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Brightside


dunsbyowl1867

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I have always been very fond of Brightside. My Grandparents lived there for many years as we did until I was five and I have nothing but happy memories including falling to sleep to the noise of the heavy hammers ringing out in the Don Valley below.

From 'Old Sheffield Town' by J. Edward Vickers

Brightside means 'Brik's ploughed land' and is a very ancient village. In the time of Henry VI the name was written as Brekesherth, for in a deed of that time Thomas de Furnival gave to the monks of Worksop 5 marks yearly 'from his mill in Brekesherth'. Also at this date, John Brekesherd was a plaintiff repecting lands in Sheffield, Kimberworth, Tinsley and Brinsforth(Brincliffe). In another deed during the reignof Elizabeth I, Brightside was written as Brixard.

The Brightside Byerlow, which included Brightside, Pitsmoor and Crabtree, had just 822 houses in 1796 and a population of 2,186. However most of the people lived quite near to Sheffield in the Wicker and Bridgehouses area.

The Duke of Norfolk was Lord of the manor and in 1860 Brightside was recorded as being 'a considerable village, pleasantly situated on the banks of the Don, about 2 1/4 miles E.N.E. of Sheffield. The maufacture of steel, forks, etc are the principal trades carried on here'

The church of St Thomas was opened in 1854 on a site of land given by the Earl Fitzwilliam, and a small school was built midway between Grimesthorpe and Brightside in 1802. The school held a total of 65 children and was built on land given by the Duke of Norfolk. Later in 1880 Brightside Council School was opened.

Brightside today is far from 'bright'. It is mostly industrial and a huge railway good marshalling yard covers a large area of what was once agricultural land'

Brightside in 1902

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Churches & Chapels

The original parish church of St. Thomas at Grimesthorpe - now home to a circus!

Church of St Margaret, Jenkin Road

Dearne Street Weslyan Chapel

( I think this wa the Sunday School Building)

Jenkin Road Methodist Chapel

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Brightside Council School

Attended by various members of my family including my Great Grandfather (found on Sheffield Indexers Site) naughty lad!

Bennett, Albert (Student, dob 2 May 1880).

Parent or guardian name(s): Joseph (~), of 231 Alfred Rd.

Admitted to Brightside Boys School, Brightside, as of 22 Oct 1890,

until ~, reason for leaving: Truant Mother shields him. Previously attended Newhall

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Brightside Railway Station

Brightside railway station

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brightside railway station in early 2004Brightside railway station was a railway station in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The station served the communities of Brightside and Wincobank and was situated on the Midland Main Line on Holywell Road, lying between Attercliffe Road and Holmes Station.

The station opened in 1838, at the same time as the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway from Wicker Station and had two platforms although four tracks went through. The two outside tracks were for freight use whilst the two inside tracks were used by both stopping and express trains.

Despite the opening of Meadowhall Interchange in 1990, the station remained open until 1993. A limited service had continued in its last three years and the station closed without fanfare with a poster announcing that all remaining trains could be caught at Meadowhall.

The standard South Yorkshire style bus shelter that had replaced the station buildings by the early 1980s was removed in early 2006. A footbridge spans across the three remaining tracks and both sets of stairs to the platforms are boarded.

The footbridge remains open as it serves as a footpath from the bottom of Dearne Street to Station Lane steps.

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The River Don at Brightside

Path by the river

5 Wiers walk entrance

Bridge at the bottom of jenkin Road

Brightside Wier

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It was certainly rural in 1795...

...no pubs marked, but there will have been one - thirsty work in the mills and forges ;-)

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It was certainly rural in 1795...

...no pubs marked, but there will have been one - thirsty work in the mills and forges ;-)

Earliest I can find is Old White Swan (1854), I suggest Beerhouses would have been plentiful lol

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The Brightness Of Brightside lol

Vickers Maxim Works, 1920's

Thanks Steve, Excellent image. There can't have been a more inappropriately named place?

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The Brightness Of Brightside lol

Vickers Maxim Works, 1920's

Ahhhhh, the long days of summer.

My sister who lived in a one up, one down on Dunlop Street (1969) still talks of washing day on Mondays, when the air would be heavy with bright orange soot and smoke from the nearby works.

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I have one of the old OS maps of Brightside like the one posted here.

As I travel on Tyler st everyday on my way to work, I wondered if any one knew when Tyler st was extended past the bottom of Laughton road to where it meets Barrow rd.

The turn of the 20thC OS maps have it stopping at Laughton rd and then what looks like a path or trackway continuing along the line of the present road.

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Churches & Chapels

The original parish church of St. Thomas at Grimesthorpe - now home to a circus!

Church of St Margaret, Jenkin Road

Dearne Street Weslyan Chapel

( I think this wa the Sunday School Building)

Jenkin Road Methodist Chapel

Another shot of Dearne Street Chapel and the ornate foundation stones inscriptions

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I have always been very fond of Brightside. My Grandparents lived there for many years as we did until I was five and I have nothing but happy memories including falling to sleep to the noise of the heavy hammers ringing out in the Don Valley below.

Hey Dunsbyowl, just noticed that your picture of the Brightside steam hammer is in colour, yet in the SheffieldHistory 2009 calendar, where it appears both on the front cover and as "February" it is only in black & white. Has SteveHB not used your colour print from here or is there some other reason for its reduction to monochrome? Olde worlde atmospheric effects perhaps?

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Hey Dunsbyowl, just noticed that your picture of the Brightside steam hammer is in colour, yet in the SheffieldHistory 2009 calendar, where it appears both on the front cover and as "February" it is only in black & white. Has SteveHB not used your colour print from here or is there some other reason for its reduction to monochrome? Olde worlde atmospheric effects perhaps?

Some sort of photographic neo-luddism I imagine ;-)

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from the Hall of Waltheof by SO Addy postered elsewhere by Jeremy (thanks)

XXVI. Brightside

I deny the fact of 'corruption' in language except by way of forcible and intentional substitution, which only takes place when an attempt is made to give a thing a new sense.—Professor Skeat in Notes and Queries, 8th S. iii, 410.

If ever a place did not deserve its name one would say that Brightside did not deserve to be so called. But this smoke-clouded region, in which so much money is earned and so much squalor is found, wore a very different aspect once. The happy fields there sloped to the south, and because it lay on the sunny side of the hill the land was called "bright side." In common with others I once thought otherwise, but this is one of the many instances which prove that place-names are not "corrupt" in form. When we fail to understand a local name, or when we cannot enter into the thoughts of the men who gave it, it is an easy way out of the difficulty to say that the word is "corrupt," and that we cannot explain it unless we know how it was spelt in a charter more than a thousand years old. As Professor Skeat puts it "corruption" only arises from "forcible and intentional substitution," as when the ignorant make Salter lane into Psalter lane.

Owing to a mistake made by Hunter everybody seems to have gone wrong about this simple word. He identified Brightside with an adjacent place known in old documents as Brekesherth.[1] But this is not the same place as Brightside, for in 1574 "lands in Brekesherth, Sheffield, and Bryghtsyde"[2] are mentioned. Brightside then is not a "corruption" of something else; it is exactly what it pretends to be.

Our ancestors knew quite as well as we know what land got the most sunlight, and they knew that the bright side of a hill would produce earlier and better crops, and be a wholesomer place to live in, than the dark side. It is natural therefore that their field-names should here and there express this difference in the quality of the land. Let me take one or two examples of such names. I find a field called Sunning Wells at Bolsover in Derbyshire, and a field called Blind Wells at Brinsworth, near Rotherham. Now here the word "wells" is the Old Norse völlr, a field, so that Sunning Wells[3] are the fields to the south, and Blind[4] Wells are the dark or sunless fields, just as a "blind lane" formerly meant a dark lane. There is a field at Totley near Sheffield called Sunfield which slopes to the south, and a field in Holmesfield bore the same name.[5] That the Norsemen sometimes chose their local names with reference to the sunlight may be seen in such a name as Sól-heimar, Sun-ham, Sunnyside, which is frequently used in the Landnáma Bók.

I think the same idea is expressed in such local names as Gold Hill and Silver Hill. Silver Hill at Ecclesall is merely the name of a tract of ground which slopes to the south and gets plenty of sun; it is not the name of a mountainous elevation. And the same may be said of Gold Hill and Gold Green at Fulwood. These local names will be found in many parts of England; for instance there is a Gold Hill in Nottinghamshire. It will be found, I believe, that all these places slope to the south. In the vivid imagination of our forefathers lands which faced the sun may well have been compared to gold and silver, and what happier or more fitting description could there be? It has occasionally been wrongly guessed that these names have arisen from the discovery of gold or silver coins. This was the case at Halton Chesters, a station or camp on the Roman Wall. "The part of the station," says Dr. Bruce, "which is to the south of the road has a gentle slope and a fair exposure to the sun. It is known by the name of the Chesters; in Horsley's day it had the additional designation of Silverhill, no doubt from the discovery, on some occasion, of a number of denarii in it."[6] It was "exposure to the sun," and not the discovery of silver coins, which gave rise to the name.

Footnotes

[1] Hunter's Hallamshire, p. 226, citing a document of the year 1328.

[2] Yorkshire Fines, vol ii, p. 47. The word cannot of course be derived from the surname Bright, though an opulent family of that name had land in the neighbourhood.

[3] O. N. sunnan-vellir. The g in Sunning is excrescent or interpretative.

[4] O. N. blind, dark.

[5] Holmesfield Court Rolls (Derbyshire): MS. in Sheffield Free Library I find Sunny Bank in Bradfield in a deed dated 1724.

[6] Handbook of the Roman Wall. 1885, p. 62.

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On the other hand A. H. Smith in his Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire,1961 has this to say of Brightside.

Goodall 85 (followed by Ekwall, DEPN), on the evidence of the 1574 form (Brekesherth & Bryghtsyde), holds that the earlier Brikes-herth is not identical with Brightside. But the Feet of Fines in this period frequently give an older and a modern form, sometimes several variants of the same name; the other forms cited also from FF clearly show that the 1574 form merely has et instead of the usual alias; it is also remarkable that Brekesherth should cease to occur in documents just about the period when Brightside first comes into use. The identity seems unquestionable, and Brightside is merely an attempt to make something intelligible of an unintelligible name.

And David Hey, in Historic Hallamshire, 2002...

The most spectacular change in Hallamshire was from Brekesherth to Brightside. The earliest recorded spelling of the place was Brichesherd in the 1170s but the name was written in numerous ways before it changed to Brightside during the sixteenth century, for it was difficult to pronounce and spell. It is far from clear what the name means, but the first element may be an Old English personal name and the second seems to denote a smith's hearth. The change to Brightside appears to have been an attempt to make sense of an old name whose meaning was no longer apparent. In 1587 the place was described as Brixharth alias Brightsyde. The modern form of the name gradually became accepted and during the seventeenth century the old one disappeared.

Addy is the least convincing when he has a bee in his bonnet. :)

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Brightside (S9)

(With thanks to Peter Harvey’s Street Names of Sheffield)

Amos Street

Probably after Amos Moss who was involved in several freehold land and building societies in the 19th Century. He was a law clerk and lived at Sheaf Gardens.

Bubwith Road

After the village of Bubwith on Humberside.

Burslem Street

Became Holywell Road in 1931 when presumably the road to Grimesthorpe was created?

Dearne Street

After the River Dearne which starts near Hoylandswaine , wends its way round Barnsley and joins the Don east of Mexborough.

Eben Street

Originally called Ebenezer Street but was shortened in 1871 to prevent confusion with Ebenezer Place in Shalesmoor.

Hawley Street

Changed to Hayland Street in 1903.

Jenkin Road

From Jenkin or Ginkin Lane mentioned by Harrison in 1637. Maybe taken from the name of someone who lived in the area. Addy suggests this is unlikely as the name is not common to the Shefffield Area. Addy suggested that the name may come from ‘John@ and Jinkin Hill might be the hill down which the fire wheel was rolled down on St John’s Eve.

Laughton Road

Named after a place called ‘Laughton’ Built with Bubwith Road and Walling (both on Humberside) but Harvey couldn’t find a village of that name there

Limpsfield Road

Built on land owned by Mrs Alice Barry – daughter of a Sheffield merchant, Henry Greaves Walker. Mrs Barry gave a nearby Recreation ground to the city in 1898 – she lived near Limpsfield in Surrey.

Lincoln Street

Originally called Thomas Street but changed in 1886 to avoid confusion with others. Name from the city of Lincoln.

Oxted Road

Built on land owned by Mrs Alice Barry – daughter of a Sheffield merchant, Henry Greaves Walker. Mrs Barry lived in Oxted in Surrey.

Sanderson Road

Named after John Sanderson ? of Sanderson Brothers & Co.

Sandstone Road/Close/Drive/Road

From the old Sandstone Quarries on Wincobank Hill. In the 1850s James Wilkinson was the quarry owner.

Shaw Street

After George Sahw who farmed in Brightside in the 18702. His farm was sold as building land in 1876.

Stupton Street

Origin unknown. Built for Mrs Alice Barry of Oxted.

Tipton Street

Originally called George Street. Changed in 1886. From a town in Staffordshire.

Tyler Street/Way

Unkown. On maps in 1860s. Numerous Tylers in Sheffield.

Walling Road

From Walling Fen on Humberside.

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Guest Old Canny Street Kid

Brightside (S9)

(With thanks to Peter Harvey’s Street Names of Sheffield)

Amos Street

Probably after Amos Moss who was involved in several freehold land and building societies in the 19th Century. He was a law clerk and lived at Sheaf Gardens.

Bubwith Road

After the village of Bubwith on Humberside.

Burslem Street

Became Holywell Road in 1931 when presumably the road to Grimesthorpe was created?

Dearne Street

After the River Dearne which starts near Hoylandswaine , wends its way round Barnsley and joins the Don east of Mexborough.

Eben Street

Originally called Ebenezer Street but was shortened in 1871 to prevent confusion with Ebenezer Place in Shalesmoor.

Hawley Street

Changed to Hayland Street in 1903.

Jenkin Road

From Jenkin or Ginkin Lane mentioned by Harrison in 1637. Maybe taken from the name of someone who lived in the area. Addy suggests this is unlikely as the name is not common to the Shefffield Area. Addy suggested that the name may come from ‘John@ and Jinkin Hill might be the hill down which the fire wheel was rolled down on St John’s Eve.

Laughton Road

Named after a place called ‘Laughton’ Built with Bubwith Road and Walling (both on Humberside) but Harvey couldn’t find a village of that name there

Limpsfield Road

Built on land owned by Mrs Alice Barry – daughter of a Sheffield merchant, Henry Greaves Walker. Mrs Barry gave a nearby Recreation ground to the city in 1898 – she lived near Limpsfield in Surrey.

Lincoln Street

Originally called Thomas Street but changed in 1886 to avoid confusion with others. Name from the city of Lincoln.

Oxted Road

Built on land owned by Mrs Alice Barry – daughter of a Sheffield merchant, Henry Greaves Walker. Mrs Barry lived in Oxted in Surrey.

Sanderson Road

Named after John Sanderson ? of Sanderson Brothers & Co.

Sandstone Road/Close/Drive/Road

From the old Sandstone Quarries on Wincobank Hill. In the 1850s James Wilkinson was the quarry owner.

Shaw Street

After George Sahw who farmed in Brightside in the 18702. His farm was sold as building land in 1876.

Stupton Street

Origin unknown. Built for Mrs Alice Barry of Oxted.

Tipton Street

Originally called George Street. Changed in 1886. From a town in Staffordshire.

Tyler Street/Way

Unkown. On maps in 1860s. Numerous Tylers in Sheffield.

Walling Road

From Walling Fen on Humberside.

Anyone know how Paget Street (off Newhall Road) got its name?

By the way, on the subject of the Brightside area, elsewhere there is a thread re the Sheffield artist Peter Owen Jones. One of POJ's pictures that I find especially evocative featues the old Brightside tram terminus. What a picture! How I would love to have a print or postcard of this!

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Pubs of Brightside

The Railway

The Rising Sun

The Crown

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/pi...ff.refno=c01743

The Forum, Sanstone road

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/pi...ff.refno=t00275

sad to see the rising sun is no longer open my great grandma and great grandfather use to run it in the 30's and 40's. my dad roger and his and dad stan were long time regulars there for decades they lived on tipton street.

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