Trueloves Gutter

[RichardB]

Truelove's Gutter also had its bridge, as we know from the repairs done to it in I697, and again in I7I4. James Wills, contrasting, in glowing terms, the improved state of things in I827, and appealing to those "veterans of Sheffield " whose memory went back for sixty years, refers to the open gutters thus:

You remember the sinks in the midst of the streets;

When the rain poured in torrents, each passenger greets

His fellow with " What a wide channel is here,

We shall all be drown'd I'm greatly in fear.

For lately two lovers were sat on a rail On the edge of the sink

fondly telling their tale,

When the flood wash'd them down in each others' embrace,

For no longer the lovers could sit in that place;

And hence "True Love's Gutter", the name that was given,

Because by the flood those two lovers were driven.

Autobiography of Samuel Roberts, pp. I3, I7, 24. + The poet has here allowed his imagination to betray him into the very common sin of manufacturing fancy origins for place-names. True- love's Gutter was not so called from any such romantic incident, but, like many other streets, after one of those families which lived here, year in year out, for generations; and although we do not know which particular Truelove it was, who, through constructing the gutter or living in the street, had his name attached to the locality, there can be no doubt that this was its origin.

All old Sheffielders have been nurtured in the firm and unquestioning belief that the Castle Street of the present represents the Truelove's Gutter of the past. It has recently been suggested, as a deduction drawn from the order in which the streets were arranged for the rounds of the rate collectors of I790, that Truelove's Gutter was not Castle Street but Waingate. But there are certain peculiarities in the old rate books which prevent this from being regarded as by any means a sure guide; and the evidence that definitely proves what we now call Castle Street to have been Truelove's Gutter is overwhelming. The testimony of old street lists, old Directories and old inhabitants, no less than what is known of the residences of such well- known citizens as the Staniforths who lived in the same place both when it was called Truelove's Gutter and when it had been re-christened Castle Street, all make it impossible to admit any claim on behalf of Waingate to the name. That has always been Waingate, and nothing else.

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REMINISCENCES OF SHEFFIELD by R. E. LEADER

CHAPTER 08 - STREETS, SHOPS, WELLS, AND MARKETS

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