Joseph Hunter

“ And accordingly her sons an active, acute, and hardy race, patient of toil, unwillingly submitting to unnecessary restraints, aware of the advantages of their situation, proud of the reputation they have obtained for her, attached to their birth-place, and where-ever they go remembering with more than common affection the tall graceful spire that surmounts the town, the woodland heights around it, and the streams which glitter along its devious valleys. ”

“ The walks which that gentleman cut in the boldest part of the cliff, and along a natural terrace extending to that part of Stannington in which are the chapel and minister's house, were thrown open to the public, and much frequented during several summers by the people of Sheffield. Such places afford a cheap, healthful, and innocent amusement, and it is desirable that every town, but especially every manufacturing town, should possess them. ”

“ The philanthropist who has witnessed the wretched accommodations which the mills erected on the rivers in general afforded to the workmen employed in them, and the ill effect both upon their comfort and morals which is the consequence of their many unemployed hours, will excuse the large addition which the introduction of the steam-engine has made to the ancient smoke of Sheffield, and wish that the use of them might become more general. ”

“ When these remains betray a state of splendour now no longer existing, men are naturally disposed to inquire into the causes and process of a change so remarkable; and to ask for the names, characters, and histories of the distinguished dead of whose former power and consequence those remains are still speaking. In works of the highest antiquity the parish of Sheffield is not rich ”

“ The town of Sheffield is described by writers of the seventeenth century as built entirely of stone. A few of the old stone buildings remain: but brick, as being the much cheaper material, is now chiefly in use for dwelling-houses and manufactories. It seems ot have been introduced at the beginning of the last century. The Upper-chapel in Norfolk-street was the first public building of brick; and this, as if the architect was suspicious of the durability of his material, has its corners of stone. The parish had, however, one fine specimen of brick masonry of two centuries earlier date. ”

“ When swoln by rains, or by a sudden melting of the snow on the moors to the west of the town, (a much more frequent occasion of floods in the Sheffield rivers,) it has been known not only to fill its dep channel, but to overflow its banks, and lay waste to the works of man. ”

“ The woods now remaining are but small remnants of our ancient forest-vesture. The whole of Fullwood and Upper-Hallam was once a pasturable forest, sylva pascua; and the Park, which owing to its present want of foliage presents from many points a bare and unpleasing appearance, once abounded in forest-trees of the noblest growth. Mr. John Harrison, a person who in 1637 made a minute survey of the Manors of Sheffield, Cowley, and Ecclesfield, for the earl of Arundel, speaks of the stately timber which was then growing in Sheffield Park ”

“ But these streams are og more importance to the commerce of Sheffield in another way than they could possibly have been had their waters been so deep and their course unobstructed as to have been fitted for the purposes of navigation. It is to one striking peculiarity in them that Sheffield in a great measure owes its present consequence as a manufacturing place, the frequent occurrence of their falls. These falls are the very life of its manufacturers, presenting an easily available strong motive power to works where the demand of power is necessarily large. ”

“ Sheffield is the little capital of adistrict familiarly known by the name of Hallamshire. Shire is share: a portion of territory shared or appropriated so some city, town, or castle. It does not always imply that there is any peculiar jurisdiction prevailing: for we find many instances in the northern parts of England in which the term is loosely applied to tracts of country merely, as it seems, because lying near some place of ancient note. This in the county of York we have North-Allertonshire, and Sowerbyshire ”

“ This was the last appearance of the plague properly so called amongst us.
There have been few instances of extraordinary longevity at Sheffield. The most remarkable is that of William Congreve, who is stated on his grave in the parish church-yard to have been a hundred and eleven years eight months old at the time of his death in 1754. This has an appearance of particularity, one characteristic of truth. But there is always ground for much reasonable scepticism in accounts of such uncommon longevity. ”

“ Less attention seems to have been paid to the modern improvements in agriculture here than in other parts of the kingdom. This will commonly be the case where the farms are not large, and where few gentlemen are found cultivating estates of their own. The farms rarely exceed two hundred acres, and for the most part held on leases for term of years. They are mostly in tillage. There is comparatively little meadow land. No cheese is made. The town is principally supplied with that necessary article milk, from the farms in Derbyshire. ”

“ Salmon, which was formerly plentiful in the Don, is now rarely found there. Sometimes a solitary fish is caught, and in the month of August 1756, a very fine one was taken at Broomhead-mill, on one of the tributary streams nine or ten miles above Sheffield. They seek waters where they are less disturbed by works, and weirs, and barges. The Don about Sheffield is now chiefly noted for chub, and the Riveling for trout.
None of the Sheffield streams are navigable within the parish. The navigation of the river Don commences at Tinsley. ”

“ The remains of a house in which it was pretended he was born were formerly pointed out in a small wood in Loxley called Bar-wood, and a well of fine clear water rising near the bed of the river has been called from time immemorial Robin Hood's Well. This well is included within the grounds at Cliff-Rocher, a place not inaptly named by its late proprietor Little-Matlock, as it bears no mean resemblance to some parts of the beautiful valley of Matlock in Derbyshire. ”

“ Those only who do can form a just idea of its amphitheatrical pride, stretching down to the very brink of the Sheaf that flowed at its base, and rising upwards to the lofty summit that overhangs the eastern side of the town: the long line of hill on which the Manour stood just intervening between the topmost boughs and the horizon. When rising in all its consummate pomp, and robed in its leafy honours, well might the vale deserve the lovely comparison which Miss Seward's classic muse appropriates: 'And Sheffield, smoke-involved ”

“ Sir Thomas Wortley was high-sheriff of the county of York in the 6th and 17th years of Henry VII. and a man of principal power and consequence in his neighbourhood. In the pedigrees of this great family he is said to have allied himself in marriage with two of the principal houses in the North of England, the Fitz Williams and the Pilkingtons: but some curious particulars of the old knight's domestic history are to be found in the Bodleian. ”

“ Nothing sets the credulity of the country in a more stiking point of view than the credit which seems to be universally given to the fables of Parr and Jenkins, to prove whose incredible number of days we have not even the evidence we should reasonably require to establish a fact little removed from the common experience. But on this point we are perhaps glad to be decieved: as Louis XIV. found no flattery more acceptable than when his courtiers related instances of longevity much greater than his own. ”

“ Much of the land in the immediate vicinity of the town is let to the manufacturers for gardens. These afford the proprietors some profit, together with an amusement the most varied, innocent and cheerful, and no doubt contribute much to the general health of the town. ”

“ But the softer graces of landscape are to be chiefly found in a district uneven but not mountainous, and may be contemplated with not less pleasure because among them are to be found some of the works of human hands. ”

“ Some of these are less abundant than formerly, the consequence it is supposed of the excavations of the coal-miners under the town. Indeed, since the construction of the reservoirs on Crooks-moor, and the regular supply which has been received from thence, the private springs have been too much neglected: an evil which at no very distant period mey be felt more sensibly than at present, when the demand is every day increasing, and the means of answering it growing less. As might be expected where the ore of iron is abundant, some of these springs are slightly chalybeate. ”

“ Such a district as that in which Sheffield stands must abound in water. Where there are hills there will be streams. Beside the Carbrook, the Limb-Dyke, and the Meersbrook, rivulets which mark the eastern, westerm, and southern limits of the parish, there are five streams which flow through it, and the waters of all are united at the town: the Porter, Riveling, Loxley, Sheaf, and Don. ”

“ Below the iron lies the bed of coal. The mean depth is about 120 yards, and the thickness of the bed from three to five feet. This bed is the principal source of that large supply of fuel which the manufactures of Sheffield demand: and has been so from as early period. Leland writing in the time of Henry VIII. says, 'Hallamshire hath plenti of woodde, yet ther is burnid much se-cole,' by which he means the native coal of the neighbourhood, such as was brought to London, his native place, by sea [15] . ”

“ In such a situation there can be few parts of the town that are not visited by fresh breezes from the country. There is no street in Sheffield from which the country may not be seen. But the town is not now confined to the rising ground between the Sheaf and the Don. It ahs climbed the opposite hills; it has stretched itself along their banks; and it accompanies them in their united progress towards Rotherham. ”

“ Introductory Matter.—General Description In every part of an old country like England are found some traces of its former inhabitants: for men who have lived in a state of social union do not all pass away without leaving behind them some token of their existence. ”

“ The air is unquestionably salubrious. Epidemical diseases are rare: nor has it been found that effects injurious to the health of the inhabitants have proceeded from those sooty vapours, the product of the manufactories, with which the air is but too commonly loaded. ”

“ Occupying a piece of rising ground sloping to the rivers, peculiar advantages are afforded, of which it is to be wished that the inhabitants had more availed themselves, for the cleanliness of the streets and passages. ”

“ The works erected on the rivers are however exposed to the inconvenience of having an unequal supply of water, and the attention of ingenious men has been often directed to the possibility of equalizing the supply by the construction of reservoirs near the sources of the streams. ”

“ Where natural boundaries like these can be obtained, it is desirable that men should avail themselves of them, to mark out the artificial divisions they have created. These remain unchanged amidst all the changes which war or commerce may occasion. ”

“ It need not however be concealed, as it cannot be denied, that the great increase of its population and the extension of its commerce have done too much in injuring the beauty of the near, and the effect of the distant landscape. ”

“ They generally depend upon the testimony of an interesed party: and they always pertain to persons in that class of society in which it is most difficult to obtain authentic and indisputable records of birth or baptism. ”

“ Thoresby corrects in this place the learned editor of the laws of Edward the Confessor for supposing Ewer-wick-shire to be Warwickshire, when speaking on the subject of wapentakes. It is remarkable that Sir Henry Savile, himself a Yorkshireman, in his edition of Hoveden, and in the section De Wapentagio, f. 346. b. has printed Warewichsire where it is plain that Yorkshire was the county intended.↑ Harl. MS. 6281 is a copy of this Nomina Villarum↑ Preserved in a volume of Topographical Collections made by a topographer of whom little is known, named Jakes. ”

“ John Mariott of Ugghill being of the age of 70 yeares and above doth say that a certeine contraversie betweene my lords father and Mr. Fitchherbert about the common or pasture called Mosker, in soe much that both their councells did meete there upon a day appointed wth diverse ould and antient men on both partyes ”

“ Pegge's Historical Account of Beauchief Abbey, p.149.↑ History of Manchester, vol. i. p. 220.↑ Description of Britain, before quoted.↑ Poly-Olbion, p. 140.↑ Lodge's Illustrations of British History, &c, vol. iii. p. 309.↑ This is one of many curious entries in the register of Almonbury, which for the first century and a half is enriched with historical and biographical notices.↑ The name of this gentleman has been too much disjoined from the history of the plague at Eyam. ”