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The Hall of Waltheof


Guest Jeremy

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A very interesting read Jeremy, thanks for all your hard work. Thought you might like to see the 1850s map of the Hall Park area.

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Thought you might like to see the 1850s map of the Hall Park area.

Thanks Gramps. I took the liberty of overlaying the 1854 map on to a modern satellite photo and marking the places mentioned by Addy in the final chapter.

Jeremy

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Thanks Gramps. I took the liberty of overlaying the 1854 map on to a modern satellite photo and marking the places mentioned by Addy in the final chapter.

Jeremy

That puts the area nicely into a modern context, - neat work.

We can perhaps smile at Addy's assertion that here was a 'Roman Villa', but a Roman army pensioner's homestead, built of stone, would certainly have been a remarkable feature in the landscape when the Anglo-Saxons/Norsemen moved in and started allocating place-names.

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Interesting stuff

Addy in The Hall of Waltheof says-

William Harrison, in 1637, mentions "the Hawe Park," and tells us that it "lyeth open to Rivelin Firth," and contained severity-four acres.

Anybody any idea how 74 acres would look on the map? Does it fit?

mike

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Interesting stuff

Addy in The Hall of Waltheof says-

William Harrison, in 1637, mentions "the Hawe Park," and tells us that it "lyeth open to Rivelin Firth," and contained severity-four acres

Anybody any idea how 74 acres would look on the map? Does it fit?

mike

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Thats brilliant, just struggling with it, Vox gave 1/10 sq mile that fitted but could not figure out km at all. Rubbish at maths so like the visual thing. I wish I knew how you do it.

So fits well although smaller than I imagined

Just wondering, in more recent times the Halls overlooked the park and deer. This is an early one so not sure what the idea was here. The other question is, how was it enclosed? Also been pondering over the RAILS COMMON?

Have you seen the "Harrison" Rivelin map on Eric Youles site? unable to copy.

Thanks

mike

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Thats brilliant, just struggling with it, Vox gave 1/10 sq mile that fitted but could not figure out km at all. Rubbish at maths so like the visual thing. I wish I knew how you do it.

So fits well although smaller than I imagined

Just wondering, in more recent times the Halls overlooked the park and deer. This is an early one so not sure what the idea was here. The other question is, how was it enclosed? Also been pondering over the RAILS COMMON?

Have you seen the "Harrison" Rivelin map on Eric Youles site? unable to copy.

Thanks

mike

Do you mean the one titled Crookes? The article by Scurfield and the maps are available in the local studies library and can be photocopied.

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No these are entitled "Harrisons maps". I dont imagine he did them but they are interesting. Just looked they show the park a little bigger than we are getting and I think more west?

Its a bit of a bind. I had to join Erics club http://eric01.yobsn.com/#

Then click on Sheffield History box

https://app.box.com/s/zkvj37lr20yhl3ogzx35/1/619149163/5878177575/1

Let me know if this makes sense, it doest to me!

Update - read on a page, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal

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No these are entitled "Harrisons maps". I dont imagine he did them but they are interesting. Just looked they show the park a little bigger than we are getting and I think more west?

Its a bit of a bind. I had to join Erics club http://eric01.yobsn.com/#

Then click on Sheffield History box

https://app.box.com/s/zkvj37lr20yhl3ogzx35/1/619149163/5878177575/1

Let me know if this makes sense, it doest to me!

We're talking about the same maps. He may call them Harrison maps, but they're actually reconstructions by Scurfield. The maps which presumably formed part of Harrison's survey disappeared, leaving just the written lists. Scurfield painstakingly compared these with later maps (I think by Fairbank) and produced these maps. The resulting article and maps were published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. The series of maps covers the whole of the then manor of Sheffield. The numbers in the field refer to the schedule in the original survey, which gives the field name and tenant, the size, and the rents payable.

On the map Hawe Park is numbered 1001. In the schedule this appears as;

"1001 Item Hawe Parke lyeth open to Rivelin ffirth but it is at ye pleasure of ye Lord to Inclose it. This peice (sic) lyeth betweene ye Lords Lnds in parte and ye Lands of Wm. Barber in parte East & North & Rivelin ffirth South & abutt & abutt upon ye Lands of John Hoyland West.

This peice is full of excellent Timber of a very great length & very Streight & many of them of a great bigness before you come to a Knott in So much that it hath been said by Travellers that they have not seene such Timber in Cristendane. This peice cont, 73ac - 00rood - 00 perch.

Item Little Hawe Park with Timber in it which lyeth now as Common but it may be Inclosed at ye lords pleasure. This piece lyeth betweene ye Racker way in parte and ye Lords Lands in ye use of Edward Greaves Senior in parte North and in parte South & Henry Crapper in parte & ye Lands of Wm. Barber in parte South & cont. 3ac - 00 rood - 31 perch."

It's this detail that Scurfield used to identify each field in the schedule.

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Thanks very much help for clarification, I will go down and get a copy. Then a field trip I think

I did some research on Wortley Park years ago, Ha Ha,s and so on. They still have a Pales Lane which is why I was wondering about "Rails".

When the deer were removed to Wharncliffe (C1649) they were enclosed by a high wall and the rest with some pales, I reckon.

I wonder if the Hall Park was short lived, hence few records.

Anyone know anything about the "Hall Cliff" ruins on the Riggs? or current Hall Cliff? Whats the connection with Stannington Hall if any?

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Thanks very much help for clarification, I will go down and get a copy. Then a field trip I think

I did some research on Wortley Park years ago, Ha Ha,s and so on. They still have a Pales Lane which is why I was wondering about "Rails".

When the deer were removed to Wharncliffe (C1649) they were enclosed by a high wall and the rest with some pales, I reckon.

I wonder if the Hall Park was short lived, hence few records.

Anyone know anything about the "Hall Cliff" ruins on the Riggs? or current Hall Cliff? Whats the connection with Stannington Hall if any?

According to Peter Harvey's book, rails Road gets its name from an adjacent field called the Rails, and the dictionary of English Field Names gives the origin of Rails as a field name as a piece of land enclosed by a rail fence. The Harrison survey has a field called the Rayles which is on the edge of the great Park, overlooking the Sheaf at Heeley.

The schedule describes it as "A close of pasture and arable divided, called ye Rayles, lying in Sheffield, next unto Heeley Side.... in this close standeth a keepers lodge wherein James Wardlow dwelleth who hath ye same lodge without any land in regard of his office, being one of the Parke Keepers." The area was just over 48 acres.

Which raises the question I suppose of whether the land was called the Rails because it had a rail fence; or were the rails the actual park fence and the land got its name because it was on the edge of the park next to the rails; or possibly both? The Rayles mentioned above was obviously agricultural, so it must have been fenced off from the rest of the park even though it was within the Park boundary.

Good luck!

(PS there's a copy of the survey available for loan in the Central Lending Library)

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Wow thats great, I suspected something like that but could not find any definition or precedent as you have done.

I found some examples of rail fence for deer but I dont think it was usual because of the height required.

There is a case of someone "breaking into the Deer Forest" at Rivelin (I need to find it again) As someone said earlier, Deer forests were not usually enclosed but perhaps there was in places a fence in order to deter people, a demarcation. Rails road? although it was called Rivelin Mill Road before. Just some ideas.

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The entry in Harrison does specifically say that the Park was "open to Rivelin ffirth", so at the time wasn't fenced. However he does also say that

"it is at ye pleasure of ye Lord to Inclose it." The new Lord of the Manor, unlike his predecessors, didn't make Sheffield his home, and the timber in Rivelin which must have been very valuable was soon cut down and sold, so maybe once the chase wasn't needed as a hunting ground he did indeed Inclose it?

There were times when deer would be herded and confined for slaughter. There was a tradition in Sheffield of the Shrewsbury lords of the Manor on special occasions allowing a number of deer in the Park to be killed and distributed to the local people. This was done by herding deer into an enclosure to be killed. So perhaps an enclosure within a chase was not unusual?

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I think I read this bit wrong , "it is at ye pleasure of ye Lord to Inclose it". I thought , to enclose for agriculture

I am having difficulty thinking about a park without an enclosure and full of trees. (more like a chase?) I think it was the Normans who were keen on deer parks. I am also possibly thinking of the more "modern ones". I will have to dig out my books on the subject.

I understood there was at one time a park and chase at Wortley-Wharncliffe. David Hey wrote somewhere that there was a "Deer Leap" a known device whereby deer could jump into the park but could not get out! However I could not discover where he found that information.

Had a look brief look around the Manor House area and looked at the "Park". Remarkable to think the land as not been developed. A very picturesque spot with a great view and I did notice an ample water supply and springs at the Manor.

More work needed.

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Much of the Mayfield and Porter Valleys was part of Rivelin Firth, and at the very top of the Porter Valley there's a spot whose original name was Bucktrap, which is supposed to be the same as the Deer Leap you mentioned.

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Extract from legendarydartmoor.co.uk

"The deer park would have been encompassed both a large earthen bank with either a wooden pale or hedge on the top, or in some cases a stone wall would be substituted. These became known as deer leaps or on Dartmoor as leapyeats and the whole purpose of their design was to allow deer to enter the park but to prevent them from escaping. This was achieved by creating an inward facing scarp which allowed the deer to jump into the park and meant that the rise from inside was too steep to allow them to jump out as can be seen below.

In some documents the deer-leap was referred to as a saltatorium or saltory which meant a pit fall,"

legendarydartmoor.co.uk

Picture of a possible deer leap at Boughton Park

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Before 1066 in England it was possible to hunt Deer under the old tradition and idea introduced by the Romans that game belonged to the man that killed it. However just before 1066 that idea was losing ground with the Saxons. For down in Essex the first recorded park in England was introduce in Ongar. With the Norman invasion, each Lord was given land as a reward. Now because they had borders to this land with the next piece linked to another Lord, it became all about who owned what. With everything on that piece of land belonging to the Lord who owned it. That included the free roaming Deer. Now because Deer do free roam and because the Normans were obsessed with hunting, they quickly built parks. By the time of Doomsday Book 35 parks are recorded in England at least.

Because parks are managed, including using Holly to feed Deer in the winter, park Deer become bigger than wild Deer. Hence why you often find places called "Hollin" near Parks. Since only the Lord was allowed to kill the Deer, because he owned the land they were on, he could not go into another Lord's lands without his consent to hunt. So the solution was to make a device called a Deer Leap which allowed the Deer in another Lord's lands to jump freely into his Park, but not let it out.

Obviously the more Deer you had meant the more wealthier you were. So Deer Leaps were really a way to increase your wealth without paying for the cost of adding Deer to your Park. It follows that such devices were only found on estate boundaries, or possibly next to areas of common land, where wild Deer might still roam.

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I don't know if this adds anything useful;

If you’re going into Local Studies to look up the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal for the maps, you might like to have a look at the same journal, volume 4 p109-20, there’s an article by David Hey on the development of the Parks at Tankersley and Wortley.

There’s a collection of essays entitled “The Mediaeval Park; new perspectives,” edited by Robert Liddiard, which has an article by Stephen Moorhouse , “ The medieval parks of Yorkshire: Function, Contents and Chronology”, which contains the following;

“The most obvious feature of the medieval park was that which defined its shape, the park pale. As surviving earthworks they normally appear as banks with a broad internal ditch. The documents demonstrate that , when in use, the banks would be surmounted by a quickset hedge, timber palisade, or stone wall, or some combination of these, depending on geography.

The ‘costs of the park’ section of annual manorial accounts often record detailed repairs to the pale. Timber palisades appear to have been composed of a number of timber features, each having its own terminology. Parts of the pale could have a double boundary, while different forms of construction in timber, quickset and stone could occur around the same short stretch.

Deer leaps were common on park boundaries, allowing deer to jump into the park or its woodland, but not out. Their creation was strictly controlled. Illegal leaps were created by lords who wished to encourage animals into their parks to increase herds ((Cox, J.C., Royal Forests of England, 1905). Expenditure on their construction, repair and demise provide details of their form while minor place-names and field names help locate them on the ground. A number of different forms are recorded. Repairs to a leap on the boundary of Wakefield Outwood in 1391 suggests two parallel barriers, while at Blandsby Park, Pickering, some 50 feet of hedging was used to stop up an old leap.

While names can help locate deer leaps, they have to be used with caution. The name Hynderlopehyll meaning ‘female deer leap hill’ occurs in Thorp Arch about 1230, where there is a well-documented park. The name ‘Hinderlaps’ occurs in the list of field names in Thorp Arch’s tithe award, but examination of the Thorp Arch tithe award map shows that the name lies near the Wetherby township boundary, and does not relate to the Thorp Arck Park, but to the Wetherby Park, which lay adjacent to the Thorp Arch boundary in the area of the modern Wetherby Racecourse.”

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