January 2002

May 2002 Newsletter

Notice of Annual General Meeting
Exhibitions and Events
Dronfield Miscellany
Conservation Matters
Programme
Review of Past Activities
Hunter Archaeological Society
Derbyshire Archaeological Society

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The next meeting of the Society will be the Annual General Meeting which will take place on Thursday 23 May 2002 at 7.30 p.m. in the Edward Lucas Hall of the Peel Centre. Elections will be held for the Committee and nominations are invited. Anyone wishing to stand should notify the secretary in writing seven days prior to the meeting.

Following the business meeting there will be an illustrated talk on Chiverton House given by the present owners, Mr and Mrs Chadwick who, over the last two years, have transformed this Grade II listed building into a family home.

Annual subscriptions are due immediately after the Annual General Meeting.

Transport can be arranged if you have difficulty getting to meetings and if you would prefer to use the side entrance with its less steep staircase, please either contact a committee member beforehand or ask for assistance on the night.

EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS

As part of Local History Week, the Society will be holding an exhibition on Saturday 11 May from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. in the Peel Centre when material donated to the Society and held in its archives in the Slinn Gallery will be on display. Maps, photographs, census returns, and other documents will be included. Society Members are encouraged to support this event.

On Thursday 9 May from 6.30 - 8.00 p.m. the Library is hosting 'A Sense of Place', an evening of Derbyshire readings for Local History Week 2002. ODS Secretary, Margaret Mace, will be one of the readers. Tickets, available at the library, are £1.50 and include wine and Derbyshire delicacies.

To celebrate the Queen's Jubilee the Town Council has invited the Society to participate, along with the Civic and Photographic Societies, in an exhibition of to commemorate the last fifty years in Dronfield. This has been a period of major change as the town expanded and developed and the Society would be particularly interested to receive photographs (which are copied and returned) and other archive material covering this period. It doesn't have to be all that old to be 'history' - what happened yesterday could be fascinating for your grandchildren!

DRONFIELD MISCELLANY

Issue No 3 was out in time for Easter. Continuing the intention to include the outlying villages of the old parish, this issue features an article on the industrial archaeology of Unstone, as well as a lively description of Dronfield in the 1880s as the Wilson Cammell works came and went and how this affected the town.

Again readers' comments have been included and feedback from readers is welcomed by the Editorial Committee (Ann Brown, Margaret Mace, Jean Kendal and Judith Vernier) as well as suggestions and contributions for future editions.

CONSERVATION MATTERS

As a result of representations by various people it would appear that the supermarket proposals for the Jowitt site have been modified in that the proposed pedestrian walk alongside the medieval barn and revised traffic arrangements at the junction of Stubley Lane and Gosforth Lane have not yet been decided.

The gardens of the Manor House have been transformed with a new layout based on the original Victorian garden design and including block paving and new lighting. Following representations by our Society and others including the librarians, the very fine cast iron urns which were not included in the first plan are being refurbished and will be reinstated.

PROGRAMME

There are two outings arranged for the summer.

The first is a visit to Sheffield Manor Castle, a follow up to Sara Morton's talk (see below) on Thursday 20 June. Please meet at the Castle on Manor Lane at 7.00 p.m. Parking is on Manor Lane. Although we hope to enjoy a warm summer evening, the castle is on an exposed and windy site so bring along an extra layer of clothing just in case! There will be a collection for the Friends of the Manor Castle on the visit.

(Manor Lane runs between City Road and Harborough Avenue and, if approached from Manor Top, is a RIGHT turn with traffic lights just beyond City Road Cemetery or, if approached from Queens Road, after negotiating the one way system at the Granville roundabout, pick up Granville Road. Manor Lane is then first on the LEFT after the T-junction with City Road.)

The second outing is a full day trip to Newark and Kingshaugh Manor on Saturday 13 July. The coach will leave Dronfield station at 9.00 a.m. for a guided walk around Newark following which there will be time for lunch. Leaving at 1.30 we then go on to Kingshaugh Manor and Ancient Monument, a home with a past going back to the Iron Age. The present house is early 17th century incorporating huge blocks of stone from the 13th century building and traces of Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Saxon and Norman man have been found in the grounds where we can also enjoy the wild life, wild flowers, ancient trees draped in mistletoe, petrifying springs and a stream teeming with fish. Provided we can all tear ourselves away from all these delights the coach eventually returns to Dronfield by 6.00 p.m.

The cost of this day trip will be £15 per person, including the coach, guide for Newark, and entry, guide and cream tea for Kingshaugh.

REVIEW OF PAST ACTIVITIES

January's speaker was Peter Warr of the Ranmoor Society who described how the Rand Moor situated three miles west of Sheffield was transformed from a hamlet of fewer than 50 buildings with a Methodist chapel in 1854 to perhaps the most desirable suburb of Sheffield by the turn of the century. >From 1860 onwards as Sheffield became an industrial city the wealthy entrepreneurs bought up large sites on which they built splendid houses. Two of the largest were Oakbrook, the home of Mark Firth who entertained the Prince and Princess of Wales there and Endcliffe Hall, which cost John Brown £100,000 for its construction and £65,000 for the interior. Proximity to these grand mansions was used in advertising of smaller properties built for the prosperous middle classes through freehold land societies which bought up land, built roads and services and then sold off plots on which the style of house had to be approved. Smaller, more modest homes were then needed for the servants, gardeners, coachmen and dressmakers who served the grander houses. Transport was improved with a horse bus service from 1856 to be followed by trams in 1901. St. John's church was opened in 1879 but burnt down eight years later though re-building was swift as the Alliance Insurance Company paid out £9,500 within a week of the fire! (The building is now insured for £8 million!) The last twenty years have seen a further transformation of Ranmoor as the large houses have been divided into apartments and their gardens sold off for further property development but it manages to retain its atmosphere of Victorian dignity and grandeur.

From Victorian grandeur, March's meeting took us to the remains of Tudor splendour when Sara Morton, secretary of the Friends of Sheffield Manor Castle told us of the work of this small but vigorous group who are dedicated to ensuring the recognition and preservation of this historic site. Never a castle nor a manor, the original medieval hunting lodge which overlooked the 2460 acres of Sheffield deer park, was transformed into a splendid house in the sixteenth century by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury with his formidable wife, Bess of Hardwick, as one of the houses used to accommodate his prisoner, Mary Queen of Scots, and her considerable retinue. At its peak in this period, subsequent centuries saw the decline and demolition of many of the buildings until today only the Turret House, which nineteenth century romantics liked to think was built for Mary though the modest size of the rooms and its function as a gatehouse would have made it unsuitable, remains. Nevertheless there is some very fine plasterwork dating from 1570 and believed to have been designed by Mary and Bess and similar to that in the Hunting Lodge at Chatsworth. Listed Grade II by English Heritage, the Friends' efforts are concentrated on conserving the building and protecting it from vandalism from which the whole site has suffered over many years and on whose ravages the resident stonemason spends much time and effort. Sadly, neither the Duke of Norfolk who leases the land to the Council nor the City Council itself show any interest in the preservation of the site but hope is on the horizon with a lottery bid in conjunction with the Sheffield Natural History Group which is concerned about the conservation of land adjacent to the Castle which shows evidence of medieval farming. Altogether Sheffield Manor Castle deserves better, particularly as nearly all traces of the original castle alongside the river Don in the city centre have been obliterated.

The dedicated group of Friends has already achieved much and they are worthy of every encouragement. Please come along on 20 June and see for yourself!

Hunter Archaeological Society

Saturday 29 June 2002

Excursion to Ashover for a guided visit by a local historian to the church of All Saints followed by a guided walk to the partially restored Ashover Mill, known to have been used to grind fluorspar. Following lunch on the banks of the River Amber there will be a guided walk back passing by Overton Hall once the home of the horticulturist, Joseph Banks. Back in Ashover Frank Robinson, a Society member, will lead the party to the school and explain about the Iron Age Roundhouse that is being built in the school grounds and there will be an opportunity to examine the recently discovered boulders decorated with Bronze Age art. You will need to take your own refreshments and suitable footwear in case of mud and wet grass is essential.

Transport is by coach leaving Sheffield Interchange at 9.00 a.m. and picking up at Tesco Superstore, Chesterfield at approximately 9.20 a.m.; back in Sheffield by 5.00 p.m.

If you would like to go on this excursion please contact the society at odsweb@olddronfieldsociety.org.uk

Derbyshire Archaeological Society

This society has a number of visits during the summer including all day visits to Leek, Stafford Castle, Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills, evening walks around Clowne, Etwall and Repton, guided walks at Ashover and Keyworth, Nottingham, evening visits to Southwood Garden, Ticknall and Holme Pierrepont Hall, afternoon tour of Masson Mill Heritage Centre and Museum, and a visit to the Roman excavation at Barton-in-Fabis. Booking is essential for most of these - please contact Judith Vernier at odsweb@olddronfieldsociety.org.uk if you are interested.

Their AGM is on Tuesday 14 May at Derby Museum and Art Gallery at 7.30 p.m. followed by a talk on 'Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Derbyshire by Dr. A. Myers, County Sites and Monuments Officer.