Sheffield History Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Just thought I'd post a picture that I took of the old building down at Malin Bridge that accomodates the water wheel I think the building that's gone used to be Comet, then a restaurant, then a designer clothes shop ?? It's taken from the wall next to the Supper Spot chippy opposite the Yewtree, looking down towards the river across what would have been the carpark I took it yesterday with my phone hence the quality - but interesting to see another building torn down ready for... yep you guessed it - more apartments ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cheekymonkey Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 bloody ell thats changed I remember all the forementioned uses for the building I presume the rest of the building is listed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted March 31, 2007 Author Share Posted March 31, 2007 Yeah totally They've had archeologists down there this week too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrinderBloke Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 I remember going to Comet at Malin Bridge (it was the only Comet in Sheffield at the time) to buy a decent SLR camera, this was before the likes or Jessops & Jacobs took over as the discount camera people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardB Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 I THINK I remember Comet opening there in 1972, used to visit often ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest exmrbd Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 Just thought I'd post a picture that I took of the old building down at Malin Bridge that accomodates the water wheel I think the building that's gone used to be Comet, then a restaurant, then a designer clothes shop ?? It's taken from the wall next to the Supper Spot chippy opposite the Yewtree, looking down towards the river across what would have been the carpark I took it yesterday with my phone hence the quality - but interesting to see another building torn down ready for... yep you guessed it - more apartments ! I was told via the Sheffield Forum web-site that someone was going to put some pictures of this up, look at it this way at least the building will be alive again and hopefully the waterwheel will ge going soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted April 8, 2007 Author Share Posted April 8, 2007 This is true - although I don't think the space in the picture will be there and open as much as it is now The developers have an obligation to resurrect the wheel and get it going again though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest exmrbd Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 This is true - although I don't think the space in the picture will be there and open as much as it is now The developers have an obligation to resurrect the wheel and get it going again though I used to live at Malin Bridge for 23 years ( Now 30y.o) I remember as a kid the waterwheel was working for a few hours on a Sunday, I think this is when comet owned the building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest andy Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 Hi I can remember going to the restaraunt at what used to be comet it was called Charlie Wades or something like that - they did lovely onion bagee starters & good steaks - It had a big fish tank in the middle of the bar - it then became a chinese restaraunt (can't remember the name) this was excellent food as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 Good memory ! Yeh - Charlie Wades rings a bell and definitely the chinese restaurant Would have been a fantastic location for a restaurant even still Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadsleyite Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 I can also remember Comet opening in 1972, and by 1990 the building was a Chinese restaurant. But being an old b*gger I can remember when the oldest part of the building, adjoining the waterwheel, was an animal feed / dry goods store - this was in the 1950s. There was a weighbridge outside, for weighing lorry/wagonloads of grain etc. In about 1960 the building was purchased by William Marsden & Co - they owned a chain of butcher's shops and their factory was nearby on Myers Grove Lane. They used the building as a sort of workshop, and they paid for the complete restoration of the waterwheel - this must have been partly for publicity, as a Marsden's advert. was prominently displayed on the side of the building over the wheel. It's good to know that the present-day developers are obligated to restore the waterwheel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted December 24, 2007 Author Share Posted December 24, 2007 Excellent - thanks for sharing the memories of it I am going to try and find a clear picture of it when it was a dry goods store... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadsleyite Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 I am going to try and find a clear picture of it when it was a dry goods store... There is a photo on the picturesheffield.com website - it is No y02126. Put this number into the "search" field and it will come up. In the photo you can see advertisements for "Seeds and fertilisers" and "Vim's" (dog biscuits). Somewhere I have an old postcard with a photo taken from the Rivelin Valley Road bridge, looking towards the old corn mill. Naturally it's a fairly distant shot of the building but I'll look it out. The Sheffield directory for 1925 lists "John Wilson & Son, corn dealers" in the building, with "G.H. Butler & Son, motor engineers" at the back. Next door at No 3 Loxley Road was the Malin Bridge post office, which I remember had a Victorian pillar box on the pavement outside. Later (I guess in the mid-1960s) the post office moved across the road, and Gordon A. Edy, who had owned a butcher's shop just round the corner on Holme Lane, became sub-postmaster. Incidentally, the fish & chip shop round the corner on Loxley Road has been there a long time, as the 1925 directory lists "Arthur Belch, fried fish dealer" at that address. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadsleyite Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 Here is the photo that I mentioned in the last post. I imagine it dates from the 1930s/40s and shows the JOHN WILSON & SON, CORN DEALER sign, but just above this is the "BP PUMP" sign, and two old-style petrol pumps can just be seen through the tree foliage at the right. There is also a sign reading MALIN BRIDGE GARAGE and another one: LOCK UP GARAGES FOR ALL MOTORS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted December 30, 2007 Author Share Posted December 30, 2007 fantastic stuff - thanks for posting - that's an excellent picture Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayleaf Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 The wheel is unusual in Sheffield, being an undershot wheel. In its time it's been a grinding wheel, a sawmill, and a corn mill, though whether it was actually used for grinding flour isn't known. below is an advert for the mill in White's Directory for 1876, when it was owned by the unusually named 'German Wilson'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted December 30, 2007 Author Share Posted December 30, 2007 I wonder if it could still be practically used for harnessing energy ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadsleyite Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 ...an advert for the mill in White's Directory for 1876, when it was owned by the unusually named 'German Wilson'. The name "German Wilson" rang a bell with me - I think I remember my grandparents mentioning the name. I looked him up in the 1901 census - he was then a widower aged 73, a "millwright" born at Bradfield and still living at the mill (1 Loxley Road). He lived with his 70 year-old widowed housekeeper, Sarah Proctor, her unmarried daughter Fanny, 42, described as a "general domestic servant", and an "apprentice millwright" Alfred Howe, 18. German Wilson died aged 77 in 1906. The John Wilson who had the corn dealing business at the mill in the 1920s could have been his son. Going back to the 1881 census, the mill was inhabited by German Wilson, his wife Emily and 5 children, the eldest being John, then aged 23. In 1901 John was a "commercial traveller" living on Grove Road, Totley Brook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffield History Posted December 30, 2007 Author Share Posted December 30, 2007 77 years old - that's quite a good innings for those times surely ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadsleyite Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 77 years old - that's quite a good innings for those times surely ? Well, the average lifespan a century ago was of course much lower than nowadays, but the figures were heavily influenced by childhood mortality (diphtheria, pneumonia, etc.) Anyone who survived childhood, managed to avoid infectious diseases and had a healthy lifestyle could often live to a good age. German Wilson's father James, a Bradfield gamekeeper, also survived into his 70s. My great-great-grandfather Mumby Betts (a farm worker from the Lincolnshire Wolds) died in 1937, a few days before his 88th birthday. To take a notable Sheffielder, the philanthropic Robert Rollinson (who enlarged and improved Barker's Pool, then the town centre's only water supply) died in 1631 at the age of 91. He was buried in the chancel of the Parish Church, now the Cathedral. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest exmrbd Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 Is there any up to date pictures of the site and the waterwheel ? :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr stanley Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 Is there any up to date pictures of the site and the waterwheel ? I passed this morning hoping to get a photo but the building is all wrapped up and surrounded with scaffolding. New "houses" have appeared on the site just above the chippy fronting Loxley Road but they are not worthy of a photo! more details can be found here: http://www.haybrook.com/properties/accommo...theproperty.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest savi Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 The water wheel building was 2 different restaurants, first one was an english eatery, then a cantonese place. Before that of course it was comet electrical back in the 70s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest savi Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 Re-the color pic earlier, to the right around the back was comet service door Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wunumpi Posted July 10, 2008 Share Posted July 10, 2008 HOLY CRAP!! 'scuse my french but I used to live at 146 Loxley Rd - we overlooked the Comet car-park. The supper spot was my favourite chippy. Is it still there? We affectionatley used to call it the 'supper grot'. I ran 2 paper rounds out of the newsagents on the corner for my entire high-school life. I used to go down the river on a tyre inner tube and loved dropping over the litte waterfalls. I think I remember Comet closing down, but I left there in 85 and haven't been back since. I used to catch teh bus into town from the shelter beside the Yew Tree and my best mate lived just up the hill on the bend....I can't even remember the name of the road but we used to walk it every day to get to malin Bridge Junior School, and sledge down it in winter. I hope you manage to get some more photos. I never realised how much I miss the place. Thanks for the walk down memory lane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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