RURAL TINSLEY WALK Start the walk at St Lawrence s Church 247 St Lawrence Rd, Sheffield S9 1WG

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1 RURAL TINSLEY WALK Start the walk at St Lawrence s Church 247 St Lawrence Rd, Sheffield S9 1WG Although Tinsley is well known as an industrialised area, with many iron, steel and wire works from the 1730 s onwards and for the canal which was vital to industry, the roots of this area s prosperity lie in the agricultural and the tenant farming which went on for hundreds of years. Around this area are still clues to this rural past: for example Meadowhall was named after Meadow Hall Farm which stood on the area prior to the steelworks which were demolished to make way for 1

2 the shopping centre. The name of Tinsley refers to it being a field of council in the Doomsday Book, and the fields of Tinsley would remain the most important feature of this area for the next 1000 years. Agriculture is a key features of the Tinsley Court Rolls, these laws governed the everyday lives of people in Tinsley and were the organisational principles on which the community rested. The court leet, held at Tinsley Manor, dealt with the annual payment Detail of shepherd with his sheep in a medieval farmyard scene In Workshop of the Master of James IV of Scotland- Farm Animals, Milking, and Buttermaking; Zodiacal Sign of Taurus (15th-16th century) Public Domain of rents and the fines and crimes that were brought in front of the court: these crimes were always to do with land and agricultural matters [capital crimes were tried in high courts] Due of this information we can see how agricultural life and social life was organised in this rural community. Tinsley was organised as a system of fields which surrounded the small community which included the Manor House and Tinsley Hall alongside homesteads, a Tithe Barn, the church and some other large farms with people in the area letting and subletting farming land as far as Orgreave. The fields were evidently named after their purpose or after prominent natural and geographical landmarks around them, the names in the Court Rolls allow us to imagine what these places may have looked like. This walk will take you around some of these sites, while walking round try and imagine what the area would have looked like as a small community nestled in its surrounding fields. 2

3 Stop One the Lychgate of St Lawrence Church A lychgate is a traditional covered gateway into the churchyard it comes from the Old English Lic or Lich meaning corpse it was the gate the bodies go through and the bodies would be left in the gate until the funeral in the middle ages [before mortuaries or crypts existed in smaller places]. People would have watched vigil over them in the gate for maybe up to 2 days. The one at St Lawrence s will be Victorian but there was Medieval ox-drawn ard ploughing. A minature from the epoch. (1300) Public Domain probably a gate there before, at least from the 15th century but possibly even from the 13th when examples of lych gates across the country exist from. Go out of the gate and turn left. Walk to the corner of St Lawrence Glebe. Stop Two The Corner of St Lawrence Glebe The name of the glebe has farming origins. This was once part of the land the church could rent out and the parish priest and clergy would benefit from. This land is also called Chapel Flats in the Tinsley Court Rolls. People would pay rents for farming the Chapel Flats or pay a tithe from the farming of the land. The church was a landowner and took part in the rural life. Turn back onto St Lawrence Road and walk down it towards Bawtry Road. Stop at the corner where St Lawrence Road meets Bawtry Road. 3

4 Stop Three - Yew Tree Farm On this corner used to be a place called Yew Tree Farm, Yew Tree Drive is named after this farm today. The farm was demolished in the 1950 s. Before that successive members of the Wild Family lived at the farm for over a hundred years. Stop Four Tinsley Meadows Head onto Bawtry Road and go right, to the pedestrian crossing. Cross Bawtry Road and head and go left and look at the park space behind the railings opposite the shops. This was the site of Tinsley Junior 4

5 School until recently and before that was the site of Tinsley Manor House and later farm. The Manor was possibly the original site of the Tinsley Court Leet and was an important building from the medieval period onwards, as the Bailiff s house which belonged to the Lord of the Manor, the Earl of Strafford. It was built in the 12 th century and rebuilt in the 15 th. Later it was a farm, divided into two buildings. When it was a farm it the Needham Family lived there. The lower part of the house was stone and the upper was a timber framed building of Tudor appearance. It was demolished to make way for the school but the remains of the building are still buried underneath the field. Picture Sheffield: s06422 Manor House Farm, Tinsley (also known as Needham's Farm), No 150, Bawtry Road, Tinsley (Tinsley, 1905) Next to Manor Farm was Firs Farm, for which Firs Meadows is named. The Firs Farm had been there from the 1600s, the Dyson family lived there for over 200 years and Dyson Lane was named after them. Later 5

6 the scouts used the barn as their scout hut. Turn right again and carry on down Bawtry Road towards the Viaduct and Meadowhall. Stop Five Ingfield Avenue As you pass the Methodist Church, stop and look down Ingfield Avenue towards the flats at the end of the road. This road once stretched the width of village, along with Highgate across the road. On the corner of this road used to stand Bank House Farm, which was built in the 18 th century. The name of Ingfield Avenue, like many of the roads in Tinsley, was named for the fields and rural landmarks on which Tinsley was built on 6

7 a around. These fields are also named in the Court Rolls and give us an idea of what the fields looked like as they were named after their function or natural and geographical landmarks which marked them, examples of these are: - Panstoning field - Town Field [the field in the town which was used as pinfold and common pasture] - Barley Croft [the barley field] - Stump Oak - New Gate and Market Gate - Far Field [which had corn crops in it Peter Williamson got into trouble for tethering his swine in the field in 1647 when it was corn [free food for the animals?] - Shepcot Field [the sheep field] - Nethermoor [the bottom moor] and Little Moor - Middings [the middle fields] - Water Lands or Water Flats [sometimes spelt watter written phonetically with the Yorkshire dialect] - Mary Wells and Michael Well Sheffield Archives, 1771 Tinsley Map FC/P/ROT/92R 7

8 - Chapel Flats Carry on walking down Bawtry Road towards the roundabout and Meadowhall. Stop Six Bank House Farm Wall Just down from the Methodist Church and Ingfield Avenue is a wall next to the road to your right. This wall originally belonged to Bank House Farm. It has the original gate opening at the end. You can see how big the length of the Farm used to be. In the 1850 s Bank House Farm belonged to William Hounsfield. The Hounsfield Family were very important in Sheffield at the time. William Hounsfield was known as a Gentleman in the 1800s. His Father was John Hounsfield who was a Farmer and they were related to the Hounsfields who lived in Sheffield, through the family of Bartholomew Hounsfield, who were cousins to the Tinsley Hounsfields, and who were very wealthy landowners. Bartholomew Hounsfield of Brimington, in 8

9 marrying Elizabeth Haslam, was the original progenitor of the Hounsfield line. George Hounsfield settled as a merchant in Sheffield and acquired, by merchandise and his marriage with Miss Elizabeth Twigg, an ample fortune. With this fortune he was to purchase Wadsley House, in the village of Wadsley, now engulfed in the city s suburbs. He was succeeded by his two eldest sons, John & George, who added to the estate by the purchase of freehold tenements at Wadsley and of land at Loxley & Wisewood. Mr John Hounsfield was Master Cutler of Sheffield in 1819, two years before his death. Unmarried, John bequeathed the estate to his brother George and he bequeathed it in his turn to his sister Elizabeth. All three adopted as their heir John George Hounsfield, the eldest son of their brother Thomas (not on the gravestone). John George had been born at the Cape of Good Hope, where his father was serving with his Regiment. John George took holy orders and was ordained to the Curacy of Wortley, subsequently becoming chaplain to the troops at Sheffield. He died in Euston Square, London in 12 July, 1859 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery where there is a monument to his memory. The Hounsfield s also had shares in a coal seam in Handsworth and farm land there as well in the 1800s. Stop Seven Tinsley Forum Around the site of Tinsley Forum used to be the Townfield and the Pinfold, there was also a Pinfold on Tinsley Park for the residents of Catcliffe. On a map from 1771 the pinfold is clearly marked and it was mentioned in the Court Rolls from the medieval period onwards. 9

10 The Pinfold was where animals were kept. The Pinder kept the Pinfold and who was paid rents by others for putting animals on the pinfold. The residents of Tinsley were only allowed to keep 3 beasts and 2 halves [or young animals] on there at any one time. The pinder was often a women, as was the case in the 1600s: Margaret Gillot [pinder for Tinsley 1652], Margaret Ante [Pinder for Catcliffe 1652], Margaret Williamson [Pinder for Catcliffe 1657], Margaret Shepley [Pinder in 1662, 1666, wife of Seth Shepley the elder, a farmer who was also Pinder several times] there was also another Margaret Shepley s who served as pinder [married to William Shepley, Seth Shepley s son, and was named as a Pinder and Juror in 1680]. In the Court Rolls we know that Bylawmen were appointed by the Court and went around the farms and fields all year, making note A pinfold in Derbyshire which shows what the one in Tinsley would have looked like. Photograph Credit: William Metcalfe, Hope pinfold The notice at its front, submitted as a supplemental, lists the rules for keeping animals in the enclosure. [14 July 2007] Sourced under a Creative Commons License from geograph.org.uk of any misdemeanors which were fined and the rents which needed to be paid, including those for the Pinfold, these were then brought to the court and had to paid at the court. These fines give us insight into what people had to do to keep the rural areas. The most common fine was for un-rung Swine or animals which were untethered or running riot They couldn t let their animals just eat off the common pasture or in other s fields. They had to make sure their fields were ploughed and the common pasture taken care of and needed to stop up gaps in the fences and hedges, called smoots and gaps. They also had to ditch and 10

11 get rid of the stones on their own rented pieces of land. Ploughing other people s corn was a problem as was putting animals into pastures which had been overeaten the rural life of this place was a fragile balancing act which any slight thing, a bad harvest, people taking more than their share, breaking hedges or letting their animals run riot, could overturn people s fortunes and lives. Carry on down Bawtry Road. Stop Eight Corner of Siemens Close Before you cross the road at Siemens Close, pause and look over the road at the park where the new Primary School is. Just opposite you will see a wall and a recently demolished building site. This demolished building used to be part of Pear Tree Farm. The farm was named after a large pear tree which was on the site. The house was later known as the Lodge. Carry on down Bawtry road, past the Carnegie Library and go down 11

12 under the underpass next to the Fernie Greaves building. Bear right, you will come up onto the roundabout, keep to the right and go under again. You will come out onto Sheffield Road, next to the Canal. A row of shops and M&C Tailoring will be on your right. Stop Nine Sheffield Road The village Blacksmiths used to be on Sheffield Road. Farming was the main but not the only way people sustained themselves. For the wealthy gentlemen the farmland was a way of gaining profit from tenant farmers but they often had other industrial interests too,often in ganister and coal mining, water wheels and cutlery. For the less welloff farming provided subsistence, food, animals and money but they often again supplemented any holdings with other trades and crafts. 12

13 Seth Shepley, of the Shepley family who turn up in the rolls from the 1500s onwards, for instance, was named as a wheelwright in 1655, he was obviously proud of this job as it is unusual on the rolls for other occupations to be named. His son William Shepley also became a wheelwright otherwise known as a Cooper. There was also a man named Alphonsus Morton who was named in 1676 as a Picture Sheffield: s09727, Charles Challoner, blacksmith at Glasswell's Smithy, Sheffield Road Tinsley (near Plumpers Inn) Blacksmith in Tinsley. These craft and industry based jobs were also vital for the running of the rural area as they made the wheels, shod the horses and made the tools which kept the area running. Everyone needed a certain level of craft skills to run the rural areas as well to make and mend hedges, roads and bridges took a lot of work Walk along past the shops on Sheffield Road and just past Wharf Road. There you will see an island that will allow you to cross from one side of Sheffield Road to the other. When you have crossed turn right and head back up along the other side of Sheffield Road until you reach the corner of Town Street. 13

14 Walk up Town Street and then take the first left up Dundas Road. Walk up Dundas Road until the first right, Hatherley Street, turn up Hatherley Street and walk all the way up it until it joins Norborough Road. Turn left down Norborough Road until the first right. This will be a cul-de-sac with Tinsley Meadows Junior School just behind it. Cross the road and go up the Cul-de-sac and through the open gate in front of the school. 14

15 Stop Ten Tinsley Green You are now on Tinsley Green, which was once part of the common land of rural Tinsley and is now a park and the site of the school. This might have been then Common Land or Pinder Pieces as they were also known in the Court Rolls. This was land that was used by everyone in the village, for farming or keeping animals on. We can read a lot about the common land in the Court Rolls, for example:- Margaret Shepley s testimony from 1680: Margaret wife of William Shepley saith (sayeth) upon her oath that she being present at a Court holden for the said Manor about twelve years ago and being then Pinder of Catcliffe did have John Ward and George Beardshaw [Beardsall] of Catcliffe affirm and say that Mr Richard Burrows deceased did receive fifteen shillings rent of Thomas Boler for the said parcel of ground called the Out-gang for the use of the Said Lord of Strafford and that at the same time Mr Burrows of Tinsley affirmed the like and that being Pinder of Catcliffe for fourteen years together had the benefit of the said Common Pieces or Pinder Pieces and let them for rent sometimes/ 15

16 Take the path that runs through the middle of the green over to the other side of it. You will exit through an opening with three bollards on the other side. Walk straight ahead onto Harrowden Road. Turn right and walk down Harrowden Road to rejoin Bawtry Road at the bottom. Turn left up Bawtry Road back towards the shops and Tinsley Meadows. Stop on Highgate outside the Pike and Heron pub. Stop Eleven- Highgate Highgate is one of the oldest roads in Tinsley and possible dates back to the Roman period. It was once the main throughfare for the town. On the corner of Bawtry Road and Highgate used to be Hall Farm. We know that the Manor Court was definitely held at Hall Farm because is belonged to Mr Hoole in the 1600s. The Hooles were the Bailiffs in Tinsley from the 1690s and the Hall was used therefore as their residence instead of the Manor House as they were in charge of the proceedings alongside William Spencer the Steward. Mr Hoole and his house are named in the Court Rolls in the instructions for calling the Manor Court: To Mr Hoole Bayliffe of the Manor of Tinsley. You are hereby required to summon & warn the Great Court Baron of the right Hon. William Earl of Strafford knight of the more noble order of the garter to be holden for your said Manor of Tinsley upon Saturday the sixteenth day of April next ensuing by ten of the clock in the morning of that day namely at the house of Mr John Hoole situated in Tinsley aforsaid before me Willliam Spencer Steward there and you are also commanded to summon and warn all freeholds suitors resiants. Sworn officers within 16

17 the said manor to be then and there ready to do and perform their respective suites and services due you are further required to summon and warn twenty and four residents of the said manor of the most sufficient inhabitants there that they may be at the said next court ready to do their service upon the homage as jury for the business of that day and to enquire of such articles and things within the said manor as shall be given in charge at their and that you your to thou and those given in charge at their perils and that you yourself be then and there ready to perform your duty and service and to make all due return of this precept as you will answer the contrary at your peril. Given under my hand and seal this thirtieth day of March in the year of the Reign of your own soverign Lord and Lady William and Mary by your grace of God over England Scotland France Ireland King and Queen defenders of the faith 1692 by me William Spencer steward there [Sheffield Archives, WWM C1 183 (1699)] Hall Farm was demolished in the 1930s to make room for the widening of Bawtry Road. Walk up Highgate until you are in front of the doctors surgery, Highgate Clinic. Stop Twelve Highgate Clinic. The clinic is one of the oldest buildings left in the area, and probably dates to the late 1800s. Two buildings down from the clinic used to stand the Tithe Barn for Tinsley. A tithe in feudal times was 10 percent of everything that you earnt or produced in the year which had to be given to the Lord of the Manor and later the owner of the Tithe Barn. 17

18 The barn was owned by the Spencer Family in the s and they had to give a peppercorn as a tithe to the Lord of the Manor. The Spencers were Stewards in Tinsley and named on many Court Rolls as they oversaw the proceedings of the court: From the 1672 Court Roll: The jury aforesaid present and say upon their oaths that William Spencer gent lately purchased to him and his heirs forever of John Spencer gent the Tythe Barn in Tinsley with a croft are holden of the Lord of this manor and by the yearly rent of one peppercorn being lawfully demanded The old Tithe barn was converted into 4 houses on Highgate Tithe Barn, Great Cokkeswell, Interior (1896) reproduced under a Creative Commons License. At the top of Highgate you will see a small public footpath lane with staggered cycle barriers, go up through this lane and follow it out onto St Lawrence Road. Go right down St Lawrence Road until you can see St Lawrence Church. End the walk here. 18

19 Bibliography Sheffield Archives, The Tinsley Court Rolls, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments C