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Jervis Lum


RichardB

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THE HISTORY

Norfolk Park has a long history and in fact it is actually one of the oldest Public Parks in England.

The majority of Norfolk Park was given to the Sheffield City Council in 1910 by one of the largest landowners in the area, the Duke of Norfolk. The Jervis Lum Woodlands, an area of ancient Woodland, which is now incorporated within the Park was given to the Council in 1956.

from http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Norfolk_Heritage_..._Review_5603705

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THE HISTORY

Norfolk Park has a long history and in fact it is actually one of the oldest Public Parks in England.

The majority of Norfolk Park was given to the Sheffield City Council in 1910 by one of the largest landowners in the area, the Duke of Norfolk. The Jervis Lum Woodlands, an area of ancient Woodland, which is now incorporated within the Park was given to the Council in 1956.

from http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Norfolk_Heritage_..._Review_5603705

Interesting to know that - i now know how the pub on Park Grange Rd (now demolished) got its strange name from!

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Interesting to know that - i now know how the pub on Park Grange Rd (now demolished) got its strange name from!

It's worth a walk up there, if only to see some proper ancient English woodland, tucked away inside a large city. I too, thought it was just the name of a pub :rolleyes:

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Jervis Lum and Norfolk Park is one of my regular walks, and what a lovely place it is

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_04_2007/post-188-1176666239.jpghttp://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_04_2007/post-188-1176666294.jpg

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_04_2007/post-188-1176666810.jpghttp://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_04_2007/post-188-1176666421.jpg[attachmen

t=2729:Jervis_Lum003.jpg]http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_04_2007/post-188-1176666152.jpgThe bronze plaques on the pedestrian bridge over The Lum were designed by children from Norfolk Community Primary school, and it is sad to say they were all stolen (some 42 in total) in early March. :angry:

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It's worth a walk up there, if only to see some proper ancient English woodland, tucked away inside a large city. I too, thought it was just the name of a pub :rolleyes:

Yes that's how the pub, now demolished, got its name.

The pub is gone but fondly remembered. Here is a picture of it taken around 1980

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THE HISTORY

Norfolk Park has a long history and in fact it is actually one of the oldest Public Parks in England.

The majority of Norfolk Park was given to the Sheffield City Council in 1910 by one of the largest landowners in the area, the Duke of Norfolk. The Jervis Lum Woodlands, an area of ancient Woodland, which is now incorporated within the Park was given to the Council in 1956.

I've just had a look at the 1950's map of Sheffield posted by Stuart 0742 and SteveHB

The one for Norfolk Park has the Jervis Lum woodlands marked but not necessarily in the area we thought. The jervis lum pub was further over towards the area marked black bank, although this is difficult to judge without having Park Grange Road on the map. The woodland itself seems to be a strip outside the actual present day park, a strip of land starting from the bottom of Arbourthorne Road near where the Fellbrigg pub is (was!) running down the hill towards Norfork Park to meet it at the point where other members have commented where the stream / railings and old bridge are at the western side of the park and actually inside its present park boundary. this piece of land, inside the park is the only bit which actually looks like ancient woodland. Interestingly the other bit (opposite the Fellbrigg on the other side of Park Grange Road) never had any houses on it and on the map appears to have 2 small ponds indicating the continuation of the Norfolk Park stream up the hill. Due to wet ground there is very little building over the route of this stream. Its origin must be near Hurlfield Road / Hag Lane which is the highest point. flowing under Hurlfield school fields, East Bank road and a strip of unbuilt land between Errington Avenue and Arbourthorne Road it first emerges to form Arbourthorne Pond just off Eastern Avenue. This drains under Eastern Avenue onto under another unbuilt area, Arbourthorne Playing Fields, forming a boggy patch of land at the side of the Fellbrigg where they built the housing rent office at the bottom of the embankment. It then crosses under Park Grange Road into the never built on area which was the Jervis Lum and had 2 ponds ponds of its own in the 1950's map. The stream finally appears as a proper stream just before entering the park grounds in a steep valley and then makes its way through the park presumably towards the Sheaf.

As a young boy living on the Arbourthorne I have memories of running down Arbourthorne playing fields and standing on the top of the embankment just to take in the view with some awe. There was no Norfolk Park estate then (1960 - 64), I was looking at farmland all the way down to the lodge and cottages which stood at the entrance to the Park, a view over the Jervis Lum in fact. Beyond that, with the recent introduction of the clean air act, on a good clear day you could see the city beyond. Unfortunately I was too young to be into photography at the time and I don't suppose anyone had the forsight to take a picture of a view that would soon be lost forever with the building of the new Norfolk Park estate.

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Interesting comments, DaveH

My grandpa was astounded at the development of the Finnegan houses and the t-flats on Errington and Algar. That section of land had not been built on, he alleged, because the land was "too wet to build on!"

My own previous property, which was behind Arbourthorne road, on the Berners side, had a sort of steam running through the garden. You could actually see the route of the stream, as the grass of my lawn grew longer, and more lush where the stream was. the prior tenant had tried to deal with it, over thirty years, (they were built in 1967/8) but to no avail.

The latest news on those Finnegan houses, and T-flats, is that they are scheduled to be demolished, in about three or four years' time. The Finnegans, although well-designed and well insulated, are really little more than prefabs. They were only planned, originally to have a lifespan of about 10 years. So they've already exceeded that expectancy, fourfold.

The plan is to build mixed housing on the site. I have misgivings about it, If I'm frank. The t- flat I was in, before the Finnegan house a few years ago was already suffering badly from damp, and had only been up 20 or so years, at that time.

I remember being told, that the Finnegans were built on a "raft" or "gondola" of concrete (there are no foundations, apparently) because of the wetness of the land. So, how on earth are they going to build, successfully, on that land once the old housing is demolished, if the land is so wet?

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The survival of the Jervis Lum woodland might have been because it was impractical to use it as farmland. I'm not familiar with the lie of the land but it appears to be a small steep-sided valley with a persistent stream flowing through the bottom. The word Lum, and its variants Lumb and Lamb, have the meaning of a pool - aka Lamb Pool in Attercliffe. and Jervis is a family name that arises several times in Harrison's Survey of 1637. Possibly succeeding generations of the Jervis family were tenants of the farmland surrounding the woodland that now bears the name.

The 1903 map shows it as woodland with a stream and with two small dams but it isn't clear what happens to the stream....perhaps it fed the lake in the Farm Grounds ?

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The survival of the Jervis Lum woodland might have been because it was impractical to use it as farmland. I'm not familiar with the lie of the land but it appears to be a small steep-sided valley with a persistent stream flowing through the bottom. The word Lum, and its variants Lumb and Lamb, have the meaning of a pool - aka Lamb Pool in Attercliffe. and Jervis is a family name that arises several times in Harrison's Survey of 1637. Possibly succeeding generations of the Jervis family were tenants of the farmland surrounding the woodland that now bears the name.

The 1903 map shows it as woodland with a stream and with two small dams but it isn't clear what happens to the stream....perhaps it fed the lake in the Farm Grounds ?

Maybe it did feed the lake Gramps, unless it was spring fed?

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Maybe it did feed the lake Gramps, unless it was spring fed?

On the right hand map provided by SteveHB above his marking of the stream from Park Grange Road, with 2 small ponds and then down the western side of the park is exactly the position of the Jervis Lum woodland.

Also interested in plaintalkers comments about the land being "to wet to build on" for the 1967 built flats + prefabs. I lived in the origanal 1946 built asbestos prefabs on this site (Algar Place) which were largerly destroyed in the infamous 1962 gale (see other thread on this site for details) and it was the same story of wet land then, and of course there were no buildings on it even at that time.

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I remember one of the two lower ponds it was called Cherry Pond, It stood in area that we called Cherry Woods.

Some more photos of the Lum

one shows whare the stream can be last seen

as it disappears underground out of sight.

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The survival of the Jervis Lum woodland might have been because it was impractical to use it as farmland. I'm not familiar with the lie of the land but it appears to be a small steep-sided valley with a persistent stream flowing through the bottom. The word Lum, and its variants Lumb and Lamb, have the meaning of a pool - aka Lamb Pool in Attercliffe. and Jervis is a family name that arises several times in Harrison's Survey of 1637. Possibly succeeding generations of the Jervis family were tenants of the farmland surrounding the woodland that now bears the name.

According to Harold Armitage in his book "Chantrey Land" on pages 362-363 with reference to Fawcett's Lumb he comments :-

I remember that the long narrow wood to the west of Fawcett's farm near Lees Hall was known amongst the boys of the district as Fawcett's Lumb, and I was perplexed often concerning the meaning of the word. Why should all other woods be called woods and this a lumb? A lumb is a deep cleft, or a pool in the bed of a river, and if we leave that arm of the wood which goes straight to Fawcett's farm, Coneygreave wood, and go straight forward to Harvey Clough we find there the explanation in a cleft down which the stream flows.

Armitage then goes on to say Fawcett lumb is not the only lumb in this district, and goes on to mention several more including Hemsworth lumb (Rollinson wood), Oldfield Lume (Norton) Dowel or Dowie Lumb (Hazelbarrow), Black Car Lumb (Holmesfield), Sherwood Lumb (Horsley Gate) and lumbs atWardsend, Dore, Bradfield and Worral. Further afield there are Depth Lumb at Belper, Lumsdale near Matlock and Lumb, a stream near Todmorden.

Unfortunately he makes no mention of the Jervis Lumb which is local to his area of study

So there you have it for the dictionary :-

LUMB, (noun), a deep cleft, or a pool in the bed of a river

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On the right hand map provided by SteveHB above his marking of the stream from Park Grange Road, with 2 small ponds and then down the western side of the park is exactly the position of the Jervis Lum woodland.

Also interested in plaintalkers comments about the land being "to wet to build on" for the 1967 built flats + prefabs. I lived in the origanal 1946 built asbestos prefabs on this site (Algar Place) which were largerly destroyed in the infamous 1962 gale (see other thread on this site for details) and it was the same story of wet land then, and of course there were no buildings on it even at that time.

My grandpa's comments I take as "gospel", as my Great-Grandparents lived on Arbourthorne, pretty much from it being built in the '30s, and my family knew the area well. Indeed when my Grandparents' Broomhall Street home was bombed out in the blitz, my my father and Grandparents "evacuated" to my G-GP's house, for quite some time, while their own home was uninhabitable.

That large tranche of land, between Errington Road and Arbourthorne road, and down onto Norfolk Park was left undeveloped until the prefabs were put on it. I would have thought the wetness explains why the only building on that section of land was the Arbourthorne Hotel.

I assume the first lot of prefabs (which were destroyed Feb 1962) were, like the Finnegan Houses:- very light in construction (being prefabricated panels) which would not have impacted on the land beneath. I STR that the "wartime" prefabs didn't have much by way of foundations, either, like the Finnegan houses.

I am very concerned about the practicalities of the proposals to build "proper" houses on the land that will be left vacant by the clearance, because of the wetness of the land.

I imagine the land will still be marshy, especially where my old house was, with its stream in the garden. I would anticipate problems actually digging the foundations out, in the boggy land, and further problems

a ) having stability in that wet land for those foundations if and when they are built, and

b ) how much the land's dampness would affect the new houses (even with a DPC) once they were constructed.

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That large tranche of land, between Errington Road and Arbourthorne road, and down onto Norfolk Park was left undeveloped until the prefabs were put on it. I would have thought the wetness explains why the only building on that section of land was the Arbourthorne Hotel.

I assume the first lot of prefabs (which were destroyed Feb 1962) were, like the Finnegan Houses:- very light in construction (being prefabricated panels) which would not have impacted on the land beneath. I STR that the "wartime" prefabs didn't have much by way of foundations, either, like the Finnegan houses.

The wartime prefabs were of very light construction. A timber frame served to hold the prefabricated panels together, themselves being made of 2 sheets of asbestos about 5mm thick, spaced apart by half an inch or so an insulated inbetween with what appeared to be dried straw. the flat roofs were timber and pitch tar for waterproofing. The building were very cold in winter, although we did live in them through one of the coldest winters on record (1962 -63). As for the foundations these were brick and were merely to keep the floorboards level. On a level surface the foundations stood no more than 2 bricks high, but on a hillside they were a brick high at one end and several feet high at the other for obvious reasons. when they were demolished, after removal of the prefabricated house the foundations were bulldozed and as plain talker suggests they did not appear to penetrate the ground to hardly any depth at all.

I seem to remember that our garden at the bottom of Algar Place didn't flood or get wet but if you were digging after a few inches of top soil you were digging up shale and what appeared to be either pit slag or opencast coal. the area between the 2 Algar cul-de-sacs seemed to be entirely pit waste, evidence perhaps of local mining.

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According to Harold Armitage in his book "Chantrey Land" on pages 362-363 with reference to Fawcett's Lumb he comments :-

I remember that the long narrow wood to the west of Fawcett's farm near Lees Hall was known amongst the boys of the district as Fawcett's Lumb, and I was perplexed often concerning the meaning of the word. Why should all other woods be called woods and this a lumb? A lumb is a deep cleft, or a pool in the bed of a river, and if we leave that arm of the wood which goes straight to Fawcett's farm, Coneygreave wood, and go straight forward to Harvey Clough we find there the explanation in a cleft down which the stream flows.

Armitage then goes on to say Fawcett lumb is not the only lumb in this district, and goes on to mention several more including Hemsworth lumb (Rollinson wood), Oldfield Lume (Norton) Dowel or Dowie Lumb (Hazelbarrow), Black Car Lumb (Holmesfield), Sherwood Lumb (Horsley Gate) and lumbs atWardsend, Dore, Bradfield and Worral. Further afield there are Depth Lumb at Belper, Lumsdale near Matlock and Lumb, a stream near Todmorden.

Unfortunately he makes no mention of the Jervis Lumb which is local to his area of study

So there you have it for the dictionary :-

LUMB, (noun), a deep cleft, or a pool in the bed of a river

Yes I think that is a much better interpretation than just a 'pool'; such areas would remain woodland for the simple reason that it was impractical to do anything with them - except perhaps in medieval times to use them for pannage and a source of domestic fuel. Most are too small and awkward to be coppiced and water would tend to collect in the bottoms even if there were not a stream or spring present.

Must have a look at that book.

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The wartime prefabs were of very light construction. A timber frame served to hold the prefabricated panels together, themselves being made of 2 sheets of asbestos about 5mm thick, spaced apart by half an inch or so an insulated inbetween with what appeared to be dried straw. the flat roofs were timber and pitch tar for waterproofing. The building were very cold in winter, although we did live in them through one of the coldest winters on record (1962 -63). As for the foundations these were brick and were merely to keep the floorboards level. On a level surface the foundations stood no more than 2 bricks high, but on a hillside they were a brick high at one end and several feet high at the other for obvious reasons. when they were demolished, after removal of the prefabricated house the foundations were bulldozed and as plain talker suggests they did not appear to penetrate the ground to hardly any depth at all.

I seem to remember that our garden at the bottom of Algar Place didn't flood or get wet but if you were digging after a few inches of top soil you were digging up shale and what appeared to be either pit slag or opencast coal. the area between the 2 Algar cul-de-sacs seemed to be entirely pit waste, evidence perhaps of local mining.

there are wartime prefabs still in existence on the street behind my friend's flat at Stannington, and, yes they are built onto the hillside with a small foundation of brick, higher at the "downhill" side than at the other.

My aunt lived in a prefab at Intake before moving to Hyde Park, and my main memories are of the floor "bouncing" as it was being walked across, and the taps in the bathroom being quite weird (they weren't attached to the bath, they came out of the wall over the bath) yes it was cold in he house. (my finnegan house, although "prefab" in construction, was excellent in winter, as it had so much insulation between the walls. very warm, and quite economical to heat)

the shale/ shingle-y stuff under your topsoil would have probably been to do with the mine workings in the area (there were pits from Elm Tree Pit at Manor Top, right down the hill)

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My aunt lived in a prefab at Intake before moving to Hyde Park, and my main memories are of the floor "bouncing" as it was being walked across, and the taps in the bathroom being quite weird (they weren't attached to the bath, they came out of the wall over the bath) yes it was cold in he house.

The prefabs at Intake which were just down the bank on the right hand side as you went down Normanton Hill just after its junction with Hollinsend Road were some of the last demolished in the sixties and these flimsy foundations were left in position until the site was redeveloped in 1974. Sorry, - never thought to take a photograph of them, it would have illustrated them perfectly here.

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The prefabs at Intake which were just down the bank on the right hand side as you went down Normanton Hill just after its junction with Hollinsend Road were some of the last demolished in the sixties and these flimsy foundations were left in position until the site was redeveloped in 1974. Sorry, - never thought to take a photograph of them, it would have illustrated them perfectly here.

Yep! that's where they were! I STR my aunt's then address was Hollybank something or other.. Drive? Close?

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The Heading of 'This Topic' Is titled 'Jervis Lum' (Sheff 2)

any further plodding via Intake and down Normanton Hill (Sheff 13) and we may end up in Woodhouse!

That's a long walk for me to go and take photos.

;-)

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The Heading of 'This Topic' Is titled 'Jervis Lum' (Sheff 2)

any further plodding via Intake and down Normanton Hill (Sheff 13) and we may end up in Woodhouse!

That's a long walk for me to go and take photos.

;-)

OK SteveHB, we got a bit side tracked by discussing the lay of the land, and its wetness from East Bank Road, through Arbourthorne and down through Norfolk Park. This is the Jervis Lum and the land has never been built on.

In Sheffield Places now gone in the thread Norfolk Park Estate early 1970's you have recently placed an ariel photograph which illustrates this perfectly. Hope you don't mind me duplicating the picture here just to make the point.

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OK SteveHB, we got a bit side tracked by discussing the lay of the land, and its wetness from East Bank Road, through Arbourthorne and down through Norfolk Park. This is the Jervis Lum and the land has never been built on.

In Sheffield Places now gone in the thread Norfolk Park Estate early 1970's you have recently placed an ariel photograph which illustrates this perfectly. Hope you don't mind me duplicating the picture here just to make the point.

Yes Dave the ariel photo shows nearly all of Jervis Lum wood,

also the route that the underground stream takes from Arbourthorne Pond before it appears in the Lum wood.

I must get over there and see if I can find it's source.

Feel free to use any of my photos on this site,

that's what their on for.

Steve ;-)

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