History of Attercliffe

[chimay]

As a child living in Attercliffe I was told that the name Attercliffe has something to do with snakes living on the cliff as 'atter' is old English for poison (or poisonous). I was reminded of this after reading that in old English 'attercob' refers to spiders which had venonmous bites.

[Texas]

Hi PT, Abdul

 

Bring back the good old days.

 

My grandparents lived in Bradford Street, in a 2 up 2 down, no offshot kitchen. Somehow they managed to raise five children in the house. The house had one cold tap. a shared outside loo (whtewashed of course) with the obligatory squares of newspaper on the nail on the back of the door. In the back yard , always draped with washing, there was everthing from old bikes, motorbikes, a wringer and a chicken coop where they kept chickens, this by the way was in the mid 1960's.

 

I cannot remember a tin bath hanging on the wall, there must have been one somewhere, possibly in the cellar along with the coal. All the foodstuffs where kept on the cellar head, which always seeemed to have a damp smell about it.

 

Hanging outside, by the back door, there would be a bunch of seaweed . I know what it was for but do you.

 

What always struck me as a small child, was the front room. It was never ever used. It was full of the best furniture, even a square of carpet but everybody would be crammed into the back room/kitchen, especially on a Saturday afternoon to watch the wrestling or the hoss racing, as my grandad used to say.

 

Yes, bring back the good old days.

 

I don't know if anybody else answered you question regarding the bunch of seaweed but I always thought it was a sort of weather forcaster. If it was dry, it was sunny, if it was moist, it was raining. Jimmy Tarbuck always said that if it was white, it was snowing.

[grinder]

As a child living in Attercliffe I was told that the name Attercliffe has something to do with snakes living on the cliff as 'atter' is old English for poison (or poisonous). I was reminded of this after reading that in old English 'attercob' refers to spiders which had venonmous bites.

 

Think you'll find it was more likely Otter cliff, fit's in with Salmon pastures don't you think....

[Greybeard]

The 'cliffe' of Attercliffe can be seen in this old print of Christ Church. It has mostly disappeared now due to erosion and development but was formed, probably thousands of years ago, when the bend in the river there was several hundred yards further south than it is now.

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/zoom.pl?picture=http://www.picturesheffield.com/jpgh/s11669.jpg

 

The name is first recorded in the Domesday book and at that time the cliff would have been a prominent feature of the landscape.

 

There is another old print, before the church was built, that gives a better impression of this 'cliffe' but Picture Sheffield seems not to have a copy.

[Odd-jobs]

The 'cliffe' of Attercliffe can be seen in this old print of Christ Church. It has mostly disappeared now due to erosion and development but was formed, probably thousands of years ago, when the bend in the river there was several hundred yards further south than it is now.

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/zoom.pl?picture=http://www.picturesheffield.com/jpgh/s11669.jpg

 

The name is first recorded in the Domesday book and at that time the cliff would have been a prominent feature of the landscape.

 

There is another old print, before the church was built, that gives a better impression of this 'cliffe' but Picture Sheffield seems not to have a copy.

 

I was led to believe that the cliffe was opposite Banners behind Otter Street,

Baker Street falling away down to Stevenson Road, .

Physical evidence seems to bear this out. Just off of Stevenson Road behind a company call Universal the units are on a much higher level nearer the Banners side and behind the Universal warehouse there is an actual "cliffe" face although it is covered in concrete in many places.

This also could have been the old course of the Don as it was semi culverted through Attercliffe.

It also looks as though it could well have been the site shown on the picture of the church.

I'd be interested to hear any comments on this theory

[Greybeard]

That's about right Odd-jobs. If you look a Google satellite view you can see the curved boundary of the Christ Church burial ground and the end of Burgess street that was the ancient bank of the river.

 

http://www.earthtools.org/index.php?x=-1.4341342449188232&y=53.39657286823954&z=17&t=1&m=Hybrid

 

But I think you're mistaken about the Don being culverted...where ?

[Odd-jobs]

Cheers for that Greybeard.

With regard to the culverting, I probably used the wrong term. I was referring to the sections where it was channelled as in the section between Stevenson Road and Newhall Road, I presume that when this was done it actually diverted the river away from the "Cliffe"

[Greybeard]

That Google map shows the ancient river bank. The river had moved a little further north before the re-channeling took place, I believe around 1860-1870. I'm a bit hazy about the date but it was part of a failed scheme to canalise the river up to the Wicker.

 

If you look on the large scale 1905 OS map you can see the three phases of the river channel there.

[jewls29]

i think i know tommy sure he and his brothers used to drink in the wicker

[jewls29]

any relation to terry travis from southey