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The Park and Sheffield's Ancient Parks


Stuart0742

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I know nothing of these ancient parks of Sheffield, but mention has been made in the Parks A - Z,

What do we know of these parks.

Richard mentions "The Park"

Gramps mentions "...Shirecliffe, Loxley Chase and Rivelin Chase"

What and where were these Parks, is there a map?

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Guest Jeremy

There's quite a lot of information in the annotations in this book:

Sheffield Park: a descriptive poem, by John Holland, 1859

Google Books link (if US only I can send the PDF to those that want it)

Jeremy

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Guest Gramps

As I understand it, most the area on this map form 1832 that is called 'Sheffield Township' and is to east of the River Sheaf is what would have been The Park.

Jeremy

I think that would be about right. The NW boundary of the park was roughly the line of Myrtle road, Bramall lane, Porter street, Union street, Norfolk street...down to the Sheaf..along to the Don then eastwards along the Don to Washford bridge. There was a park 'gate' at the bottom of Bacon lane and a road from there up to the Manor Lodge.

On that map the extent of Shirecliffe manor park is probably what can be seen of Old Park Wood plus a small area of Pitsmoor.

Thank you for the link to the Holland book.

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Guest Gramps

Gramps mentions "...Shirecliffe, Loxley Chase and Rivelin Chase"

What and where were these Parks, is there a map?

The parks and chases were medieval, feudal game preserves. Large areas of the Lord's 'domain' were fenced off to keep the game, usually deer, in and the serfs' domestic cattle and sheep out. the serfs were allowed to let their pigs in at certain times of year because pigs didn't compete with deer for food.

The boundaries of Sheffield and Shirecliffe manor 'parks' are known but those of Loxley and Rivelin chases are a bit hazy. Many of these parks were 'dis-parked' in the 16th and 17th. centuries because the lords of the manors needed the money they could get from renting the land out to farmers and also selling the timber that had grown undisturbed for centuries. Large areas of woodland were turned over to 'coppicing' to meet the growing demand for charcoal and pit-props.

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The parks and chases were medieval, feudal game preserves. Large areas of the Lord's 'domain' were fenced off to keep the game, usually deer, in and the serfs' domestic cattle and sheep out. the serfs were allowed to let their pigs in at certain times of year because pigs didn't compete with deer for food.

The boundaries of Sheffield and Shirecliffe manor 'parks' are known but those of Loxley and Rivelin chases are a bit hazy. Many of these parks were 'dis-parked' in the 16th and 17th. centuries because the lords of the manors needed the money they could get from renting the land out to farmers and also selling the timber that had grown undisturbed for centuries. Large areas of woodland were turned over to 'coppicing' to meet the growing demand for charcoal and pit-props.

As you say Gramps the boundaries of Rivelin Chase are a bit hazy, but it did include the upper part of the Porter Valley and Mayfield Valley as well as what we now call Rivelin.

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Guest Gramps

As you say Gramps the boundaries of Rivelin Chase are a bit hazy, but it did include the upper part of the Porter Valley and Mayfield Valley as well as what we now call Rivelin.

I was mistaken about the chases being fenced, but I finally remembered where I had read about Rivelin Chase.

David Hey in his Historic Hallamshire has this to say about the various chases in Hallamshire and the extent of Rivelin Chase

"The medieval lords of Hallamshire set aside huge tracts of land for the hunting of deer and the grazing of livestock. When the Crown enquired into his privileges in 1281 Thomas de Furnival claimed that he and his ancestors had enjoyed the right to hunt within his lordship since the Norman Conquest. Across the River Sheaf from Sheffield Castle the lords of Hallamshire enclosed 2,461 acres of land into a park and built a hunting lodge on one of its most prominent ridges. In 1637 a thousand deer were said to roam in this park.10 The favoured retainers of the lords enclosed smaller parks at their sub-manors of Ecclesall, Wadsley, Shirecliffe and Cowley or hunted on the moors around Midhope. The lords of Hallamshire also hunted over moorland in their chases at Loxley and in the Rivelin Valley. Chases were larger than parks but were not enclosed by palings. They were a lord's equivalent to a royal forest. Elsewhere in south Yorkshire Wharncliffe Chase and Hatfield Chase are two well-known place-names that survive from the Middle Ages. An alternate name for a chase was firth or frith, as in Chapel-en-le-Frith in the High Peak. Rivelin Chase was sometimes called Rivelin Firth and the adjacent moorland area at the top of Bradfield Dale was still known in 1637 as Hawkesworth Firth.

The chase or firth in the Rivelin Valley covered thousands of acres on the moorland fringes of the parish of Sheffield and the chapelry of Bradfield. John Harrison's survey of the manor in 1637 measured that part of 'Rivelin Firth that lyeth in the parish of Sheffield' at 5,531acres, Stannington woods within Rivelin Firth at 217 acres, and 'the other part of Rivelin Firth lying ... in the parish of Bradfield' at 1,114 acres, making 6,863 acres in all. Near the end of the thirteenth century, in a confirmation of the grazing rights of the inhabitants of Stannington, Moorwood, Hallam and Fulwood within the chase, the boundaries were said to extend from the confluence of the rivers Loxley and the Rivelin at Malin Bridge, towards Bell Hagg and Whiteley Wood, then up the Porter Brook and on to Stanage, and back along 'the common way which leads from Sheffield towards Darwent'. In other words, it included most of the township of Upper Hallam (one of the six townships into which Sheffield parish was divided for purposes of local government) and a large part of the township of Stannington within the chapelry of Bradfield. The 'common way' seems to have headed back east towards Stannington via Moscar (whose name means the 'moss marsh') and Long Lane, the track already mentioned as being the southern boundary of Hawkesworth Firth. The hunting of deer and of hares was only an occasional pastime of the lords, so the right to graze livestock was allowed not only to freeholders and tenants within the bounds of the chase but was rented to other farmers from further afield. In the 1440s, for example, the accounts of Henry Wrasteler, the forester of Rivelin, included 'pasturing-rents for divers plough-cattle on the moor from strangers there'."

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Guest Jeremy

From Hunter's Hallamshire, page 189:

The Park contained, according to Harrison's survey made in 1637, 2461 acres 3 roods and 11 perches, all within a ring-fence of eight miles... ...There were two principal entrances to the park: one at the place still called the Park-gate, near the hospital and opposite to the castle; the other opened upon Gleadleys-moor. The Sheaf flowed through the park. The ancient foot-path from Sheffield to the White-house, and from thence to Heeley, passed under the paling. Near Newfield-green is some old walling that seems to have been part of the ancient inclosure. It would appear from the manner in which it is laid down in the old maps of Yorkshire, that the park extended beyond the limits of the parish of Sheffield towards Gleadleys and Hansworth. The boundary of the township of Attercliffe-cum-Darnall we may safely assume as its ancient limits on that side.

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Guest Gramps

Scurfield has a good map of the Park, but he names only one 'Parke Gate' - the one at the bottom of Bacon lane near Washford Bridge. There is a 'Keepers Lodge' on the south east boundary at the top of Hurfield hill close to Buck Wood. I imagine this is the gate from Gleadless moor (known these days as Gleadless Common). Quite possibly Hurlfield House stands on the site of the old lodge.

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Guest Jeremy

R.E. Leader is a bit more specific about the location of 'Park Gate':

The Sheffield people, both before and after the civil wars, had got into the habit of avoiding this toilsome route by going through the Park—over Sheaf Bridge (at the bottom of Dixon Lane) in at the Park gate (where now is the junction of Broad Street and South Street), and out, by a line represented by the present Cricket Inn Road, at another gate on Gleadless Moor.

(Sheffield, in the Eighteenth Century, p. 95)

Based on our old OS maps, that puts it at around about grid ref SK 3605 8754, or roughly the green arrow on this google map.

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Guest Gramps

Sorry Jeremy - what I should have said was that Scurfield's map shows another Park Gate not mentioned by Hunter....or Leader as far as I know (but I haven't looked it up). The gate at Bacon lane would allow access to the park and the Manor to and from Attercliffe and Rotherham etc. without needing to detour via Sheffield. Part of the the old 'road' from this gate to the Manor is still in use as Manor lane and is linked to Cricket Inn road.

Fairbank's map of 1795 shows this pretty well.

There was also a 'Keepers Lodge' on the Darnall boundary at the top of Acres Hill which probably indicates the presence of a gate into the park from the Darnall township, and the track from Boardmans bridge up to Heeley Green, part of which became East Bank road, suggests other, unrecorded, gates and a shortcut across the park.

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