City of Hallam

[RichardB]

A.D. 1075.

King William, put it out of the power of the Hallamshire men either to rise themselves

or prepare arms for others, determined to lay that part

of the country waste, as he had done the North of

Yorkshire, hiding his purpose under the pretence that his

severity was a punishment for, and in consequence of,

the conspiracy entered into by Waltheof.

He therefore sent a strong force of Normans to destroy Hallamshire

with fire and sword, giving orders that all who made

resistance should be put to death, without sparing age

or sex.

The city of Hallam, with Earl Waltheof’s hall, was razed to the ground, and the wretched

inhabitants compelled to carry the ruins away, that it

might never be said,

"Here stood once the city of Hallam."

Nor was Sheffield spared. The church and priory were destroyed, and the endowment given to a

monastery in Normandy ; every house in the town was destroyed, except a few poor cottages of the poor

vassals. An edict was issued that Hallam should not be re-built, nor ironworks be wrought, nor the inhabitants

be suffered to settle as owners or possessors, on pain of the King’s displeasure.

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The last paragraph infers that there was a City

of Hallam apart altogether from the town of Sheffield.

The Manor of Hallam was, during part of the time

related above, occupied by Earl Waltheof, who was

the last Saxon Lord of the Manor of Hallam.

It may also be said that originally Sheffield was one of the

berewitce (or appendages) of Hallam, but in 1050 a

decree of independence was granted, and it then became

the little capital of a very small manor to which it gave

name.

- SHEFFIELD WEEKLY NEWS

Guide to Sheffield 1903