The Mannor of Sheffield

[Bayleaf]

In 1637 the Earl of Arundel and Surrey commissioned a survey of his newly inherited Manor of Sheffield, which included this description:

(Spellings are as in the original!)

The Description of the Manor of Sheffield

This Mannor of Sheffield is a very large & spacious Mannor, which in times past did belong to the Right Honourable family of the Shrewsburys, & lyeth in the County & Diocese of Yorke, & in Stafford hundred and extendeth in length Eighteen Miles from the East side of Sheffield Parke that lyeth next unto ye Mannor of Handsworth unto the farthest end of Holden ffarme which reacheth unto the border of Glossop Dale which is another Mannor of ye Lord of this Mannor & containeth in breadth Eight miles and a halfe from ye Northside of Highgreene ffarme that lyeth next unto ye Lordships of Wortley and Tankersley unto Messebrooke next Derbyshire being the Southside of Heeley: but the liberty of this Mannor extendeth itself farther: even throughout all Hallamshire.

Within this Mannor is kept a Court Barron once every three weekes & a Court Leet twice every yeare, whereof ye Chiefest Court is kept upon every Easter Tuesday (which is there called Sembly Tuesday), at which Court there are six Juryes impanelled, one for Sheffield Towne, one for the soake of Sheffield, one for Handsworth, one for the soake of Southall, one for the soake of Ecclesfield, and one Jurye also for the soake of Bradfield.

Then this Court is always adjourned until ye Thursday after, on which day there are foure Juryes more sworne for every soake a Jury & alsoe a fifth Jury of 24 men if occasion serveth; you see then that this Mannor is & hath been anciently divided into four soakes, viz: The soake of Sheffield (which also containeth Sheffield Town & Handsworth), ye soake of Southall, ye soake of Ecclesfield, & ye soake of Bradfield, & according to these four soakes will I divide this Survey booke, but first of all I will expresse Sheffield Castle & ye parke which is a free liberty of itself.

I cannot here omit a Royalty that this Mannor hath above other Mannors, yt is upon every Sembly Tuesday aforesaid, is assembled upon Sembly green, where the Court is kept, & neare unto the Castle, at ye least one hundred thirty nine horsemen, with horse and harness provided by ye free Holders, Coppy Holders & other Tenants, & to appear before the Lord of this Mannor or ye Steward of his Courts to be viewed by them, and for ye confirmeing of ye Peace of our Soveraigne Lord the King.

There are two markets weekly at Sheffield, whereof the chiefest is upon Tuesday & the other upon Thursday, there are also to faires every yeare, ye one is kept upon Tuesday after Trinity Sunday, & ye other is on ye 17th of November.

Within this Mannor is a spacious parke being about eight miles in Compase, and conteyneth by measure according to yr Statute, 2461 acres, three roods, & eleven and 3 tenth perches, about ye middest thereof is a faire house called the Lodge, very pleasantly scituated upon a hill and in good ayre.

This parke is very well adorn’d with great stors of very Stately Timber and not meanly furnished with fallow Deare, the number of them at this present is one Thousand, whereof Deare of Auntler is two hundred, if you look into the bowels of this Parke, you shall find ye inside correspondent to the outside, being stored with very good coales and Iron stone in abundance.

SHEFFIELD TOWN is situated close unto the Parke & an ancient ffaire castle thereto adjoyning mounted upon a little hill, & at the fot thereof are two Rivers meeting together, but ye River of Doune drowns the name of ye other River called ye Sheath, beside these two Rivers there are other Rivers called the Porter Water, Loxley Water & Riveling Water with other small Rivers and brookes.

These Rivers are very profitable unto ye Lord in regard of the Mills & Cutler wheeles that are turned by theire streams, which weeles are imployed for the grinding of knives by four or five hundred Master Workmen that gives several marks.

There are alsoe within this Mannor very stately Timber especially in Hawe Parke, which for both straitnesse & bignesse there is not ye like in any place that you can heare of being in length about 60 foot before you come to a knot or a bow, & many of them are two ffathams & some two ffathams and a half about & they grow out of such a Rocher of stone that you would hardly thinke there were earth enough to nourish the rootes of ye said trees.

Alsoe there are within this Mannor good stones for building, & slate stones for tyling or slateing of houses, & course grinding stones for knives abd acithes, & alsoe very good Millnstones are hewen out in Rivelin or stone edge, there is like wise very good clay for pots & bricks.

This Mannor is not onely profitable, but for pleasure alsoe, being furnished with red Deare & ffallow , with hares & some Rowes, with Phesants & great store of Partridges, and moore Game in abundance bith black and red, as moore Cockes, moore Hens & young pootes upon ye moores, as also Mallard, Teale, Hearnshewes & Plover, ye chiefest fishing within this Mannor is in ye River that passeth through the same, wherein are great store of Salmon, Trouts, Chevens, Eles, and other small fish.

There may be within this Mannor raised iron worke which would afford unto ye Lord (as is thought) a thousand pounds yearly & all charges discharged & for ye Maintaineing of this worke, there are within this 2 thousand acres of wood and timber (beside Sheffeild Parke) whereof there are above 16 hundred acres of spring woods besides great store of old trees fit for noe other purpose but for ye makeing of Charkehole. All those things considered ( with many more of which for brevity sake I omit) this Mannor is not inferior to any Mannor in England as I suppose.

[SteveHB]

Thank you Bayleaf,

interesting reading but to me it seems to be a mixture of old English and modern day lingo?

Heeley would have been 'High Ley' at that time.

What are Hearnshewes (Mallard, Teale, Hearnshewes & Plover) ?

never come across that before,

I do have an idea but it would be a pure guess.

Steve

[Bayleaf]

Thank you Bayleaf,

interesting reading but to me it seems to be a mixture of old English and modern day lingo?

Heeley would have been 'High Ley' at that time.

What are Hearnshewes (Mallard, Teale, Hearnshewes & Plover) ?

never come across that before,

I do have an idea but it would be a pure guess.

Steve

Hi Steve

I've a vague recollection it's an old word for herons, but I may be wrong.

As regards the language; I take your point. I've copied it letter for letter from the transcription made by JG Ronksley, published in 1908, which Leader in his introduction calls 'a faithful transcript'. 'Ye' is transcribed as y with a superscript e, as the original would have it. likewise he uses 'ff' instead of 'F' , which again would be as in the original. There are inconsistencies in the spelling of some words, which I've kept, and the capitalisation of some letters would suggest copying from the original. Maybe the mixture is indicative of a time when the language was undergoing change, as it has over history?

[SteveHB]

Hi Steve

I've a vague recollection it's an old word for herons, but I may be wrong.

As regards the language; I take your point. I've copied it letter for letter from the transcription made by JG Ronksley, published in 1908, which Leader in his introduction calls 'a faithful transcript'. 'Ye' is transcribed as y with a superscript e, as the original would have it. likewise he uses 'ff' instead of 'F' , which again would be as in the original. There are inconsistencies in the spelling of some words, which I've kept, and the capitalisation of some letters would suggest copying from the original. Maybe the mixture is indicative of a time when the language was undergoing change, as it has over history?

Thanks Bayleaf,

and Herons was my guess for Hearnshewes.

I just came across this, another way of spelling it 'HERINSHREW, sb. a heron.