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Law Bros. Roundabout.


deejayone

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Law Bros. Roundabout is situated at the junctions of Penistone Road, Penistone Road North, Herries Road North and Leppings Lane and is known locally as 'Law Bros. Roundabout' due to the name of the large Esso garage situated on the Leppings Lane-Penistone Road North corner. The petrol station area now features a small convenience store with post office, garage, car wash and Burger King franchise - in the past the corner featured a curved terrace of houses, including the old local Wadsley Bridge Post Office, Sandwich shops and travel agents (also part of Law Bros.).

However, the junction has changed dramatically over the years - just behind where Law Bros. Petrol station now stands, on the River Don, there was a weir known locally as 'Niagara Falls'. This Americanised name still remains in the area with The Niagara Sports Ground, the area of which was at one time a small dam that fed the weir. A smaller-but-similar type weir can be found a little further along the river nowadays, which is also now referred to by people who know of it as 'Niagara' (this one can be found where the river runs behind the Sheffield Wednesday training gound, off Middlewood Road).

The following picture is a view from Herries Road North, looking towards Leppings Lane. Penistone Road runs across the picture. The house in the view is right at the bottom corner of Leppings Lane and is dated around the 1920's. Of course, this area has now completely changed and you'd now be looking at the huge roundabout which is the first real indication of entering Hillsborough from Junction 36 of the M1 motorway.

Now part of the Hillfoot Steel buildings, the following picture shows the old Corporation (SYT) Bus Depot on Herries Road North, near the roundabout. I remember attending 'open days' here as a kid. Note again, the lack of a roundabout.

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Guest Ernie

Prior to the site being a garage/filling station, I can remember it being a forge in the early fifties. I believe there were two hammers; a three ton, and a thirty hundredweight.

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Guest tsavo

Sorry CDS, the pictures were a victim to our first change of server, when quite a few pictures disappeared into the WW Wherever. Will ask Djone if he is able to repost them.

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The forge that you mentioned above was the Joseph C Allen Forge. Joseph was my g grandfather. He married Sarah Hill, daughter of James Hill, miller of Attercliffe. Sarah and Joseph died within a few months of each other in 1924. They were obviously so very much in love.

Sarah Hill's grandfather, George, was a member of the inaugural Sheffield Town Council (elected with 99 votes in 1843 to represent Attercliffe). My grandfather, Charles Edmund Allen, managed the forge with his brothers until Charles died in December 1954 - the forge was then sold to Law Brothers, although the gossip in the family was that there was some funny business surrounding the sale. It may have been just sour grapes that they lost chance to realise the full value of all of the assets and the order book.

I remember the forge, although I was only six when it closed. I recall the hammers; the office; and the stream running through the forge. I have confirmed my recollections only in recent years, after I met for the first time one of my elderly cousins, a niece of my grandparents. I remember my grandfather quite well too. I am the double of Charles. I have photos of my grandparents.

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Thanks for the comment. Today, I have found a lot of photos of Leppings Lane (including the forge) on the Sheffield Local Libraries web site at http://www.picturesheffield.com/database.html

Stuart

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