-studded cast of Sheffield’s most important Methodists, such as Jethro and Samson Chambers, Robert Hadfield and Frederick Mappin – all of them men of steel with Attercliffe connections, the latter two later to become baronets.

Its registration for marriages was cancelled because it was no longer used for worship in 1966.

My 1977 image of the building shows the brickwork still encrusted with industrial grime and most of the windows smashed.

No-one would have given tuppence for its chances of survival.

Nowadays it sparkles: it’s well-maintained; its windows are renewed and its brickwork is beautifully cleaned. It serves as the Jamiyat Tableegh ul Islam Mosque.

So historic buildings which are not worth listing can survive if someone finds an appropriate use for them that will justify their upkeep.

Picture palace gathers dust

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Former Adelphi Cinema, Attercliffe, Sheffield (1985)

The Adelphi Cinema (1920) on Vicarage Road, Attercliffe, is one of Sheffield’s two listed cinemas alongside the more prominent and interesting Abbeydale Picture House on the other side of the city.

Originally located up a cul-de-sac, it has an interesting façade of buff and blue faience with a stubby little dome, designed to catch the eye. Now that the surrounding buildings have been cleared, it’s more visible from the main road and forms one of a group of historic buildings alongside the former Attercliffe Baths (1879), the former Attercliffe Library (1894) and one of Attercliffe’s two Burton’s stores.

All these survive alongside the site of the Don Valley Stadium, formerly Brown Bayley’s steelworks, and now being redeveloped: there is an opportunity waiting to be taken to develop the possibilities of this location. The Baths have been converted into a largely sterile office and conference facility, which at least safeguards the fabric, and the Library has recently opened as a splendid café and restaurant [Sheffield | Restauraunt & Bar | The Library by Lounge | Attercliffe] but the Adelphi remains dark.

The Adelphi closed as a cinema in 1967, and operated as a bingo club until well into the 1980s. There was a project to take advantage of its elegant classical interior as a gay club, and eventually it was transformed into a rock venue. It was listed Grade II in 1996 but after a period as a music-teaching venue in 2000-2006 it fell into neglect.

By 2013 it was used as a storage facility, and someone went to great trouble to strip out the original plasterwork.

This was an object-lesson in how not to treat a listed building.

Yet the Adelphi stands on the main road between Sheffield, Rotherham and the M1 motorway. There’s no shortage of car-parking.

It’s a possibility waiting to be turned into a practicality.

Plans are afoot to rescue the Adelphi: The new Adelphi | Mike Higginbottom Interesting Times.

For details of Mike Higginbottom’s lecture Fun Palaces: the history and architecture of the entertainment industry please click here.

Picture palace bites the dust

Huntsman’s Gardens

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Huntsman’s Gardens Schools, Attercliffe, Sheffield: central hall during demolition (1980)

When the Victorian Society South Yorkshire Group visited the historic buildings of Attercliffe in 2010, one of the buildings they couldn’t see – being thirty years too late – was my early alma mater, Huntsman’s Gardens Schools, demolished as part of the Sheffield Development Corporation’s wholesale clearance of parts of the valley in preparation for the World Student Games event in 1981.

The name Huntsman’s Gardens commemorates the schools’ location alongside the Attercliffe works (established in 1770) of the inventor of crucible steel, Benjamin Huntsman (1704-1776). Round the corner on Worksop Road, the Britannia Inn still carries on its gable the date 1772 in numerals reputedly cast by Huntsman.

The huge school complex was one of the magnificent series of Sheffield School Board structures designed by Charles J Innocent and Thomas Brown from 1871 onwards. Huntsman’s Gardens dated from 1884, and was an impressive example of the so-called Prussian model of building classrooms with glass partitions around a central hall so that the headteacher could supervise teaching and learning across the whole school without patrolling corridors in crepe soles.

Huntsman’s Gardens, like many of the surviving Innocent & Brown schools across Sheffield, was characterised by solid walls, faced in stone, and huge, high windows to make the most of the light in a polluted industrial environment. My memories of school in the 1950s include whole days when the lights remained on in classrooms because the sun couldn’t penetrate the smog.

Most memorable of all, however, especially for a seven-year-old, was the enormous height of the school hall. I don’t ever remember feeling cold, but I’ve no idea how such an enormous space was heated.

In 1980 the building was razed without much comment. If it had somehow survived a couple more decades, it would have presented an interesting challenge for redevelopment – bigger than the Leeds Corn Exchange (now a shopping centre), far more dramatic than any other surviving Victorian school for miles around.

The Victorian Society South Yorkshire group’s publication Building Schools for Sheffield, 1870-1914 is obtainable from http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/publications/sheffield-schools.

The demolition of Huntsman’s Gardens Schools is illustrated in Demolished Sheffield, a 112-page full colour A4 publication by Mike Higginbottom.

For details please click here.

Where sparrows coughed

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Banner’s Department Store, Attercliffe, Sheffield (1977)

The South Yorkshire Group of the Victorian Society runs a series of history walks around the city through the summer months [see http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/south-yorkshire]. These excursions are always led by someone who has done detailed research into the locality, often supplemented by others who can add further knowledge.

I particularly enjoyed one of the 2010 walks around Attercliffe, the heart of the steel industry in Sheffield’s Lower Don Valley, because that’s where I grew up in the 1950s. Most of the vibrant post-war life of the valley has long gone, leaving a few isolated standing relics, some of them architectural, others human.

There was a moment, at the height of the Second World War, when a well-placed German bomb dropped on the east end of Sheffield could have dished the only forge in Britain capable of producing Spitfire crankshafts. Fortunately, the Luftwaffe’s radar beams, positioned directly over the Wellington Inn on Hawke Street, somehow failed to guide the pilots, who in one blitz-attack destroyed much of the city-centre, and in the other hit anywhere but the crucial quarter square mile.

After the war, the valley continued to thrive – grimy, smog-laden and industrial, yet home to some 55,000 workers. In the 1950s Attercliffe boasted a Woolworth’s, two Burton’s tailors, a Littlewood’s store, four cinemas and a live theatre.

It also had its own family-run department store, Banner’s. Shoppers from Rotherham, travelling into Sheffield by tram and later by bus, often stopped off at Attercliffe, rather than travel all the way into the city-centre.

Writers such as Keith Farnsworth, Sheffield’s East Enders: life as it was in the Lower Don Valley (Sheffield City Libraries 1987), and Frank Hartley, Where sparrows coughed (Sheaf 1989) and Dancing on the cobbles (Sheaf 1992), describe how there was plenty of work, and in general wages were sufficient, but there was very little to spend it on in the days of austerity.

And almost everyone lived in a terraced house with an outside lavatory and no bathroom.

By the time I left Sheffield in 1958, the terraced streets were disappearing as “slum clearance”, and the old community ties were quickly broken. Some of the late-surviving housing made homes for the first generation of immigrants from the Caribbean and South Asia, but they too had moved away by the 1980s.

Indeed, a VicSoc history walk round Attercliffe in 1980 would have come across even more interesting buildings than survive today.

Andy Moffatt wrote a detailed account of growing up in Attercliffe just before the community finally disappeared at http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/sheffield/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8172000/8172074.stm and has his own website at http://www.70sheffieldlad.co.uk/index.html.

Brown Bayley’s

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Sheffield Canal and Brown Bayley’s steelworks, later the site of the Don Valley Stadium (1978)

On one of my visits to the gym at the now-demolished Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield’s east end, I suddenly realised that I was pumping iron (in a desultory manner) on the exact site where, seventy years before, my grandfather had built the brick linings for the furnaces of Brown Bayley’s steelworks.

My granddad’s skills must have been quite specialised, and on the strength of his wartime earnings my grandmother kept family state in a terraced house with a postage-stamp front garden and a privet hedge.

That world of metal-bashing heavy steel largely disappeared in the early 1980s. (The Full Monty, filmed as contemporary in 1997, actually relates to a context fifteen years earlier.) The great corrugated iron sheds of the works backing on to the Sheffield Canal vanished, were replaced by a magnificent athletics complex with its distinctive tent-like stands, made of Teflon-coated glass fibre, providing covered accommodation for 10,000 spectators.

This cleverly designed space was orientated so that the principal seats did not face the daytime sun, and the finishing straight avoided the glare of sunset. Wind-tunnel tests determined that, because of the sheltering terrace-embankments, ambient wind-speed was cut by 70% at the stadium-floor.

After the World Student Games of 1991, the Stadium proved an admirable home for the Sheffield Eagles rugby-league club and latterly for Rotherham United FC after their original home at Millmoor was sold.

It also offered capacity of up to 40,000 spectators for huge rock concerts by the likes of the Rolling Stones and U2. Those who didn’t wish to pay the price, or see the artistes, could hear it all perfectly clearly while picnicking on the banks of the Sheffield Canal.

My granddad wouldn’t have believed it.

The stadium was in turn closed in September 2013, demolished and redeveloped.

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