The Making of Sheffield. SAVING THE SUBURBS HOW LAND SOCIETIES HELPED IN A GREAT WORK. EVERY Sheffielder knows very well from lectures and pictures how incomparably fair a place Sheffield was before what became known as development of its suburbs was undertaken. He knows also how tragic was the work done in various parts of the city--how Woodseats remains a wreck, where delightful possibilities once existed; how Crookes remains an eye-sore which might very easily have been obviated had those who built along its lanes and spaces cast an eye across the dingy city to the Park, and so recognized what a mockery of a development had occurred there. Had they done so, it ought to have been possible to make of Crookes a very fair place indeed, but the builder, making the most of his land, spoiled any opportunity which the lover of his town might be seeking. One does not look for beauty where the great works stand, but, up on the heights, it should have been possible to build cottage homes in pleasant positions, and not huddled together as is the case in Crookes. Endcliffe happily remains unspoiled. Abbeydale only really came into being as a definite suburb with the development of the tramways system. The Highfields district has been treated rather tenderly in this respect, whilst Millhouses has been saved by the outpouring of wealth in stately houses and pleasant roads. Walkley has been smothered by little houses, but they in turn have been smothered by trees, and, as will be shown, the saving of Walkley is to a very large extent due to the many Land and Building Societies which have flourished there. The gradual growth of Sheffield's fair suburbs, perhaps, naturally-certainly happily--brought about very many Land and Building Societies, and some of these must be touched upon because of work well done. Perhaps most important of all was the Montgomery Land Society, whose operations covered what to-day is known as the Nether Edge district. It was formed by an association of persons in Sheffield for purposes other than gain. Its object was to purchase through its trustees a piece of land of considerable area with a view to dividing the same amongst members of the Society in small plots to be paid for by instalments Societies of similar nature have been very numerous in the vicinity of Sheffield and other manufacturing towns, and are not usually regarded as of such a nature as to require registration under anyof the Friendly Societies Acts. The members protect themselves by a trust deed, which provides for and regulates the various interests by mutual convenants. In this case the rules were drawn up by a member of the committee and registered under 6 and 7 William IV with the Registrar of Friendly Societies. The existence of these rules does not appear to have been communicated to the society's solicitors, who, in the following year, were engaged in carrying out the society's purchase and completing its formation and the preparation of the trust deed. The rules themselves were inapplicable to the purposes of a Land Society. They appear never to have been acted upon, save that they were printed in book form and the payments of members entered therein. The rules by which the society actually worked are those comprised in the trust deed. The method of the society may be briefly set out as follows:-"It is one by which a number of persons in moderate circumstances may each become owner of a small plot of freehold land by means of small periodical payments extending over a period of time. The advantage it offers is that its members can thus purchase a plot of land which would otherwise, from the smallness of its size, not readily be met with in the market, and secondly that he has not to find the purchase money in a lump sum, but can pay it by instalments out of his salary or other income." The members of a Land Society had undoubtedly to pay a high price for the land, but upon a small plot the increase is not materially perceptible. "These societies are promoted by persons who negotiate for purchase of a large piece of land and who then organize a Land Society for the purpose of taking it off their hands at a conveniently enhanced figure for division into small plots amongst the members. So soon as a number of persons have intimated their willingness to take plots a committee is formed, whose first duty is to negotiate for a loan or mortgage of sufficient size to enable them to hand to the vendors a considerable portion of the purchase money in cash, the land being usually arranged to remain on secured mortgage. The purchase deed and the two mortgages are thus executed contemporaneously and the moneys advanced and paid over to the proper parties, and the transaction is completed." Indentures drawn up and signed anterior to the birth of the Montgomery Land Society, and which deal with land subsequently the property of that organization, may be here mentioned. They included one dated December 1st, 1855, a conveyance between James Henry Barber and William Wild of the one part, John William Pye-Smith and Benjamin Wightman of the second part, and George Wostenholm of the third part. On December 19th, 1855, an indenture of mortgage was signed between George Wostenholm of the one part and Thomas Turner and Henry Woodhead of the other part. In March of the same year other indentures were executed. The first was on March 1st between James Henry Barber and William Wild of the first part, Thomas Pritchard of the second part, and John Fairburn of the third part. The other deed bears date March 2nd between Thomas Pritchard of the one part and Thomas Dunn, Thomas Birks, William Fisher the younger, John Hall and Thomas Gates of the other part. Also on March 1st the same year came three other deeds. One of these was between James Henry Barber and William Wild of the first part, Ralph Renshaw of the second part, and John Fairburn of the third part. The next was between James Henry Barber and William Wild of the first part, Joseph Mitchell of the second part, and John Fairburn of the third part. Then the third was between John Henry Barber and William Wild of the first part, John Levitt of the second part, and John Fairburn of the third part. In 1858, on February 12th, came an indenture made between John Pritchard of the one part and George Wostenholm of the other part, and on February 17th one between John Levitt of the first part and George Wostenholm of the second part. On June 25th, 1858, an agreement was made between Ralph Renshaw of the one part and George Wostenholm of the other part, and on December 29th, 1859, one between Joseph Mitchell of the first part, John Brewin, John Bellamy Jepson and Thomas Hayball of the second part, and George Wostenholm of the third part. The following epitome of dates was shown in the case for counsel's opinion submitted in 1881:-- 1861 Oct. Society commenced. " 23 Rules agreed to. " 28 Rules registered by Registrar of Building Societies. 1862 Sep. 18 Estate conveyed to Trustees: consideration £13,567 5s. " 22 Trust deed executed. " 30 Equitable mortgage to bank: consideration £7,000. Oct. 1 do. to Steade: consideration £6,405. 1864 Jan. Steade consented to conveyances to date. 1867 Apl. Steade assigned the charge to George Wostenholm. 1868 June All moneys due to bank cleared off. 1872 Jan. Kenyon Parker retired, leaving W. Wild sole trustee. " July W. Tyler appointed joint trustee. 1881 May Steade paid off George Wostenholm's charge and assigned it to Henry Thomas. The society's "argument," as set out in the case submitted to counsel in 1881, was that the Montgomery Land Society purchased an estate of 24 acres or thereabouts, a considerable portion of which had already been divided into plots, from Thomas Steade for £13,567 5s. From the conveyance (September 22nd, 1862) it appeared that Steade himself was only a recent purchaser, and had never had the estate actually conveyed to him, and that of the total purchase money a sum of £6,405, or nearly one half of the whole, was actual profit. The title deed was between William Wild, of Sheffield, bank manager, and Kenyon Parker, common brewer, trustees, of the one part, and the several persons whose names were subscribed of the other part, by indenture dated 18th September, 1862, between George Wostenholm of the first part, Thomas Turner and Henry Woodhead of the second part, Thomas Steade of the third part, and William Wild and Kenyon Parker of the fourth part, for valuable consideration (1) all the several plots and allotments of land situate at or near Brincliffe Edge, being part of a certain estate called the Nether Edge estate; (2) those situate at or near Brincliffe Edge, being part of the Nether Edge estate numbered 26, 93, 202, 27, 94, 203, 40, 41, 90, 91, 92, 94, 106, 116, 117, 129, 138, 204, which contained 2 acres, 2 roods, 20 perches; (3) all that parcel of land situate in Brincliffe Edge comprising Little Birks and part of another close called the Great Birks, bounded towards the north by the highway from Sharrow Moor to Machon Bank, to the south by part of the land heretofore owned by John Sheldon, and to the west by land leading from Brincliffe Edge to Machon Bank, 2 acres, 3 roods, 37 perches, numbered 251 to 264. The rules of the society stipulated that weekly meetings should be held at the house of Benjamin Beeley, the Washington Arms, Washington Road. Henry Piggott was president, George Beeley treasurer, Thomas William Parkin secretary for the year commencing 28th October, 1861, and weekly instalments were payable. If arrears accumulated to an amount equal to the contributions for three lunar months it became lawful for the committee to declare the allotment forfeited after fourteen days notice in writing. All rights of such members under these rules should then cease, and the owner should yield up peaceable possession of the allotment. The committee had power to make roads, drains, fences, and walls as it thought fit, and could prosecute or defend. The rules continued: "Only one dwelling house shall be built on each allotment, save as to those numbered 251 to 264. None shall be of a less value than £120, with elevation of two stories, neither more nor less, and have two rooms at least on each floor. None on allotments from Nos. 10, 11 and 12 and 235 to 248 shall be of a less value than £200, and, on No. 14, of less than £250, and all shall be built in stone. On No. 87 and from 251 to 264 the value shall not be less than £300 per house, save as hereafter stated. Every house or pair of divided houses on Nos. 251 to 264 shall have at least 800 square yards of land assigned to it, and such plots shall be entirely unbuilt upon save the usual out offices. "The houses on 251 to 235 shall have the best fronts towards Machon Bank, and not be nearer the road than seven yards. Any owner on Nos. 251 to 264 may erect two houses, but they must be semi-detached and of a value of £500 at least. All ground plans, elevations, &c., must be submitted to George Wostenholm, his heirs and assigns, for approval, or referred to some person appointed by the Mayor of Sheffield for the time being. No one shall make bricks for sale on any allotment or for any other purpose whatever. He shall not make, dig, or sink, or permit coal pit or shaft, or erect a steam engine, or soap house, grinding wheel, rolling mill, workshop or any premises for manufacturing purposes, nor use any building for a purpose which shall be deemed offensive to the neighbourhood. " No person shall use or occupy any erection as or for a public house for sale of wines and spirits, or as a beerhouse, or a temperance hotel, or permit of any allotment being used as a bowling green, a public tea garden, or other place of public resort or congregation for amusement. All members will observe the rules of the Sheffield Reform Freehold Land Society contained in the indenture dated March 1st, 1855, and made between the several members of the same society and the then owners of the Nether Edge estate." There were altogether 89 shareholders for these 154 plots. Difficulties came and, with them, defaulters. The annual cash accounts from September, 1862, to 1879 afford interesting reading. Naturally contributions were almost always the principal source of revenue, rising to £1,946 in 1863, but, as the years went on, the amounts for balances paid off by allottees were also large. It was rather significant of the general prosperity of the bulk of those gentlemen that, though the society was only formed in 1862, £1,389 was received in paid-off shares in 1864. The auctioneer was paid two guineas for auctioning the lots in 1862; a balance due to the Second Montgomery Society (this was the third of the name) of £42 was paid in 1864; in 1865 there is an item of £43 paid to Anthony for walling and filling up the road in Sheldon's Field; in 1866 £41 was paid for preparing Byron Road and Oakhill Road for dedication; in 1868 £5 2s. was paid for metal plates and fixing same for the names of the roads, and Watson Bros. £100 on account of making roads. Another £100 was paid to Watsons in 1869, and in 1872 what was presumably the balance of £86. The year 1876 saw a receipt of £36 18s. 3d. from members of the old Nether Edge Society as a contribution towards the roads and footpaths, and a further one in the following year of £18 11s. 1d. In the two last years were contributions by holders of plots in Sheldon's Field amounting to £282 for the making of the road, the contract being shown as £281 8s. It is generally understood that behind Thomas Steade, who came into great prominence as developer of this part of the city, was, to some extent, the greater personality of George Wostenholm, the builder of Kenwood, and that for a very long time it was difficult for the society to learn to which of these two its indebtedness was really due. How far that is correct I cannot say, but I have seen a large amount of correspondence between the secretary of the society and Mr. Wostenholm seeking for a strict account, and failing to obtain one, at all events for a long time. In all Mr. Wostenholm's letters there is a kindly and courteous spirit manifested which must have been rather pleasant in such heated times. The society came to an end at a meeting held at the Brincliffe Oaks Hotel on November 22nd, 1883, Mr. W. Gilley presiding, when 10s. was returned to each allottee out of the balance. Thomas Steade's receipt to the society on February 9th, 1882, ran as follows: "Received from the Trustees of the Montgomery Land Society the sum of £650 on account of the moneys secured by a memorandum of deposit and pledge dated October 1st, 1862, under the hands of William Wild and Kenyon Parker, the then trustees of the society. The sum of £800 which I have agreed to accept in settlement of the balance of the moneys owing on such security is to carry interest at the rate of five per cent. per annum from February 1st inst., and to be paid within six calendar months from that date, or, if the committee of the said society cannot recover the latter amount from the members within the said period of six calendar months, the amount recovered by them to be paid within such six months, and the balance, principal and interest paid in any event within twelve months of this date." That account, presented by Thomas Steade, ran over many years. Writing from a detailed statement, I find it opens on September 30th, 1862, with a debit against the society of £6,405. The first account rendered was in September, 1868, when six years interest was charged, viz.. £1,921 10s., but various cash payments up to July, 1876, brought the balance owing down to £1,258 10s. 8d., and in 1881 it was finally shown as £1,564 9s. That was the cause of very considerable disquiet amongst the society's members, and led to something approaching a crisis. A preliminary balance sheet dated September, 1879, showed shares paid off and contributions £13,985 12s. 8d., premiums £369 10s. 3d., with contributions from old members towards the making of roads in Sheldon's Field £598 16s. 8d. On the other side the principal item was a law bill of £216. At the same date, on the capital account, the cost of land was put down as £13,567 5s., but the secretary, when challenged as to the accuracy of those figures, gave a total of £13,905 as correct, made up of indebtedness to Thomas Steade of £6,405 and to the bank £7,500, two items which may be accepted as correct inasmuch as they constantly recur in the history of the society. At that date, according to this balance sheet, the society had a credit balance of £1,875 8s. 3d. Vandals were abroad even in those days. I find one letter from the society's secretary, 8th December, 1874, to Mr. Wostenholm, which runs as follows: "The Committee propose to cut down the two old oak trees in Oakdale Road and sell them, as the lots will not sell whilst they are there. They give you first offer, if you would like to purchase for 30/- each, for them. Any damage in removal to make good." The secretary's English was a trifle obscure, but his meaning was sufficiently clear, and it is pleasant to find that the reply was a curt refusal to have anything to do with the proposal. The general "lay-out" of this district may be appreciated by the following plan:-- [Graphical pen and ink plan fits here] The following were the earliest conveyances in connexion with the Nether Edge Building Society--all being consented to by Thomas Steade: Date. OWNER. LotNo. Square Yards Price 1863 £ October 15 Benjamin Beeley 100 736 | Do. 101 700 | Do. 113 683 | Do. 114 688 |420 Do. 115 695 | Do. 116 723 | October 15 Joseph Cam 119 742 | Do. 120 748 |168 October 15 Samuel Gould 147 707 84 August 21 Benjamin Moore 98 748 84 October 15 John Shaw 105 679 84 October 15 Joseph Andrew Barton 24 670 84 October 15 Jno. Thompson 117 729 84 October 15 G. W. Hutton 102 690 84 October 15 Thos. W. Parkin 222 825 84 October 15 John Thornton 139 747 84 1864 January 13 John Newbould 52 850 | Do 53 844 |252 Do. 54 834 | These in due course were merged in the lay-out of the Montgomery Land Society as shown above, and when Mr. Steade paid off Mr.Wostenholm's charge and assigned it to Mr. Henry Thomas in 1881, the area controlled by the Montgomery Land Society had been parcelled out as follows : Plot. Yards. Owner. 1 | to |... .... Unsold 12 | 13 ... 662 W. Turner 14 ... 664 W. Turner 15 | 16 |.... ... Unsold 17 | 18 ... 723 Exors.,Stones 19 ... 718 C.Youle 20 ... 708 Longstaffe 21 ... 701 John Thompson 22 ... 690 Unsold 23 ... 670 W.C.Wilson 24 ... 670 W.C.Wilson 25 ... 700 Staniforth 26 ... 686 W.C.Wilson 27 ... 688 W.C.Wilson 28 ... 692 W.C.Wilson 29 ... 698 Rodgers 30 ... 704 Rodgers 31 ... 712 Rodgers 32 ... 730 Mrs.John Buxton 33 ... 728 Townsend 34 ... 732 Roe 35 ... 720 Darby 36 ... 727 Darby 37 ... 734 W.R.Pearce 38 ... 741 T. Allcroft 39 ... 748 J. Wheeldon 40 ... 755 W. Gilley 41 ... 702 Exors.,J.Wilkinson 42 ... ... Unsold 43 ... ... Unsold 44 ... 783 J. Pearce 45 ... 791 T.Spry 46 ... 798 Hewitt 47 ... 800 Singleton 48 ... 812 Singleton 49 ... ... Unsold 50 ... ... Unsold 51 ... 824 Binney's Exors. 52 ... 850 Newbould 53 ... 844 Newbould 54 ... 834 Newbould 55 ... 824 Staniforth 56 ... 814 H.Toothill, Junr. 57 ... 804 J.Thompson 58 ... 795 Newbould 59 ... 786 John Gallimore 60 ... 777 Miss Fanny Browne 61 ... 768 Miss Fanny Browne 62 to ... ... Unsold 68 69 ... 705 Bright 70 ... 710 Bright 71 ... 720 Black 72 ... 732 Jukes 73 ... 741 Woffinden 74 ... 750 J.Marples, Junr. 75 to ... ... Unsold 78 79 ... 795 Ibbotson (Ivory Cutter) 80 ... 805 Garrick 81 ... 815 Brittlebank 82 ... ... Unsold 83 ... ... Unsold 84 ... ... Unsold 85 ... 815 Chapple 86 ... 784 Chapple 87 ... 788 Beeley 88 ... 809 Shepley 89 ... 805 Shepley 90 ... 799 Shepley 91 ... 793 Andrews 92 ... 787 Pettinger 93 ... ... Unsold 94 ... 774 Brown 95 ... 758 Brown 96 ... 761 Joseph Bennett 97 ... 755 J.Hunt 98 ... 748 S.Shaw 99 ... 742 Damborough 100 ... 736 B.Beeley Moore 101 ... 700 B.Beeley Moore 102 ... 690 Darley 103 ... 685 Knight 104 ... 681 Willis 105 ... 679 John Bennett 106 ... 677 Chatterton 107 ... 676 Hoyland 108 ... 675 Revill 109 ... 670 Sanders 110 ... 674 Sanders 111 ... 676 Leonard 112 ... 680 Ibbotson 113 ... 683 B.Beeley Moore 114 ... 688 B.Beeley Moore 115 ... 695 B.Beeley Moore 116 ... 723 B.Beeley Moore 117 ... 729 Goldthorpe 118 ... 735 Joseph Bennett 119 ... 742 Joseph Bennett 120 ... 748 Joseph Bennett 121 ... 754 Bulmer 122 ... 761 Bulmer 123 to ... ... Unsold 128 129 ... 784 Exors., Goodwin 130 to ... ... Unsold 137 138 ... 752 Bulmer 139 ... 747 Thornton 140 ... 742 Stringfellow 141 ... 777 Batley 142 ... ... Unsold 143 ... ... Unsold 144 ... 722 Goldthorpe 145 ... 717 Goldthorpe 146 ... 712 Goldthorpe 147 ... 707 T. Cawthorne 148 ... 702 T. Cawthorne 149 to ... ... Unsold 189 190 ... 755 Slowe 191 ... 746 Slowe 192 ... 740 Exors. Wright 193 ... 735 J.Smith 194 ... 735 B.Beeley 195 ... 734 B.Beeley 196 ... 732 Newbould 197~ to ... ... Unsold 201 202 ... 730 Tandy 203 ... 735 Tandy 204 ... 728 Tandy 205 ... 720 Tandy 206 ... 715 Worthington 207 ... ... Unsold 208 ... 705 Ibbotson 209 ... 695 Ibbotson 210 to ... ... Unsold 220 221 ... 840 Deakin 222 ... 825 Ordish 223 ... 814 Ordish 224 ... 802 Hiller 225 ... 787 Hiller 226 to ... ... Unsold 231 232 ... 710 Wilson 233 ... 690 H.Dungworth 234 ... 700 H.Dungworth 235 ... 677 E.Hill | (Handwritten note 236 ... 677 E.Hill | 35 Glen Rd) 237 ... 675 Greenland 238 ... 675 Greenland 239 ... 673 Dewsnap 240 ... 671 Dewsnap 241 ... 671 Dewsnap 242 ... 669 G.Cutts 243 ... 659 G.Cutts 244 ... 669 G.Cutts 245 ... 667 G.Cutts 246 ... 667 Priest 247 ... 665 Priest 248 ... 665 B.Beeley 249 ... ... Unsold Across the valley of Endcliffe from Nether Edge and away at Ranmoor came another society of much the same sort, the Carsick Hill Land Society, and with it the Ranmoor Cliffe Land Society, the plan of which latter estate was prepared by Wightman & Wightman, in 1884. The former was established 31st May, 1876, and its rules ran as follows:--The estate shall consist of the lands forming the Carsick Hill Estate of the vendor and intersected by the Sheffield Water Company's conduit abutting towards the north-west on the Carsick Hill Road, towards the north-east on lands of the Sheffield Water Company, and of Ann Thomas Rowbotham and Ann Elizabeth Cutler, and of Daniel Henry Quigley Coupe respectively, and towards the south-east, on lands now or late of William Edward Laycock and others, and towards the south or south-west on Tom Lane, and lands now or late of William Pitchford, as the same estate contains 23 acres, or thereabouts, appurtenant to which before-mentioned estate and every part thereof shall be a right of foot, horse and carriage way at all times, and for all reasonable purposes over and across a road shown on the plan, together with all rent charges in lieu of tithes issuing out of or chargeable upon the said estate hereinbefore described. Clause(c) states that the vendor shall, within 36 calendar months from the date hereof, at his own expense make and complete the said intended roads, and the other said proposed roads and footpaths intersecting the estate as shown on the plan, to the satisfaction of the Borough Surveyor of Sheffield .... not including any flagging or asphalting of footpaths. Clause(d) The price for this estate shall be £18,440 at the rate of £800 per acre. The strip of land set apart to widen Tom Lane is included in the measurement of the estate for the purposes of this clause, but shall not be included in the conveyance of the estate. Clause(e) The title of the estate shall commence with the conveyance thereof to John Pye-Smith by indentures, and lease and release, dated the 27th and 28th days of May, 1888. Other extracts from the rules are: Rule 4--The meetings of the Society shall be held at the York Hotel, Broomhill. Rule l3-The first Secretary shall be Mr. Joseph Thompson Glossop, who shall attend every meeting of the Society at the time appointed, and, if fifteen minutes late, he shall be fined one shilling; if absent entirely from a meeting, half-a-crown, unless the reason for his absence shall be satisfactory to the Committee. Rule 36--Mr. Edward Porter shall have allotted to him the allotments numbered 1 to 4, both inclusive on the plan; the remaining allotments shall be offered by auction to the members in such order as the Committee shall think fit, but no member shall be entitled to bid for any allotment until he shall have executed this deed and paid all contributions due from him down to the date of the auction. Rule 37--Each allotment shall be offered subject to the monthly contributions in respect thereof which are set opposite to the number of such allotment in the list ..... and the member bidding the highest premium for any allotment above such proportion of first cost shall be the allottee of such allotment at the amount of such proportion of first cost and premium. Regulations for buildings, &c. No building shall be erected thereon, save private dwelling-houses with suitable outbuildings and walls, and no dwelling-house shall be used for any other purpose save dwelling-house ... The minimum value of each detached house shall be £750, and of semi-detached dwelling-houses £1,100 per pair. No more than two dwelling-houses shall be built under one roof or on one allotment ..... Each dwellinghouse shall be of rock-faced stone ..... The walls adjoining any road shall be of rock-faced stone with a coping of cock hat toppers ..... No wall adjoining any road, whether with or without palisading, shall exceed 5 feet 6 inches in height from the upper surface of the edge stones opposite to it ..... No bay window, portico or other similar projection shall be erected nearer than 30 feet from any road. Each dwelling-house shall be of not more than two stories in height, with or without attics in the roof .... No trade or business of any kind shall be carried on upon any part of the estate...., On the termination of the Society, the powers invested in the Committee with regard to maintaining, repairing and keeping in repair the said roads, sewers, drains, and ornamental or pleasure grounds, shall be vested in the Trustees. The following was the Allotment Plan at Carsick Hill:-- I No: Price on Square of plan. Yards Allotment Owner £ s. d. 1 | 2 | 10,496 2,212 6 8 Edward Porter, King Street, Wine Merchant. 3 | 4 | 5 2,100 565 16 8 Simeon Hayes. Later J. F. Moss. Later Edward Porter. Later, H. H. Andrew's Trustees. 6 2.048 457 3 4 Ernest George Reuss. 7 2,420 519 3 4 Ernest George Reuss. 8 2,265 493 6 8 Ernest George Reuss. 9 2,086 463 10 0 Ernest George Reuss. 10 2,085 463 6 8 George Harrison, St. James' Row, Chemist. 11 2,085 463 6 8 Thomas George Shuttleworth. 12 2,204 483 3 4 Thomas George Shuttleworth. 13 2,154 474 16 8 Edward Porter. Sold to W.F.Osborn 14 2,100 465 16 8 Edward Porter. do. 15 2,158 475 10 0 W. Jervis, Broomhill, Chemist. do. 16 2,166 476 16 8 Josh. Spencer Broomhall. do. 17 2,390 514 3 4 W. Brittain, Barker's Pool. May, 1881, Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks, Fairfield, Fulwood Road. 18 2,026 453 10 0 J. E. Bingham. May, 1881, Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks, Fairfield, Fulwood Rd. 19 1,884 429 16 8 J. E. Bingham. May, 1881,Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks, Fairfield, Fulwood Rd. 20 1,887 430 6 8 J. E. Bingham. 21 2,133 471 6 8 J. E. Bingham. 22 2,290 497 10 0 J. E. Bingham. 23 1,895 431 13 4 Salmon Linton Swan, George Street, Architect. 24 1,844 423 3 4 T. Fildes Cocker, Nursery Street. 25 1,788 413 16 8 Isaac Ellis, George Street. May, 1878, Sold to J. F. Moss. 26 1,887 430 6 8 J. F. Moss. 27 1,734 404 16 8 Edward Tozer, Lawson Road. Sold to A. J. Beal, Ivy Park Road. 28 1,745 406 13 4 Edward Tozer, Lawson Road. Sold to A. J. Beal, Ivy Park Road. 29 1,656 391 16 8 J. F. Littlewood, Fitzwilliam Street. Sold to S. Wilson, Chesterfield. 30 2,463 526 6 8 J. F. Littlewood, Fitzwilliam Street. Sold to S. Wilson, Chesterfield. 31 2,388 513 16 8 Josh Binney. Sold to James Neill, Carsick. 32 2,388 513 16 8 Josh Binney. do. 33 2,388 513 16 8 C. C. Carr. do. 34 2,388 513 16 8 W. White, Burgess Street. do. 35 2,388 513 16 8 J. T. Deakin, Ash Mount. do. 36 2,290 497 10 0 W. D. Allen, Endcliffe. Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks. 37 2,187 480 6 8 W. D. Allen, Endcliffe. Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks. 38 2,068 460 10 0 W. Skinner, Brookhill, Surgeon. Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks. 39 1,990 447 10 0 J. T. Glossop, St. James' Row, Collector. Sold to Elizabeth Hedgland Birks. In August, 1917, I had a very interesting interview with Mr. Joseph Creswick, one of a long line of farmers who made good their names in Fulwood. I found him at his home, Snaithing Farm. immediately below Mr. W. F. Osborn's house. His grandfather lived at the farm for 47 years. and his father for over 50, whilst the old gentleman whom I interviewed was 79 years old. and had lived there practically all his life. In his middle life he had gained local renown as a very ardent Liberal in politics, and in his own circle was known as an equally ardent lover of good poetry. However, these things had nothing to do with the subject matter of the chat we had together. It ran on reminiscences of the district in which he lived. Whilst failing memory may have caused him to regard things as facts which were not actually so, Mr. Creswick told me many things of great interest; how George Wostenholm at one time bought all the land between the Almshouses and Storth Lane,and straightway formed the Storthfield Land Society. Mr. Henry Hutchinson was the first to build on the estate. At that time, what we to-day know as Storth Lane was really called Water Lane, and here stood Beal's factory, the Rand-Moor Cutlery Works, and three cottages, the water for grinding wheels being obtained from one of the many springs which coursed down the steep hillsides. The factory stood on the east side of Water Lane. Snaithing Lane was much steeper at one time than it is to-day. but the bottom was lifted four times and so the difficulty of the ascent was greatly eased. The first house built there was about 1903, and in the following year Mr. Osborn erected Snaithing Grange. Between Ivy Park Road and Snaithing Lane, the land once belonged to Mr. J. W. Pye-Smith, who sold it, for £100 an acre, to Mr. Mark Firth, who in turn disposed of it to Dan Coupe, the speculative builder, for £600 an acre, and Dan Coupe in turn got rid of it to a Building Society for £800 an acre. Afterwards, the land passed into the possession of Mr. H. H. Andrew. Clumber Road, between Ivy Park Road and Snaithing Lane, was laid out in plots at this time, but no building took place there, and during the early summer of 1918, this land just below the water conduit was devoted to the purposes of war allotments. From another source, I gathered that a syndicate was formed to preserve Clumber Road from the builder, but one member backed out, the result being that the trustees of Mr. Andrew's estate, sold parcels here and there, but with no definite system, though the amenities of the district have so far been excellently maintained. Mr. Creswick told me that the lowest house in Snaithing Lane fell down twice through the subsidence of the foundations. The estate of the Storth Land Society came up as far as the chapel, the land there belonging to Mr. Burrows, running up to Crosspool Road, now known as Ranmoor Cliffe, and down as far as the Rand-Moor Wesleyan chapel at the top of Ranmoor Road. Mr. George Wostenholm also laid out Gladstone Road, Chantrey Road, and others in the district. The whole of the Storth Wood estate was bought and taken into the Land Society, the house already alluded to as being built by Mr. Hutchinson being at the top of Jenkin Hill and still standing. Ivy Park Road was laid out some sixty years ago, Mr. J. C. Skinner's being the first house to be built there, and Snaithing Farm was once known as Snaith Inn, the "snaith" being the connexion between the handle and blade of a scythe. Once there was an open footpath right across the front of this inn or farm, running down a steep bank to the stream and bridge, across which was a pleasant little wood. Belgrave Road now occupies the site of this footpath. Whitworth Road is forty years old, and was formerly known as Ox Pastures. Mr. Creswick had vivid memories of its making, as he himself carted over five hundred loads for tipping purposes. The original end of Tom Lane was at Carsick Hill, where Stumperlowe Hall Road joins it, and the upper part was then known as Russell Lane right up to Redmires Road. Broom Fields was the name given to the land on the extreme left at the top of the land just facing the golf club house, and just below and near the water conduit was Carsick Hall, a small double-fronted house unworthy of its name, but very old and very old-fashioned. In Redmires or Sandygate Road, at the corner of Pitchford Lane, stood The Blue Dumpling Inn, one of three cottages still standing, but the inn was usually called the Ball, because the sign was something resembling a ball, presumably intended to look like a dumpling painted blue. Right on the top and below the junction with Pitchford Lane was The Healds, a piece of land on which four very handsome houses were built, and which were in 1918 occupied by Mrs. Peace, Mr. Duncan Gilmour, Mr. W. W. Wood, and Mr. H. Shelley Barker. Mr. Creswick also told me that where the Model Dairy afterwards stood was once an extensive pleasure ground, shown on the old ordnance maps of the district. George Woollen, who had the Rivelin Corn Mill and a retail shop in Church Street, laid this ground out in very tasteful and ornamental fashion, with many flowers. He also built there a castellated place called "The Roundabout," which, with two levels of land, extended right away up to Holly Mount. Mr. Woollen was a curiosity in his way; he used to journey to Doncaster on horseback, and kept journals of every journey, showing how far each horse had travelled; when it had done a certain mileage, it was retired for stud purposes. Few people who know Sheffield well will need reminding that at one time Ranmoor Road ended at the top of Jenkin Hill, and that a mere thread of a footpath joined it and the bottom of Tom Lane. Traffic, apart from pedestrians, went down Jenkin Hill and along Nethergreen Road, so joining up at the bottom of Tom Lane. Smiths Wood lay on the plateau below the descent through the woods from Ranmoor Road and Jenkin Hill, and this wood, like old Park Wood at the other end of the town,was the recognized scene of many notable fights. The Bull's Head, Ranmoor, at that time was known as The Highland Laddie, and, as with The Blue Dumpling higher up, the change in nomenclature was not for the better. The five plots on the Carsick Hill Estate, whereon Mr. James Neill laid out his beautiful grounds in Tom Lane, were purchased by him at Messrs. Bush's auction mart, in October, 1902, each being of 2,888 square yards; and at the same sale, Mr. Bernard Wragg secured 1,844 square yards, whereon he built his home. In other districts, similar societies existed. Quite a number of plots in the Abbeydale Building Society were offered for sale on July 6th, 1897, the streets all made, sewers, footpaths, &c., all complete, within a few minutes walk of Dore and Totley Station, and, though it was pointed out that the rules of the society did not permit of a workshop being built on the estate, or any noxious business being carried on, there was no bidding. The allottees on the Meersbrook Bank Land Society were entertained to dinner in November, 1874, by the vendor, Mr.Thomas Steade, and it was then decided to have holly hedges and not stone walls between the plots. The final meeting of this society took place in August, 1891. In October, 1888, it had been in great difficulties, and the mortgagee, Mr. C. A. Branson, offered to take £2,000 off his claim if the members made a really strong effort. In that year, the society owed £12,000, but in the next three years, all this had been paid off and a rebate of 4s. 5d. in the £ was made to the members. An excellent secretary in Mr. Charles Dunstan, was largely responsible for this fine result. There were, of course, many other societies of like character, but most of them of a humbler type. These included the Abbeydale Society,the Hallcarr, the Nether Hallam, the Upperthorpe, the Mount Pleasant, the Meersbrook, the Walkley Parsonage, the Meersbrook Bank Society, and the Meadow Hall. Many others, of course, also came into being, and so assisted to avoid spoliation of splendid suburbs. Sixty years ago, Walkley was delightful. It was all gardens, trees, and fields, with ferns, hills, and rocks, and Mr. Charles Hobson, in the Town Planning review, told the story of it. About 1865, social reformers in the town made an effort to help the artisans who lived there to a betterment of their conditions. As a rule, so far as was possible, they lived near the works, and the effort was to take them to the swelling hills and beauties of Walkley side. The fields abutting on Upperthorpe, Langsett Road, and the old Turnpike of Lower Walkley were secured, until a full dozen Land Societies had been established there, with about 3,000 members, each a holder of a plot of land, for which he paid a certain monthly contribution. The land so dealt with covered an area of no less than 292 acres. The plots were of various sizes from 300 to 1,200 square yards, and the price from one shilling to two shillings per square yard, the latter being the maximum, plus the bonus for choice of plot, ranging from £1 to £50. To that had to be added cost of road making, management, legal and other charges, usually resulting in the £30 plot becoming £50, and the £60 plot £120. How great was the attraction, a natural one in a town where practically every workman had a love for gardening, was quickly seen. Hardly had the separating stakes been driven in, than the owners were busy digging and fencing, till very soon the rough ground became lovely gardens, and the little freeholder had been given a fresh inspiration. Soon, detached houses, many of them very scanty in accommodation, had been built, and so Walkley became the workers' West End. Some of the societies met with disaster, but nothing was so serious as the Corporation's exorbitant demands for road making. Mr. Hobson cited instances, how a 600 yards plot cost £90, but the Corporation's charges were £45 more, and, as a result, a number of the freeholders tried to get rid of their plots. One offered his plot free if he was relieved of his liability; another sold what had cost him £100 for £25, and there were many other cases in the same proportion got rid of because of the Corporation's demands. Dreams faded away and the scheme, once so promising, resulted in very many cases in the comparative ruin of the freeholders, and in them being once again faced by one of two things, either accepting the ramshackle brick row buildings which were so quickly erected, or going into the smoky town once more, where were no gardens, and the only sign of beauty a plant pot in the window. The Walkley Land and Building Society was formed in January, 1849, with shares of £120 to be paid up in fourteen years, securing a rood of land and a house of the annual value of £13. Similar societies had existed for some time before, at Hallcarr and Upperthorpe. The Sheffield Reform Freehold Society made its first purchase of land on December 24th, 1849, this being nearly 4 and a half acres at Crookes, for £700. This was allotted to members in January of the following year, in 35 lots, each of the improved value of £2 a year. In November, 1851, it had 258 members. The Walkley Parsonage Society (Mr. Walter Sissons's society) was closed in 1887, and across the town, in 1851, the Parkwood Springs Land and Building Society had a dinner to celebrate the apportionment of its 27 acres of land into 95 plots, at a cost, including roads, of £63 per plot; the land having been bought at £180 an acre. Of the Fir Vale and the Meadow Hall Societies, I know little, but all these societies were not successful. In 1887, at the bankruptcy examination of a Beighton joiner, it was stated that the Provident Land Society (guaranteed by Mr. John Armstead), had cost the debtor £400. On the other hand, at the close of the Mount Pleasant Society, the members dined together in January, 1874. The society had been formed six years before to purchase the Mount Pleasant Estate and house at Highfields. The final balance sheet showed that all liabilities had been paid, with the footpaths and roads taken over by the town, and a balance of £5,650 12s. Od. had been repaid to the shareholders, equal to £37 3s. 6d. per share. This was the first society of its kind in the district, which had carried its work through in so short a time. William Crowther was always its president; W. & B. Wake the solicitors; Holmes & Johnson, surveyors, and Henry Horner, secretary; the whole movement being originally promoted by Henry Horner & Son. From David Martin's six views of the town as it existed in 1791, we know that the Portobello district of the town was creeping up, but no farther than Gell Street, and that beyond Gell Street all was green fields and stone walls, with the trees of Broom Hall Spring abounding. These six views were also of Attercliffe Bridge from Foundry Road, half a mile east of Sheffield; of Hillfoot Bridge; of the River Dun above Hillfoot; a picture of Manor ruins; and the last, the south side of Heeley Tilt Mill dam. We know, further, that the great entrance to Broom Hall was at the foot of Clarence Street of to-day, with the horse-dyke stream tumbling down the slope from Leavy Greave close to those gates. A hundred years prior to the opening of our story, the town began at what is now known as Highfields and ended in the Wicker, a distance of two miles. It was in the period just mentioned a town of fair prospects, and in John Holland's days the finest prospect of all was to be secured from Rough Bank in the Park--New Town as Holland termed it; whilst generations later, the old boast came into being that from no street in the town could the country not be seen. The town at one time was built entirely of stone, and it has been stated that the first brick building to be erected was Carver Street Chapel, and how far back this is may be estimated from the fact that Townhead Street Baptist Chapel used to bear a stone with the date 1813, and Townhead Street Chapel was also a brick building. The district was well enough known to the Normans. The Domesday Book holds the name Ateclive, or, as Hunter suggests, Otter-clive, and in 1811, when Attercliffe Common was enclosed,consisting of 280 acres of waste and more of common land Attercliffe only possessed three houses and a few squalid huts. It is of this Enclosure Act of 1810, 50th George III, that "Carolus Paulus" has told us, citing the exact clause: "Whereas The Most Noble Charles Duke of Norfolk is Lord of the Manor of Attercliffe and Frances Spencer is Lady of the Manor of Darnal and the said Duke of Norfolk, Gamaliel Milner, John Shaw, John Deakin, William Deakin, Joseph Read, George Bustard Greaves, Samuel Staniforth, George Steer, John Beldon, and others are proprietors of the said commons wastes and open fields, it would be of advantage to them if the same were divided and specific parts thereof allotted to them and the other persons interested but those beneficial purposes cannot be effected without the aid and authority of an Act of Parliament, Wherefore --" And a kindly Parliament obliged ! The greens were, Oakes Green, Darnall Green, the bottom of Pinfold Lane, Attercliffe Green and Darnall Hill. In 1865 it was stated that two generations before, salmon were plentiful in the Don; and in the indentures to apprenticeship a clause was common that the master should not compel the lad to eat salmon more than twice a week, and many people still living have seen indentures with such clause in them. The Lord of the Manor in later years reserved all fishing rights in the Don, and forbade all salmon fishing there, whilst Mr. Thomas Jessop, under the terms of his purchase from the Duke of Norfolk, found himself under contract to hand over to the Duke all the salmon he caught in the river adjoining his works at Brightside. Salmon Pastures, a piece of sandy land close to Attercliffe Bridge, was an ideal spawning ground. A correspondent in the Telegraph added one or two interesting facts about this matter, saying that, twenty-five years before, he used to catch remarkably fine trout under Wharncliffe Wood, the stream being pure as crystal so that every pebble could be seen in the deepest pool. Salmon spears were to be found in all the best houses round the district. He blamed the odours from the coal pit drains, the dyes from Thurlstone, and the refuse from the acid works, for the great change which had come about in the Don waters. All this consideration of Sheffield and salmon fishing was induced by the visit of Frank Buckland in February, 1865, to lecture to the members of the Literary and Philosophical Society on artificial breeding of salmon and oysters. When the Don was spanned by the iron bridge at the end of Ball Street and running across to White Rails, the gentlemen who had been responsible for bringing the work to completion followed an old-established Sheffield custom and dined together. It was in those days a poor sort of scheme which did not lend itself to dining and jollification. This bridge, built from the Milton Iron Works, in July, 1865, took the place of a similar one swept away by the great flood of the previous year and which had stood there since 1795. It is interesting to note that the bridge swept away by the flood in 1864 was the first iron bridge to be erected in the kingdom. The Nursery grounds at that time were spoken of as pleasant, and in 1781 the Duke of Norfolk and the gentry dined there in the open, so Mr. R. E. Leader has stated. About the time of Waterloo the triangle formed by Hanover Street, Broomhall Street and Monmouth Street was merely garden plots, let off to yearly tenants, and sixty years later there was scarcely a house between Broomspring Lane and Clarke Street. The Brunswick Street of to-day then stopped at the line of present day Havelock Square, and was only joined up with Wharncliffe Road several years later, one of the simplest and most obvious improvements possible. New Porter Street, Havelock Square and Havelock Street were laid out a considerable time before the builder's hand fell upon them; but in due course came a well-remembered lime pit at the very foot of Havelock Square, and from that moment building began. New Porter Street, a quarter of a century later, became Filey Street, and so remains. In Broomspring Lane, between the street just named and Brunswick Street (formerly Hawke Street), and just opposite Dr. Kidley's old home with its splendid trees, were four houses which, in the very early 'seventies, were known as "Amen Corner," because all were occupied by ministers. Speaking of Dr. Kidley's home, the residents round about used to get great pleasure from the trees because they became the homes of many birds every year, and the thrushes' visits were as regular as the clock with the coming of every spring. In due course one by one those great trees came down, blown down by the fierce winds, so that when the Kidley estate was sold for building purposes there was no particular regret in the neighbourhood. With the falling of the trees the birds had vanished, and, with the two gone, the charm of the district had gone as well. Dr. Kidley's estate comprised the greater part of the parallelogram bounded by Broomspring Lane, Wilkinson Street, New Porter Street and Brunswick Street, the only piece not included being a strip across the Wilkinson Street end, where are half-a-dozen very old brick houses with gardens, which must have been charming not so long ago. In Broomspring Lane, in the middle of his brick boundary wall, were Dr. Kidley's old ramshackle iron gates, backed by green-painted wooden boards. The garden space was a tangle, the house, a fairly roomy building, right in the centre with the entrance towards Broomspring Lane. There was a side entrance to Brunswick Street opening on to a stone-flagged little courtyard, and it was thence that the doctor's carriage used to emerge daily, a low hung, yellow barouche, in which the doctor and Mrs. Kidley took their morning drive, with one of the quaintest and most stolid of menservants on the box. Whatever the weather that daily drive went on, an echo of the previous century in the appearance of the equipage, and only the death of Mrs. Kidley ended it. From that moment Dr. Kidley to a large extent became a recluse, and he was little seen. His final illness proved a long one, but he had two friends who were unremitting in their attention on him--one Miss Violet Markham, the other Mr. F. C. Wild. The first part of this estate to go into the builders' hands was the Brunswick Street side, then came the building of the S. Mark's Mission Room at the corner, and, later, the long line of houses along New Porter Street. Dr. Kidley's will was proved for £650,000. Still keeping in this neighbourhood, and harking back again to the period round about Waterloo, corn grew in Thomas Street; the space between Broomhall Street, Hereford Street and Clarence Street was used by the Broomhall Cricket Club, this being afterwards enclosed and a "gate " taken from those who wished to watch the games. Clarence Street then stopped considerably short of its present length, only going some 150 yards down, and then being stopped by Evans' brickyard, which extended to Ecclesall Road, where was nothing but gardens and open country. Another brickyard, long disused, formed the site for Hanover Chapel, and there were fragrant gardens on both sides of Hanover Street and up Wilkinson Street. Holmes' field, with corn in it, stood at the foot of Broomspring Lane, stretching up as far as Gell Street, and at the foot of the former thoroughfare was a well-known rope walk, another standing at the top corner of the Infirmary grounds nearest to Portmahon until well into the'eighties. Coal was sought in Convent Walk at one time and a shaft sunk close to Gell Street, and it is recorded that once a whole orchard of fine old apple trees disappeared down the shaft. The Pomona Hotel on Ecclesall Road, right along into the memories of men even now scarcely middle-aged, was regarded as the limit of the town in that direction, with the Nursery Tavern at the foot of Collegiate Crescent, a whitewashed, not unpicturesque building facing the gardens and the old Three-Square Dam. There was no other licensed house between it and Banner Cross in the direct line, though the Lescar Hotel at Sharrow Vale bottom was in existence, reached from Ecclesall Road in those days by a twisting, pleasant little lane along the banks of the stream which had crossed under the road after meandering through the woods. The nurseries extended from the Pomona Hotel back to Chesterman's works and to the banks of the stream to the Three-Square, and just short of the Cemetery Avenue, the field there being in the occupation of the Sheffield Collegiate Cricket Club. On the other side of the avenue were the fields owned by the Wilsons of the Snuff Mills, who refused to permit of the fields there being let for athletic purposes, but which have since been built on by straight, short streets of houses. Half way along that frontage of gardens was a curious little hovel of a house in the wall, where ginger beer was dispensed to tired pedestrians and to jaded cricketers, and it was a very frequent house of call, whilst all above Collegiate Crescent, with the reservation respecting Wilsons' fields, were playing grounds for many clubs. Let me quote from the Sheffield Weekly News, one of whose correspondents wrote:-- " Not more than twenty-four years ago there were fields on both sides from the nurseries upwards, wherein cricket clubs in the summer time were wont to make an afternoon's enjoyment for hundreds of passers-by. Cup-ties were played there, which used to bring together excellent crowds of spectators, who fringed the walls for an hour or so, and then sauntered onwards. In those days the old and famous 'three-square'-where is the three-square now?-used to be seldom without a cricket club as its tenant." The field next to the avenue leading to the Botanical Gardens was never short of its cricket team. "It was," wrote the correspondent, "sloping and inconvenient for cricket, but the pitch was all right and many a right royal game was decided there. Once the Wincobank team, made up of the all conquering Elsecar team of the previous year, went there in all its glory to wipe out the pretensions of S. Mark's in the first round of the local Challenge Cup competition. The visitors were opposed by a team of boys, but the boys won, and the cheers of the spectators when the last lad in for S. Mark's smacked a ball out of the ground and won the match, still linger in one's memory." Who the correspondent was I do not know, but it happened to be the present writer who smacked the ball out of the ground, and it was a very joyous day. I acted as secretary to S. Mark's club in those days; Sir Robert Hadfield was treasurer, and it was, as the correspondent says, "a team of boys." Mr. T. S. Ellin had a very clear recollection of the Horse Dyke in Ecclesall Road. He said "from the Ecclesall Road, horses could walk down an incline into the water, with another slope on the opposite side by which they could again reach the road level. In those days, boys from all the district round used to play by the side of the water; it lay right in the front of Bridgefield House, whose grounds stretched down to the Moor, covering the site of the present Sheffield Moor Post Office and, generally speaking, the dyke stood where are now the shops at the rounded corner of Sheffeld Moor and Ecclesall Road. Immediately above this corner in Ecclesall Road was H. M. Pashley's cycle shop and repairing premises. He opened out at Highfields, but found a greater prosperity in Ecclesall Road, taking a fair share of the boom years which came in cycling in the 'seventies. It is possible to draw an interesting picture of this part of Sheffield in those days. We know from Mr. Elin's reminiscences, that in the late 'fifties, Sheffield Moor was so primitive that boys who lived there were told by their parents that on no account were they to go outside the gardens of heir home (Mr. Ellin's home was then at Green Bank, on the Moor), because of the gipsies who were always ready for kidnapping purposes. We know also from the same source that Eyre Street was then a cornfield, and also gather from other sources that there were many quaint cottages on Sheffield Moor seventy years ago, with hollyhocks in their gardens, and with The Woodman Inn on the site of the present structure, standing well back from the road, a curious old-world building, into whose composition timber entered a good deal; and that the whole expanse between Portobello, Holly Street and as far as Young Street, was one almost uninterrupted stretch of gardens, with Hanover Street then just a country lane with stiles on either ide leading into the pleasant fields. A great deal of interesting local information was contained in the monthly publication, Sheffield Notes and Queries, which appeared for a time in 1899 from the offices of the Sheffield Telegraph. From it we find that about 1830 a great unbroken stretch of country was visible from Kenwood Park entending over Beauchief, Norton, and Greenhill, all those places then being unspoiled by the builder of small houses. Heeley then was actually a village. Old, pleasant looking, but probably insanitary cottages stood where the station is to-day, with a long shallow sheet of water in the dip of the road. Pasture and many cornfields covered the land from where the Library is now to East Bank Road, Suffolk Road, and The Farm. Queen's Road, at that time, had no existence, and the land between Arundel Street, Matilda Street, and Sylvester Street was all country, with Clough Dam spoken of as "lovely in its greenery." A little further afield Granville Street, then high above the Sheaf, which is to-day somewhere underneath the Midland Station buildings, had a big bank right down to the river bearing blackberries, hawthorn, and wild roses in profusion. That sentence gives us a picture very difficult of comprehension in these days, when the same bank has been shorn straight for the purposes of the station, and every vestige of greenery has long since given place to smoke and dirt. In February, 1894, Mr. John Collier, an old resident in the town, lectured before the members of the Parish Church Literary Society on "Old Sheffield." He told how Squire Bright at one time lived in a large house at the top of Hawley Croft, and how Lambert Street was at one time Lambert Croft, and said that on the site of Orchard Street and Orchard Lane was a very large orchard belonging to a townsman named Brinsworth. He also declared that button making was at one time a very flourishing industry in the town, and pointed out that in the Parish Churchyard was a gravestone bearing the following with no date: "This is John Bate, his stone. "He was ye best Sheffield Mettill button caster." In those days Sheffield Moor was beautified by gorse and foxgloves, Broomhall Street used to be known as Black Lamb Lane, whilst half a mile away Mr. Bramall had a large file factory in what was afterwards called Bramall Lane, and he built Sheaf House. Mackenzie Walk (now Lansdowne Road) was called after the Vicar of S. Paul's, the tallest man in the town. In connexion with Sheffield Moor, he told his hearers that it was at one period largely a marsh; reminded us that S. Silas parish was at one time known as Gilcar; and that Mr. Mitchell, who had a large house in Western Bank, left behind him many streets called after members of his family: Mitchell Street, Brightmore Street, Sarah Street, Robertshaw Street, Bolsover Street, and so on. Further reference to Sheffield's suburbs may be added. Even as recently as the middle'seventies, from Highfield Terrace onwards fields existed on the left-hand side of the main road, one group of well-built houses standing with fragrant gardens sloping down to the road with well-grown trees. Gateposts then stood at the entrance to Fieldhead House, and there was but little further building until the home of the then Heeley station master was reached. Fieldhead Road was rapidly approaching completion; Lowfields had been robbed of its many trees; Highfield Terrace vanished before the builder; and Wolseley Road came into existence. From many sources it has been possible to pick out memories of what the town was in the'sixties. A very interesting article in the Sheffield Weekly News declared that at that time there were two miles of green fields between Sheffield and Heeley, Sheffield ending at the old Crown Inn. It was the Crown Inn which was a popular rendezvous at night, so that company might be found for the lonely walk to Heeley, where robberies in the vicinity of the bridge were very common. In those days, says the writer of the article referred to, a six foot stone wall ran right along almost as far as the bottom of Sharrow Lane, covering the ground now between Alderson Road and Woodhead Road. Between this thoroughfare and Bramall Lane were garden plots, and the wall acted as protection from marauders. Mr. J. W. Dixon's house then stood opposite the foot of Sharrow Lane, and this wall was part of the boundary of his grounds. Behind Mr. Dixon's residence stood Highfield House Terrace, whence, at that time, the landscape seen was very fair and beautiful, the valley of the Sheaf, with Cutler Wood, remaining in all its beauty on the right bank; and the Sheaf in those days was an unspoiled, very charming stream with plenty of fish in it, and the banks edged with flowers. From this point on to Heeley all was open fields of various crops, and where the Lowfields Council School now stands was the headquarters of the Heeley Football Club. The one great leap forward in Sheffield's population came in the second twenty years of last century, as, in 1821, the figures were 65,275, and in 1841 no fewer than 110,891. In the ensuing ten years 24,000 had been added to this last figure; in the following ten years a further 50,000; ten years later saw the figures rise from 185,157 to 239,947, whilst in the ensuing six years the increase was 43,800, giving a full total in 1877 of 282,130. Ail this, of course, was due to the extraordinary expansion of the town's trade. In the'forties that trade was practically confined to cutlery, the making of files and saws, and of various cutting tools made of iron. Thirty years later trade had been transformed; steel was taking its rightful place. In due time iron was almost entirely supplanted, steel was universal, and practically every new invention in steel's possibilities coincided with a jump in population. Even in the beginning of the 'sixties over two million pounds worth of steel was being made in the town. The district round about Hunter's Bar was extremely picturesque in the 'eighties. On the Sheffield side of the Bar the Toll House stood in a tiny triangular plot of land at the apex of a large field, whereon the Albion used to play football, and in later years the Sheffield Rugby Club. The Lescar dam formed one boundary of this field, Ecclesall Road another, and the town end boundary was the little stream which, running through Endcliffe Woods and through the grounds of the present Woofinden Almshouses, finds its way along the low side of the Cemetery--our little babbling friend the Porter. Returning to Hunter's Bar, fields stretched away up the right-hand side of Ecclesall Road, where the Park now exists, and where the lawn tennis players have their quarters. Heeley used to delight their supporters a little higher up, and, during the time when the Olive Grove ground was being formed, The Sheffield Wednesday Club had headquarters at Rustlings Farm, now part and parcel of the Bannerdale estate. On the other side of the high road, just above the corner of Sharrow Vale and Ecclesall Road, stood the residence of Mr. Walter Ashton, manager of the Sheffield Waterworks Company, a high, flat-fronted residence closely hemmed in at the back, but very roomy as a home. It faced beauty from every one of its windows; immediately beyond it the causeway ended, and the high earth bank, full of flowers and shrubs, extended right along until broken by the quarry facing the present Bannerdale estate. My recollection tells me that at that time, and for some years afterwards, there was no house at all between Mr. Ashton's and the little terrace a long way further up, where Dyson lived and was shot by Charles Peace, and facing that terrace, and just below the Psalter Lane catch bar, was a delightful wood, bearing away in the direction of Dobbin Hill, and into which Peace jumped and, through it, fled after his crime. On that side of Ecclesall Road the only houses were at the junction of Greystones Road, eminently a country lane, and traces of its old rusticity may be seen to-day, leading as it did up to some of Sheffield's best houses. Rumours came about of the coming development of the district immediately above; in 1895 it became known as "the site of a thousand houses," and Mr. W.St.Q. Leng, then editor of Sheffield Notes and Queries, asked the writer to make him a sketch of the doomed district. I went there and returned with no sketch. None was to be had, unless it was one of Greystones Lane, which was not required. Everywhere else was beauty, blue bells, wild roses, waving corn, undulating fields right across to Dobbin Hill, a glorious picture for an artist in colour, but hopeless for newspaper purposes. Many a time have I gathered wild roses and blackberries along the low stone wall which bounded Ecclesall Road between Greystones Road and the church. In due time the threat of a thousand houses was fulfilled. Bannerdale estate was built over, and to-day, as one views its uncompromisingly straight streets, one wishes that the boulevard policy, so strenuously urged for years by Mr. E. M. Gibbs, had been made part of the development. Anyone can lay an estate out like a grid-iron, but the area now covered by these streets deserved something better. The suburban growth of Sheffield was first substantially marked in the opening of 1898. In the previous year there had been a great advance in building, and, especially to the south, the town had stretched out a great deal. An improved tram service was working wonders, and even where no rails had been laid and nothing but the route indicated, houses sprang up by the score. All that was done was calculated to wound the artistic sense, but it was the inevitable result of a city's progress; and, as a writer of those days said, all that could be asked was that the architects would spare the city from more of the ghastly erections called homes which had been thrown up. In 1897 plans were approved for 8 and a half miles of streets with sewers; 1,429 plans for buildings were deposited, and of these 881 were approved accounting for 2,920 houses. Rows of houses were springing up like mushrooms in Sharrow; Sheffield and Millhouses were on the point of joining hands, a great development had arisen along Ecclesall Road, new roads had been cut in Psalter Lane near the old quarry, and many new houses were already occupied there. In the Hillsborough region beautiful fields had been replaced by stacks of houses, and building was proceeding wherever possible at Nether Green, Crookes, Heeley, and Nether Edge. The 1897 plans disposed of the Pomona Gardens in Ecclesall Road, these being replaced by seven streets. Both newspapers in the town fought hard against what they regarded as desecration of the suburbs, yet it went on, and as far back as 1887 Mr. Leng became very much alarmed respecting what was being done in the neighbourhood of Crookes Valley. He wrote: "People in large towns are not as careful as they should be to preserve the open spaces. See what has become of Crookes Valley. It ought to be so much additional breathing space for Weston Park; and the property of the Water Company, if properly got hold of, would have been a perpetual delight, with ornamental waters, emerald slopes, and unspoiled naturalness. A few winding paths, a few rustic seats, clumps of furze and a hawthorn, and the whole valley would have been something to be proud of. By the building of rows of dwelling houses on the upper slopes on the far side much has been irreparably spoiled." The opening up of the Norton district came in June, 1906, when important schemes began to appear along the Chesterfield Road. The Norton district was added to the city in 1901. The Norton District Council had proposed a widening of the road to 50 feet, but the Corporation, on assuming control, had raised the figure to 60 feet. The first signs of development came in the broadening of the road from a point just beyond Woodbank Crescent to Cobnar Road, a stretch of three quarters of a mile, when the Local Government Board inspector deprecated the buying of so much land before official sanction had been given. The sum at issue was £6,000, and the reply to the inspector was that, if the Corporation had waited for the slow moving of the law, the purchase price would have gone up enormously. Before the Brodsworth scheme was heard of the Sheffield Telegraph had vehemently advocated the creation of a garden city in the Rivelin Valley. It declared that never in its history had the city stopped to think during the time it was growing what it was eventually to become, and the result was chaos. New towns, or what amounted to the same thing, were springing up all round, and there was nobody to guide them. Builders had gone groping on, trying to get as many houses as possible on to each plot, and the whole of it had been a very bad thing for Sheffield. The municipality, at great cost, was buying up slum property in the centre of the city, and dumbly watching the reproduction of similar areas out where the birds sang once, and where nature was supreme. There was still no more lovely retreat in the district than Rivelin, and the municipality was opening its eyes. The Water Committee was devoting some of its surplus to the making of roads, and so man was being permitted to enter that lovely valley, but the roads were sure to be followed by houses, bricks and mortar in plenty. It was essential, if past errors were not to be repeated, that the Corporation should buy as much of the land along the new road as was possible, and have a general plan made of the whole valley before a single stone was laid down for building purposes. That suggestion was admirably carried through. The trail of the little builder in Sheffield was ruthlessly laid bare in an article in 1906, when the following words were used: "He generally possesses the very minimum of capital, often none at all; he has to work on borrowed money; his work, further, has to be of the cheapest possible character. He buys a plot of land, paying perhaps a fourth of its value in cash, and the rest he mortgages. Indeed, his history is one long mortgage. He runs up a pair of cottages, obtaining his material on credit; he mortgages them, and starts on two others. And so he goes on until he has marred for ever some little slice of God's beautiful world with permanent erections of the plainest and cheapest character, crowded as closely together as is possible on his bit of land, designed in fact with a single eye to profits. He likes to get near to a tram route, and there he plants his squat little kennels in such fashion that in that beautiful spot he reproduces almost entirely the conditions and the evils of the central slums. To that may be added a speech by the late Mr. C. D. Leng in 1908, in which he said that in the past Sheffield had missed its way very badly, and urged that if something better than long rows of brick houses and comparatively narrow streets had been schemed a very fine avenue might have been made from Collegiate Crescent to Ecclesall Church. It was true that land was only procurable there at very high prices; unhappily, people thereabouts were permitted to hold on until the market price touched £1,500 an acre, and such a price could only be justified because existing by-laws permitted the speculative builder to place forty houses on each acre. Even to-day plenty of land remains round about the city. One wonders whether some time or other we shall see Stannington laid out as a building estate should be laid out; it is not difficult to imagine an extension of pleasant Normandale, and the great expanse of land on the Wadsley side of the Great Central line looks ear-marked for development. In the Sheffield Telegraph of January, 1907, "Current Topics" had the following respecting houses and extension of trams. "If there is beauty there is also something else. We crossed no fewer than three tram termini, and at each came across a growing circle of new houses, all of the smaller type, to which we do not object so long as they are efficiently built, but here so built as to get as many as possible close to the tram-routes. There were long monotonous rows of these houses until one could ride for miles with no sight of green. At one terminus is a small hamlet with cross streets, side streets, back streets, crammed with houses. We have to ride to the terminus and walk some distance before we reach the open and shake off the horrible influences of the squat red brick houses. "The builder is obliterating beauty by hundreds of square yards at a time, but the primary fault lies with the tramways system, becoming an unmitigated curse instead of a blessing. The Corporation will be very short sighted and guilty of a very wicked act if it allows the present system to extend by a single yard without first devising some policy whereby the districts to be opened up may be saved from the ruin which has overtaken nearly all the existing routes. We are herding our people 200 to the acre, not in ancient slums, but new ones, whereas we have free and open country in which to house three times our population at fifty or even sixty or seventy. At sixty per acre we could house 1,400,000 souls, yet we are planting them at 180, 200 and 250 per acre along the tram routes." This was a scathing denunciation, yet not one who knows anything of what suburban Sheffield used to be will deny the wreck which has come over it. Few things in Sheffield have been better done than the making of the Rivelin Valley Road, a scheme taken in hand by the Corporation to prevent spoliation of a delightful district by the uncareful builder. It meant the destruction of a slice of beauty, but it also involved the saving of the infinitely greater proportion of the sylvan stretch which for ages past had given local poets their inspiration and which had been reproduced on myriad canvases by local artists. Really the road represented a great preservation, the saving of the human soul and the saving of natural beauty. The scheme was put forward at a time when the Corporation seemed to have nothing to offer the unemployed other than work in the Corporation stone yard, work calculated to break the heart of anyone with sentiment in him, and the road came as a way out of what seemed "a terrible impasse," as a local writer put it. The moment the scheme was put forward the Council embraced it happily: it provided a garden city on a small scale, it gave the unemployed a chance of productive work, it suggested a future development. It could not be a country road, though its environs were most beautiful: development made it necessary that all the rigidity of a town road must be adhered to. Its beginning was just above the Roman Catholic Cemetery, whence it passed a mile and three-quarters further up the valley to a point exactly opposite the Bell Hagg Inn on the Manchester Road, and that was the most difficult stretch of all, from the engineering point of view. It included land on both sides of the stream which was crossed at one of the waterwheels belonging to the Corporation, it was negotiating very steep gradients on both slopes, and even when the road was quite new it presented no more of an eyesore than the quarries on the adjacent hills, and its junction with the Manchester Road was at a point just below Rivelin Bridge. On May 7th, 1912, Alderman Styring explained the building proposals on the new road. He explained that the land which it was proposed to develop on Town Planning lines in the Rivelin covered 220 acres, that when the new road was made by the Corporation, it became necessary to buy freely of land on both sides of the road and the land thus bought had to be re-sold, so that the Corporation was proposing to lay out something on the lines of a garden city and in so doing get back some of the money which had been expended on the road. The Alderman pointed out that it had been laid out with the easiest of gradients, the principal idea being to provide a main artery from the Hillsborough side of the city to the fragrance of the Derbyshire moors, and at the same time furnish a pleasant residential quarter. The Corporation had spent £60,000 on the road, the work had been done in a period of acute trade depression, there was then no thoroughfare along the valley, and half the total cost had been for land. The whole estate extended for a distance of three-and-a-half miles. In May, 1912, it was decided to sell or lease 200 acres of the Rivelin Valley Road for development, stipulating that no dwelling should cost less than £250, and there must not be more than twelve houses per acre. Alderman Styring explained that this had been decided upon because it was necessary to raise the £60,000 invested by the Corporation out of the water surplus in constructing the road and in purchasing the adjoining lands, an investment which it had been pointed out was technically irregular. This brought about a Corporation apology. Mr. George Carr, for many years a member of the Sheffield City Council, has told me much concerning old Burngreave and Pitsmoor. Referring to Burngreave he said its natural drainage was from the Rutland Hills to Shirecliffe, though this only coursed down to Pitsmoor and Neepsend. The stream behind the present Wesleyan Chapel in Burngreave commenced at Shirecliffe Hill Top and emptied itself into an open sheet of water at the corner of what subsequently became Christchurch Road. Thence it went down to the site of the present Vestry Hall, where was again an open sheet of water and, in flood time, extended as far as the present Brightside Library, where a boy was once drowned. At Smith's Flour Mills there was yet another open water space, but this had been formed artificially for condensing purposes, and from all these several pools the water ran down into the open ditch which ran along the railway side at the foot of Spital Hill. In Burngreave Wood, now the Cemetery, there was a natural water course, and another in the grounds of Mr. H. J. Wilson's new house. Where Nottingham Street and Andover Street are to-day was a natural watershed to the Vestry Hall, and the old main road from Sheffield to Barnsley was then up Pye Bank by Nursery Street, along White Rails, with no bridge then either at Corporation Street or White Rails, and Mr. Carr was speaking from his memories of over sixty years before. "Spital Hill Road," as it then was, went on to Grimesthorpe with the old road starting from the site of the Vestry Hall proceeding by All Saints' Church. From Attercliffe the only way was by a bridle path emerging at Carwood Lane, thence up Carwood Road to Grimesthorpe, and so to Osgathorpe. This was at that time the only way of getting from Attercliffe to Pitsmoor catch bar. The whole district, largely covered as it was by glorious woods, was crossed in many places by these pleasant paths. The contour of Burngreave is vividly interesting, Catherine Street with its natural drainage fall on either hand and one side sheer down, whilst the acuteness of Andover Street and Rock Street forms food for geologists' wonder. Andover Street also is on the natural formation; builders in those parts of the town simply accommodated their work to the concour of the land and very little was done in the way of excavation. Andover Street ended at the bottom of Occupation Road, just opposite the Wicker Congregational Chapel. It is not generally known that there is an old schoolroom connected with the chapel well below the road level, approached from the Petre Street side by a very steep slope. The foundations of this particular school go down a considerable depth, right to the natural formation. Carlisle Street, contrary to what it is to-day, used to be blocked by Burngreave Wood. This was one of two impressively beautiful woods in this Burngreave district, one Burngreave Wood, the other Hall Carr Wood. Each was, as Mr. Carr declared, extremely spacious, each full of great forest trees and woodland, and each, in his estimation, vieing in beauty with anything which half a century later existed at the West end of the city. There was once a very picturesque lodge in Hall Car Wood which was absorbed by the building of Moorwoods' works, which were built round the lodge, and for many years it remained in the midst of the turmoil of trade. As has been said, Burngreave Cemetery now stands on the site of Burngreave Wood; so does All Saints' Church, and those two facts furnish some evidence of its extent. There were many pits working there in those days, particularly off the old main road to Grimesthorpe on the left hand side beyond the present Vestry Hall. In Normanton Street there were many such, not deep nor requiring machinery or horses, or jennies. They were called bell-pits because of the formation, narrow at the top and gradually broadening further down as the work extended, and this was only a portion of the way in which every part of Sheffield has been worked for ironstone and coal. In 1874 one of many accidents occurred in connexion with these little pits. A terrific thunderstorm broke over Sheffield lasting for twelve hours without cessation, until six in the evening. Later that evening information came that in Normanton Street there had been an accident of quite an unusual character, buildings having given way. It transpired that the house in question had been built over the shaft of one of these pits, and the whole range of the chimney breast and most of the living room had vanished into the hidden working. The theory was that the remarkably prolonged rain storm had created flood water in the disused workings and, backing up, had gradually disturbed the natural filling up of the pit, weakening it to such an extent as to invite disaster. Nobody was hurt but it was an accident which caused much alarm to those who knew to what an extent these old shafts had been built over. The pit in question was twenty or thirty feet deep, so that the escape of those in the ruined house bordered on the miraculous. When Mr. Wilson went to his new home, The Hills, and was altering it, he got his water from a well, but was dissatisfied with the supply as the well often used to go dry, yet always being full at flood times. The inference was that there were old pit workings in connexion with the well, and not very many years ago, the Midland Railway Company experienced similar trouble in Pond Street, and found it very difficult to overcome. Generally speaking, the formation of these pit workings was a pyramid with the apex a twentieth part of the length of the base. How dangerous the working of these pits was, and how complex the shoring up must have been, will have to be left to the imagination. So far as Spital Hill is concerned, when Sheffield's first railway station was built at the foot of that thoroughfare, the general contour swept down from the heights of Rock Street to the ditch of the Don, and it was necessary for considerable excavation to be done on the east side of Spital Hill, and for a strong retaining wall to be built there, as still exists. This provided a wide space for the station, and the railway lines are undisturbed to-day. Lockwoods' works towards the top of Spital Hill are built on the natural formation with a sheer drop in front, and the premises now occupied by the Brightside Foundry Company, and formerly Walker and Eaten's works, ran back to the same great cliff. The connexion between the Midland and the Great Central lines at this point is of interest, rising something like sixty feet in half a mile, with costly tunnelling underneath Spital Hill and excavation through the solid cliff. It is easy enough to agree with Mr. Carr's remark respecting the abrupt contour round about Andover Street, Nottingham Street, and the abruptnesses of Pyebank right away down to the old Bridgehouses station. Of course, as writers living in earlier days have told us, the whole of those swelling hills were at one time clothed by beautiful woods. If one lets the imagination run a little wild, it gives a delightful panorama of sylvan beauty a hundred years ago. The picture would possess as foreground the then delightful fragrance of the Don with its myriad trees and little thickets, with no railway wrecking the general beauty, with the great bank at the foot of which the river ran one long panorama of perfection right away down below the old Park Wood, the woods and forests of Pyebank and Pitsmoor, until, with the river still a foreground, the Burngreave bastion ends the picture. In truth, until the houses came, and the deadly drabness of the long rows of houses which were built in Penistone Road, this must have been one of the beauty spots of England, and John Holland in his Tour of the Don, a little book which might very pleasantly be a textbook for Sheffield schools, has told us a great deal of what the Don was in his days at this point. In the offices of Messrs. Wake & Sons in Bank Street, there hangs a portrait of Joshua Spooner, one of the greatest landowners in Sheffield, apart from the Norfolk family. The subject of the portrait was married in 1804, Mr. Philip Wake's great grandfather executing the marriage settlement and this portrait being a legacy many years afterwards. There were two sons of the marriage, William and Peter, and when the father's will was read, it was found that whilst William received five-sixths of the estate, only one-sixth went to Peter, and when asked by the lawyer why this disparity occurred, the testator's reply was that Peter was lame and would not need so much. In those days there was no probate duty on real estate, and the Government only got succession duty on a large property. Vast parts of land in Sheffield were included, one estate extending by Wake Road, Empire Road and Joshua Road; there was another smaller estate in Clough Fields below Bell Hagg, but the really big estates were round Crookes and Tapton. Peter's share was from the Blind Institution to Tapton Hill, stretching right away to Lydgate Lane and down Hallamgate Road; it also crossed Manchester Road, and J. B. Jackson and J. H. Andrew built their houses on his land. William's estate lay on the Crookes side of Lydgate Lane and was very large. Mr. Peter Spooner died at Tapton House in 1876. On May Ist, 1866, speaking before the members of the Literary and Philosophical Society, Mr. John Holland had as his subject, "The Gardens of Hallamshire." He pointed out that digging was healthy if only through the smelling of the earth, and Sheffield was surrounded by a beautiful belt of little gardens though to nothing like such an extent as a few years before. Crops and a good many flowers--ranunculus, polyanthus, auricula and the dahlia--flourished there, and many fruits. They were disappearing before the double Nemesis of mephitic smoke and increased value of frontage. Mr. Edward Baines, M.P., of Leeds, often declared that this garden plot system in Sheffield gave the town the advantage over any other large town that he knew. Gardens abounded up Wilkinson Street, Broomspring Lane, on Glossop Road, up Northumberland Road, down the present dingy region of St. Philip's Road, all up the slopes of Pyebank and Woodside Lane, and another definite area of plots existed just beyond the present viaduct in the Wicker. The Park district possessed many, and the Clough Lane gardens were held to be unrivalled. The path from Bramall Lane to Highfields crossed a broad belt of these gardens, others were destroyed for the making of Broomhall Mill and the General Cemetery, and for houses between Young Street and Broomhall Street. It was estimated that quite one in every three of Sheffield's workmen possessed one of these little outside gardens. In later years, those along Ecclesall Road, Fenton Ville and South View out towards Abbeydale, became famous, with many of the others vanishing before the builder. As the town increased the habit grew with workpeople of renting garden plots out in the country suburbs, a habit which we style allotments now, though in the far off days referred to the cultivation of flowers-and a very highly skilled cultivation--was all that was prosecuted. A pleasant plot, beautiful flowers with a seat and a pipe, such things were all that the jaded workman sought, nor was he a bad judge. Sometimes he grew cabbages or lettuce, but as a rule it was the old English blooms in floral horticulture which enchained him. Most of the ground between the newly made Glossop Road and Brookhill--property of the Water Company --was given over to these garden plots, as was much of the region about the present Bramall Lane. Mr. Thomas Steade's death occurred in 1889, and to him Sharrow owed much. At one time he looked like being one of the richest men in Sheffield. He sold his houses as quickly as he could build them, but, to carry on, had to borrow large sums from Mr. Joseph Newbould, the solicitor, of Paradise Square. On the latter's death an attempt was made to arrive at a settlement, but the affairs were so complicated that the matter was carried before the Court of Chancery, and its decision was against Mr. Steade to the extent of £30,000. At one time, for the further development of the Sharrow district, he ran omnibuses along Montgomery Road, but he could not compete with the trams. He held on for some time, expecting the Tramways Company to make him an offer, but it did not, being quite content gradually to run him off the road, and that duel cost Mr. Steade a great deal of money. It stands to his everlasting credit that he made one of Sheffield's most attractive suburbs, and "made good roads through which the wind could blow freely." Mr. Steade in his earlier life was an ironfounder in Eyre Street, but in 1850 he began building on a very extensive scale. He became the largest bidder for land anywhere in the district of Sharrow and Nether Edge, and possessed a remarkable knack of laying out the land he bought so that there should be no waste. Rumour had it at that time that he had bought up a great deal of the Wostenholm estate in Sharrow, and was practically responsible for the opening up of that fair region. Whether that be a fact or not it is quite true that it was under Mr. George Wostenholm's personal instructions that Mr. Steade worked when Montgomery Road, Crescent Road, Kenwood Road and Machon Bank were developed. All this came about when Mr. Wostenholm came back to this country from the States, possessed of a desire "to make of Sharrow another Boston." It was a personal enterprise later when Mr. Steade carried out the same idea in Albany Road, Steade Road, and Upper Chippinghouse Road. He lived for some time at Chippinghouse, Abbeydale Road, but removed to Kenwood Road at a time when "there was springing up a lower class population, another Carbrook," as the newspapers then declared; "a kind of ragged fringe to Sharrow's genteel garment." It was in the 'thirties that George Wostenholm first began purchasing land for the estate which later became known as Kenwood. No sooner had he got his two acres for the estate than he set about acquiring more land, having already beautified his original purchase by verdant plantations, until his purchases extended from Sheffield Moor, up Cemetery Road to Sharrow Moor, with the northerly boundary as far to the north east as Brincliffe Edge. Always in the development of his land he had the expert advice of Mannock, then of Kensington, and who afterwards laid out the Sheffield Botanical Gardens. One Sunday in 1918 I had one of the most delightful walks imaginable, in what I have always regarded as the Fletcher or the Halliwell-Sutcliffe part of Sheffield. That is to say, the region beyond the cars; up on the crest of the hill above Wadsley, round grey Worrall, along Worrall Lane which, for some unexplained and silly reason, becomes "Rural Lane" lower down, past the old stones of the stocks at Wadsley, still standing there as they must have stood for hundreds of years, passing amidst acres of the trimmest of gardens, past rows of old stone low-built houses, not pretty but wonderfully restful under the westerly sun, with their little courtyards in front, and here and there a tree and a blossoming bush. Old quaint houses, cottages falling into disuse through sheer old age but mellowing wonderfully in decay, are met with, whilst, emerging from this quaintness of Wadsley, one touches the Bradfield road where, in a field as I found it that glorious day, the children from the adjacent Wesleyan Chapel sang their Anniversary hymns in the open. And further on the road beyond pleasant but windswept Normandale, that same afternoon, there was also hymn singing in connexion with the Loxley Chapel, where the Rev. Thomas France preached for so many years. Those Loxley Chapel sermons in the'seventies and afterwards used to attract large numbers of Sheffield folks, to hear the children sing and subsequently walk home across Little Matlock, that generous and splendid valley, which was a thing to remember. In the hamlet of Normandale certain new houses have been built to take advantage of the view, but most of the dwellings must be a couple of hundred years old, and there one sees at their very best the superb glory of what I like to call the "hanging gardens of Loxley." Those of Clevedon-on-Thames had been loudly sung; these of Loxley deserve similar praise, though they stretch down to the fringe of a streamlet rather than to a noble river. They stand right across from Normandale exactly facing what is still known at Little Matlock, and where in the long gone years used to be a very famous tea garden. Above the gardens still stands the Robin Hood Inn, where crowds used to congregate for pigeon shooting matches and other sports, and where a rather reckless chronicler declares the bold outlaw himself was born. From much the same foundation it might be held that "the Bold Rodney" was born at the old-fashioned hostel so named in the centre of Normandale, but that claim is not yet made. The Little Matlock tea gardens and the Robin Hood were probably the most popular resorts of all in the neighbourhood for Sheffield folks forty years ago, with reminiscences of the flood still vividly pictured on every hand in ruined homes and scattered mills. On a space of ground on that wind-swept hill is a graveyard; what Quakers they were who buried their dead there I do not know, but close at hand is the old Unitarian chapel of Low Stannington, where the Rev. Iden Payne ministered for so very many years, a square-shaped building, with much stained glass, in a grove of trees, and many handsome monuments in the adjoining graveyard, dating back to the middle of the 18th century. Right across the valley, standing in mute challenge, is the large, square, unhandsome Independent chapel of Loxley. Here then are the three sects who helped to make this country great, all represented on this bleak hill side, gaining strength and firmness through the grandeur and power of the hills, and living the clean hard life, unafraid and very proud. Earlier in the walk than this are cottages gleaming white in the mid-day sun, and one skirts the courtyard of Revell Grange and up straight field paths towards the ridge of this great hill. Just where the ridge occurs, and towards the village of Stannington, is this wall-surrounded copse of trees. Rumour had it, across at Sandygate, that this enclosure was full of very old and mouldering grave stones. I found it to be a God's acre of the Quakers, not used for very many years, but left by that stern, methodical sect in perfect rest and peace. It has been sealed up, the entrance gates taken out, and a stone wall built in their place. Ivy has been trailed all along the inside of the surrounding walls, and there is a solemn peacefulness in the unending whispering of the wind-swept trees. It is just such a graveyard as one sees so often on the Suffolk coast, where erosion has compelled the abandonment of many churches; but here is the added whispering of the trees, which makes the picture so complete. On an ensuing ridge-top the new valley spreads before us, the Loxley Valley which was swept and torn by the bursting of Dale Dike reservoir in March, 1864. Here and there gaunt, great shoulders of the hills interrupt the view, and it really is from the lower flank of Stannington village that the best view is obtained. For all that, this is bold enough. The houses of Stannington stand against the sky line to the right, down in the middle distance are Dyson's brick works and chimneys (not so much of an eyesore as might be imagined), and straight ahead is the hamlet of Storrs, with its little chapel. Many large and cosy farms nestle under the lee of the hills, splendid ranges of wood are seen on every hand, and the whole ground is broken up into sudden precipitous banks, with tiny rivulets singing down the glens and defiles of entrancing beauty. Bradfield lies over the farther ridge; Hill Top, swept by every wind and scattered and very lonely, is at the crest of the hill, whilst, turning again to the right, one gets a glimpse of the opening and wider spreading of the Loxley Valley below Normandale, and just a sense of chimneys and buildings where the Malin Bridge district is creeping up. What is to be the future of such a country side as that? Leaving the Manchester Road at Blackbrook Bridge, turning to the right across the bridge and up in the direction of Revell Grange, one passes Corn Mill Cottages standing at right angles to the road. They make a very entrancing picture in the sunshine, with their box gardens and ivied fronts. However, the patient seeker after the picturesque has a greater find if he walks past these cottages in the direction of the stream. Here he comes across the old mill, a big, well-built building, with huge corner stones, and space and comfort about it. In front, the stream babbles over great grey stones and falls into numberless cascades, whilst the drooping branches of trees dip into the sparkling waters. This is beyond question the gem of the valley, and it was here that I found a well-known artist, a Scotsman who has been resident in Sheffield for some years, and who, alike when in his own country and later when living in London, has been a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. This was Mr. R. Scott Temple, a delightful conversationalist, who was very ready to show his work. Two canvases, each five feet by four feet, stood against the walls of the sitting room he occupied in the corn mill house, one of Rivelin, a very fine example of foliage painting, and with a real atmosphere and feeling and the other a study of ling in Norfolk, very near to the Constable country, and a painting very nearly in the Constable method. The whole of this had been done by the use of the palette knife, and the brush never touched the canvas. It held the place of honour in the Walker Art Gallery Exhibition, Liverpool, in its year, and is very masterful in execution. Another walk along the wonderful Hallam Bank, which overlooks the new Rivelin Road and the ascent to Stannington, brings us to Clough Fields, a little nest of farmhouses and stone-built houses. All are on the northern slope of the hill; one straight-faced row of four three-storey houses is interesting because there was just an indication that these might at one time have formed a single residence. The row has existed as it is to-day for the best part of one hundred years, and it was probably erected to house the workers in the coal pit two or three hundred yards further down the slope and which bore the name of Clough Fields Pit. It was discontinued outside the range of living memory, but was not closed until a lad fell into it and was killed. Not far away, perhaps half a mile, and on the upper side of Manchester Road between Hagg Lane and Crosspool, was another similar pit worked by John Ridal, who died at the great age of 93 years. The Ridals for generations have been a very well-known long-living Hallam family. This pit, the Hallam Branch, was similar to the one at Clough Fields in that the men simply walked down into it; there was no cage or sinking as we know such things to-day. And harking back to Clough Fields, there is to be found there the quaintest of old cottages, probably in its early days a house of some pretensions, for it possesses two admirable upstairs windows, one of which seems at one time to have possessed an escutcheon, though to-day the stone has practically all mouldered away and rude plaster has completed the ruin. Mr. J. H. Davidson has life-long recollections of Heeley, especially that part of Heeley down where the Meers brook meandered and where Albert Road came into being. The district was full of great and splendid oaks; he has told me there were many along the banks of the pleasant stream. In the little valley Rushdale, happily perpetuated through the name Rushdale Road, were groves of stately oaks, and splendid specimens of the same trees were to be found nearer Norton at the top of "Breakback," the stiff, straight path leading from the banks of the stream up into Norton. Then Dr. Gatty tells us that, in the seventeenth century, a very noble avenue of Spanish chestnuts extended from the Manor in the direction of the Parish Church. It is impossible to look over Cock Wood and Old Park Wood without being wounded by the desolation caused by fumes from the works and also by the wild work of the children. Cock Wood is a desolation to-day; probably we could not expect luxuriance in foliage with such an atmosphere, but one could expect the trunks of trees and branches. As it is, parts of this one-time sylvan wood give one the impression that they have been swept by shrapnel. The Old Park Wood lost much of its charm years before; at one time it was a large irregularly-shaped wood wherein was an extraordinary scope for botanical study, and many quite rare and unexpected specimens Of ferns were found. This, however, was the original fighting ground of Sheffield, and it was inevitable that for such purposes a sufficiency of ground had to be cleared. So bare places began to obtrude themselves, places where fights with the "raw 'uns" took place, bushes were trampled into nothingness, and the inevitable smoke also played its part in destruction of as fair a stretch of woodland as any town ever knew. Great fires occurred during the summer of 1868. The Old Park Wood was in flames in the middle of June, Endcliffe Woods and Beeley Wood quickly followed, and on August 6th a tremendous conflagration occurred on the Moors, on the verge of the annual grouse shooting. Wonderful scenes were seen in Sheffield streets, great volumes of milky-white smoke drifting down, and several miles of the Moors were wrapped in flame. High Street was full of burning reek and the smell of burning peat, and from Crookes there were many stories of eyes being seriously affected. The fire at Bell Hagg was so fierce that people were driven back by it, and it was reported that quite four miles of the Moors of the Duke of Norfolk and those of the Duke of Rutland were ablaze. All Moscar was going, that seemed evident, and a great effort was made to save a very valuable plantation near the Redmires Dam, but in vain. The Moors burned for several days, and when the Twelfth came grouse could not be had in Sheffield, though on the evening of that day as much as 25/- a brace was offered. SHEFFIELD'S TOWN PLANNING. One of the earliest suggestions of Town Planning for Sheffield came when Councillor Nettlefold, of Birmingham, delivered a lecture to the Architects and Surveyors in Sheffield. The lecture drew a very large audience by no means confined to members of the two professions. The lecturer said Sheffield's difficulty in finding playgrounds for its children was no less acute than in Birmingham, but in his city the difficulty was being got over, and if Sheffield only made up its mind it would easily provide the sorely-needed vacant spaces. Turning to Town Planning he spoke of the speculative builder as creator of the modern suburb with all its terrors. Sheffield had unrivalled opportunities, so magnificent that he was jealous of them. They had plenty of area and everything else, but before they could do anything they would have to get out of the by-law rut. He regarded Wincobank as a most useful object lesson; he was one who decided on it as an ideal site, but he declined to commit his reputation as a town planner by passing it as a satisfactory specimen. Basing his calculations on figures supplied by Sheffield's City Surveyor the lecturer pointed out that the city had 3,000 acres densely built upon, 2,000 sparsely built upon, 4,000 unavailable for building, and 9,000 acres available and empty. Thus in the city itself, taking the standard of ten houses and fifty people per acre, they had land available to house the whole population on ideal lines. They could not say that in Sheffield there was no room to live; it seemed eminently desirable for Sheffield to send a deputation to Germany to secure an object lesson in town planning. Following on this, Mr. E. M. Gibbs, when interviewed, said that the Corporation might well anticipate the Town Planning Bill by the planning of its main roads, for every succeeding month saw irretrievable ruin caused, allowing trees to be cut down along main thoroughfares in the suburbs, and houses being built all too near the roadway. It was probable that the Bill would become law in the following session, but a town plan would take a great deal of time, and it seemed desirable that it should be begun at once. Even before being adopted by the Corporation such a plan would be of great value to the Department in enabling it to negotiate with landowners, and save further spoliation of the suburbs. Mr. Fred Fowler said that the prime duty of Sheffield in viewing extensions was to see that before anything else was done on any particular area, broad thoroughfares should be marked out from which there should be no deviation, and he cited one instance where Town Planning might be carried through in the road leading from Ecclesall Wood from Park Head down to Abbeydale Road, one which ought to be from fifty to sixty feet wide. On May 16th, 1911, there were published plans of the proposed Town Planning Areas in Sheffield. The first one showed that that at Banner Cross and Greystones extended from the corner of Ranby Road and just behind the houses already built there, running along the rear of the houses in Rustlings Road as far as Trippet Wood, and then along Hangingwater Road past Porter Cottage, past Bluebell Wood to Hill Top, Ecclesall, emerging on High Lane a considerable distance above Ecclesall Church. Running right down High Lane to the old Banner Cross Bar, it passed on towards Whirlow to Archer Lane, going down there and eventually joining Brincliffe Edge Road, and so back to Psalter Lane across Ecclesall Road up to Dobbin Hill below the old and charming houses in the lane, and so to a junction with Ranby Road. This area was three miles long by two miles broad, whilst the Hallam and Wadsley area was also three miles long and it was held that, by those two areas, the western side of the city suburbs was safeguarded from Beauchief round to Wadsley. Much of the Woodseats district was also scheduled, though it was recognized that there and elsewhere in the local suburbs the Town Planning Act bad come six years too late. It was pointed out in this article that the total area of Sheffield was 24,000 acres; that 11,000 acres of this had already been built upon; that 13,000 acres were still available, and of those, 4,000 acres had been scheduled for Town Planning purposes. It was also stated at the time, for purposes of comparison, that the whole town of Leeds stands on no more than 3,121 acres; Doncaster on 1,695 acres, and Chesterfield on 1,388 acres, and that Sheffield was embarking on a Town Planning scheme with an area available far larger than the whole of Leicester. Into this matter, Mr. E. M. Gibbs threw all his well-known enthusiasm. In August, 1911, the Committee decided on two further areas, one, the Hillsborough and Wadsley district extending over the Rivelin Valley on both sides, Walkley Bank, Bole Hill Quarries, what was shown on the plan as Walkley Cemetery, really Crookes Cemetery, to the corner of Hagg Lane, with Sandygate Road at Mr. Leng's gates, and the whole comprising 1,270 acres. The second of these new areas was called the Eccleshall and Abbey Lane, consisting of I,721 acres, joining up to the Bannerdale and Greystones area. Its northern boundary was Ringinglow Road and Carter Knowle Road, and it extended to the southern boundary of the city including the whole of Ecclesall Wood, Silver Hill, Little Common and Norton Woodseats. It is quite probable that the sylvan beauties of Ecclesall Wood were saved from the builder by this wise reservation. A noble idea was presented to members of the Beautiful Sheffield movement in February, 1912, by Mr. C. F. Innocent; he suggested that Weston Park, Crookesmoor recreation ground and the neighbouring dams should be treated as one group, and made into a fine park. He deplored the then existing conditions, when country lanes with delightful curves were made into straight, rigid roads, for the whole trend of civilization was the destruction of natural beauty. Town planning must do away with many such lanes as he had referred to, and he could not help wishing that all with a town planning scheme on hand might be forced to work in the country with beautiful scenery in front and winding valleys and beautiful uplands, and, with plans in their hands, see what destruction their schemes meant. Scenery had become commercialized like everything else, until one of the city's Aldermen had declared that his brethren of the Parks Committee would run a gravel path through Paradise if opportunity occurred. The Machon House Estate was developed in 1912, the plans being prepared by Mr. Gibbs. It has, of course, come to be known as the Fulwood Park Estate, and the land was the property of the Town Trustees. The proposal from the outset was to make it into a garden city, full of good houses with tree-lined roads and grass-lined terraces, with the houses standing well back from the roads and possessing plenty of garden space. As a preliminary to this work, the Fulwood Road was widened and the footpath on the side next to the estate raised, and a grass bank was introduced, the whole idea, when it had been carried out in corresponding fashion on the other side, being that Fulwood Road should be a rival in beauty to the great boulevards on the Continent. On the back land, the number of houses per acre was limited to ten, and those on the land facing the two main roads only to be six per acre. The Local Government Board enquiry into the proposal came on May 21st, and there was no opposition. The merchant princes of Sheffield, and there were many of them right along from the opening of this story, went into the West end and there built stately mansions, not all with the idea of developing the suburbs of the growing town, but of providing themselves with pleasant surroundings. I have elsewhere told the story of Mr. Thomas Jessop's early days, spent with his father in a pleasant and a large house in Blast Lane, where the gardens were very beautiful and where was a lake of considerable size. But Blast Lane, pleasant as it must have been then, was rapidly overcome by the encroachments of a trade which was never clean. Other manufacturers of those days, great in their business acumen, lived in reasonable proximity to their works, the district lying beyond Spital Hill, then full of trees and beauty, with many streams coursing down the hill sides and woods of considerable size. So Spital Hill served its purpose; the line of well built stone houses just beyond the Pitsmoor Toll Bar is evidence of wealth at the time the houses were erected; Shirecliffe Hall was one of the most beautiful and ornate residences in the town, and for generations Pitsmoor was a very favourite residential quarter. It ceased in that way when the killing blasts of the chemicals used in the ever extending works swept over the district. So inevitably, the eyes of the merchant princes were raised towards the west. There were at that time many beautiful residences Wadsley way, the district surrounding Norfolk Park was similarly beautified and very much in request, the quite undeveloped Heeley district up towards Gleadless was studded by good houses, and folks who had the means were getting further away from their daily toil, and taking advantage of the delightful surroundings which Sheffield possessed. And so there came the western lung. Actually one can imagine readily enough the many excursions paid to the distant part of Sheffield, the little hamlet of Fulwood where footpaths had abounded, and can imagine also the complete realization by such stray visitors of what a home there might mean. Of similar enterprises at Bents Green, seen clearly across the valley from Fulwood, one knows something, how gentlemen, professionallY engaged down in the town, had their homes there and daily used to ride down to business and up again on horse-back, though the Ringinglow Road, like that which led to Fulwood, was not, in those days, altogether safe. The 'sixties saw a remarkable development on the Fulwood Road. In 1864, Thornbury was built by Mr… Frederick Thorpe Mappin; in 1865, Endcliffe Hall and Stumperlowe Grange came into existence; in 1867, Endcliffe Grange was built, and later acquired by Mr. Thomas Jessop from Mr. Sanderson, junr.: three great homes in Sheffield, not far removed from one another, all rising practically at the same time. Years before, others had been built on the ancient road across the moors past Dore Moor into Derbyshire. There in 1858, Mr. Hy. Vickers had built Holmwood, at what is to-day known as Park Head, whilst Mr. Mitchell Withers the architect built his house nearer to Whirlow. It was long afterwards that the Whirlow area was really developed: Whirlow Hall itself dates back to 1619, but there came handsome houses there in the early 'eighties, and later still, the land on the farther side of Whirlow Inn was similarly made use of.