Can anyone solve this Darnall mystery?

[RichK]

Someone has just posted on the Sheffield History facebook (grrrr) group this picture:

This is Hiram Cheetham, born 1857 so it is guessed the picture is between 1877 (he would be aged 20) and 1939 (the year of his death).

What's confusing me is that it is believed by the poster this is 197 Main Road Darnall. White's Directory of 1905  says "Cheeham, H, Greengrocer, 197 Main Road Darnall" which I'm guessing is where this info comes from.

197 Main Road is the old NatWest bank and looks nothing like the same building:

(The old bank is the curved building on the corner, shown here as a post office back in 2008).

Anyone any clues? Did the grocer's building predate the bank? I always thought the bank had been there as long as modern Darnall? I think my family used to still call it the Penny Bank, but my memory might have distorted that.

I'm now thinking that the original picture is somewhere else entirely and Mr Cheetham moved before or after 1905. Can anyone recognise the building?

 

[SteveHB]

Part of the shop at Darnall can be seen, far right on this photo .... www.picturesheffield.com;s03640

Also here is a map, circa 1893.

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html#/

[Peter Walker]

I believe the Yorkshire Bank used to be the Yorkshire Penny Bank

[Keith_exS10]

Quite right.   It was the Yorkshire Penny Bank from the start and was my first bank from somewhere about  1936/7.  We used the branch at the top of Barber Road ( now I believe a different bank) till a move  to the Hunters Bar branch at the beginning of the war. That i remember as being very modern for it's day, all polished stone and chrome plate. 

I left Sheffield and the bank in 1959, their centenary year, at which point the word "Penny" was dropped fron the title, not without some comment, The reason given was that initially deposits of one or a few pennies were encouraged, probably all that could be spared in those days but which was no longer appropriate. Thinking back however  I cannot remember any suggestion of a minimum deposit being laid down.

It has had several changes of owners since then and is now associated with Virgin Money. The suggestion is that there will be full integration so that presumably in a few  years time there will be a post enquiring whether there was such a bank and asking fo recollections

 

 

[RichK]

Excellent replies, thanks.

So I think the map is implying that the shop was indeed a different building, and the bank was built later?

I'm not sure how accurate old maps are with buildings, but the jagged shape is evident in the 1921 OS map, and on 1935 its the smooth rounded shape of today's building.

I'm not very good with architecture, but that building in my second picture looks Victorian to me, I'd have dated in the 1800s. But the evidence is showing it was maybe late 1920's?

[RichK]

Several picture sheffield images have been uncovered on the facebook group - kicking myself I didn't think of that.

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?action=zoomWindow&keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s17729&prevUrl=

So, mystery solved. The building next to the shop with the Oxo advert (which is now Paddy Power's bookmakers) is still there, but obviously the Penny Bank was built in the early 20th century. I still think it looks much older!

[Simon Taylor]

On 27/08/2018 at 16:33, RichK said:

Several picture sheffield images have been uncovered on the facebook group - kicking myself I didn't think of that.

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?action=zoomWindow&keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s17729&prevUrl=

So, mystery solved. The building next to the shop with the Oxo advert (which is now Paddy Power's bookmakers) is still there, but obviously the Penny Bank was built in the early 20th century. I still think it looks much older!

Thank you so much to Rich, and Peter/Steve/Keith, for this thread.

 

The reason being:   Mr Hiram Cheetham is my Great Grandfather and I linked into this thread having searched the photo on line.  It is brilliant to know where his store was exactly from this thread.

 

His daughter Claire was born around the turn of the 20th Century in Darnall.   She married my grandfather and their son Nigel, my late father, was born in 1935.   My father was brought up with his three siblings at the top of City Road in a terraced house knocked down 20-30 years ago right next to the police station opposite the shops close to the roundabout.   Any pictures anyone has of that house would be massively appreciated!

 

Back to the shop.  You can see the same lamp-post and telegraph pole in the original picture of my Great Grandfather also in the longer shot in the last link. It is definitely the same location as stated.  I assume the original picture of my Grandfather was approx 1885 before the 'Oxo' building was built according to the map reference of 1893 when he was 25-30.  The longer shot must be after the electric trams arrived so early 1900s (?) and the building is still there.  The rounded Penny Bank building is absolutely typical of mid-war and survives to the current day.

 

Now a question assuming Hiram Cheetham was a Greengrocer.   So why three shovels outside his shop?   Did the electric trams replace horse-drawn carriages that started a route at this intersection at the end of the 19th Century.  Thus were the shovels there to be used for what shovels are famous for?  

 

 

 

[lysandernovo]

If you look carefully at his shop window I am pretty sure he is advertising "SEEDS"...so a shovel might not be out of place. The Bank building's architecture would suggest it was built  as a redevelopment....witness the absence of the Sunday School building  and the Smithy...as shown on the 1893 map.

[Edmund]

I've added some newspaper cuttings below. Also there's a nice photo of the Cheetham family (Clara, Doris, Harold, Alice Cheetham on the back row Grandma & Granddad Cheetham in front) here:

Cheetham family (Picture Sheffield)