Ye Olde Fir Vale

[Lestat]

Does anybody have any old pics of Fir Vale? would love to see how the area in which I've grown up has changed over the years.

[Abdul]

1) Try the picturesheffield website (if it's back up yet). Good ones there of Fir Vale, Page Hall (the Page Hall) and the Firth Park area over the past century.

 

2) Firth Park Library has books on local history

 

3) Take a look at these history articles from the Burngreave Messenger website.

 

4) The Burngreave Historical Society can be contacted through Burngreave Library, Spital Hill on 203 9002.

 

5) The library in the city centre has a good historical section too.

 

Let me know if you're looking for anything specific. I may have something in my archives hidden away in the attic.

 

Note that most of the houses in the area only date from 1900 onwards...so details on anything before that may be pretty scarce

 

[Lestat]

Wow! thanks Abdul. Im going to take my time going through all this lot. Some of the pics are so teasing!! you just want to see a little bit more but cant.

Anyway, cheers mate

 

Im looking more for the general Fir Vale Area e.g where the shops are on Owler Lane, Skinnerthorpe Road and The Cannon Hall Pub, Barnsley Road, Earl Marshal School, Owler Lane ( when it was three small grass hills - before the docs surgery ), The Astro-turf footy pitch which used to be concrete and not barrackaded off like a prison! etc . .

[Strix]

Looks like picturesheffield is still unavailable

[Lestat]

I heard that the old Church - St. Cuthberts, I think, has been around for over a hundred years and was there when Barnsley Road was nothing but a grass banking. As was the rest of the area, the shops were just fields too!

 

Is this true?

[Plain Talker]

I believe St Cuthberts celebrated it's centenary recently:- the housing around that area is mostly from roughly the same era(late 1880s/90's), and after.

 

You can usually guage what age a property is using visual clues about the architecture.

 

Most of the houses surrounding St C's are either Victorian to Edwardian terraces and villas, with some clusters classic 1920s or 30's semis here and there.

 

On the whole, there's not much from before the mid-Victorian time, as land belonging to the big, old places and farms etc that were there before were taken up for the development of housing estates.

 

PT

[Abdul]

Originally posted by Lestat

I heard that the old Church - St. Cuthberts, I think, has been around for over a hundred years and was there when Barnsley Road was nothing but a grass banking. As was the rest of the area, the shops were just fields too!

 

Firth Park Methodist Church started off in this way. When / if the Picture Sheffield website ever returns to the Internet, you'll be able to see the Church where the roundabout now is, surrounded by nowt but fields.

 

As for St Cuthberts, that church dates from 1901. Their website is http://www.stcuthberts.net

[Greybeard]

Originally posted by Lestat

I heard that the old Church - St. Cuthberts, I think, has been around for over a hundred years and was there when Barnsley Road was nothing but a grass banking. As was the rest of the area, the shops were just fields too!

 

Is this true?

 

Not entirley. Barnsley Road was a turnpike road driven through around 1790 so was there long before the church The church was built on the site of Skinnerthorpe farm and the old gateposts of the farm entrance can still be seen in the wall of the church on Firth Park Road - now used for a much smaller gate.

 

I don't think there is any record of the name 'Fir Vale' before the area was built up; it was previously a tiny hamlet known as Skinnerthorpe. At that time there were very few buildings - Skinnerthorpe farm, a couple of cottages on the opposite side of Owler Lane [about where Socket's shop is], Cannon Hall and Cannon Hall cottages. The first serious building work was the Union Workhouse which eventually became NG Hospital. This was built in lands belonging to a farm known as The Hagg and the house etc. stood just inside the old gates on the left.

 

Skinnerthorpe Road was built in what was the gardens of Cannon Hall. There were fewer roads of course...Herries Road was called Smilter Lane and crossed Barnsley Road onto Owler Lane which wound down to Grimesthorpe [Rushby Street is new]. Off Owler lane on the left was Hinde House Lane [called then Hinde Common Lane I think] which ran all the way up to Pismire Hill on Bellhouse Road via Windmill Lane. Bolsover Road follows the line of an old lane that led from Barnsley Road down past the Page Hall stable block and cottages to join Hinde Common Lane opposite the entrance to Page Hall farm. [There were some old gateposts here too]

 

AS PT says the whole area was transformed in a few years between 1885 and 1910. The two new main roads were Firth Park Road and Page Hall Road...these and all the houses and side atreets around them were built on what was mostly farmland and woodland.

[Abdul]

Many thanks for your informative post, Greybeard - it fits in with this olde timie map of Sheffield dated 1885.

 

In the top right, you can see the Fir Vale junction and Barnsley Road heading north past Brush House. You've got what I assume to be Owler Lane heading East through Skinnerthorpe farm and Hinde Common Lane leading up to Windmill Hill.

 

I can make out the funny right-angle that is Bolsover Road too...leading to Bolsover Hill. So that's how it got it's name!

 

http://www.londonancestor.com/maps/bc-sheffield-e.htm

 

It's a big map (over 1.5mb in size) but worth the wait

[algy]

The 1902 OS map shows the terraced houses on Skinnerthorpe Road, but there's a gap where the row of houses set up from the road now stand. On the map, this gap is filled by a largeish house and garden called Fir Vale. Did the area get the name from the house or vice versa? According to Peter Harvey in his book "Street Names of Sheffield", Fir Vale appears to have originated as a house name, which appears in some directories as Firs Vale, presumably because it was in the valley below Firs Hill. The house was the home in the 1880's of Walter Marsh. It was sold after his death with 6 acres of land, said " to contain within itself all the desiderata for a gentleman's residence". Another piece for the jigsaw?