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Why is Hunters Bar called Hunters Bar?


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The photograph I saw was dated 1905 and I often used to think that one of the little lads depicted in the photograph could have been my father , who was born very near Hunter's Bar in 1899 .

 

Some more photos :)

 

This is the only late view of the toll house I can find looking up Ecclesall road, - Hunters House can be seen on the left and beyond it the chimneys of houses at the back of it (probably Hunter House road) which suggests a date of 1880s. Tolls weren't collected after October 1884.

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/picturesheffield.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=picturesheffield&keyval=sheff.refno=s16163

 

I think the Toll house was demolished when Ecclesall road was widened to accomodate the tram. Nothing to be seen of the old toll house in 1900 -

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/picturesheffield.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=picturesheffield&keyval=sheff.refno=s17478

 

the gateposts were used at the entrance to Endcliffe Park for many years and can be seen in this photo

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/picturesheffield.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=picturesheffield&keyval=sheff.refno=s11180

 

which is very much as I remember in the 40s/50s.

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Thanks for putting on the photographs , Greybeard .

Yes , I think my memory must be a bit faulty and I've mixed up a number of photographs about Hunter's Bar . Maybe the one I remember was taken about 1910 and was just a general view of Hunter's Bar . Now I've had a bit more time to think about it , I remember thinking that IF my father was , co-incidentally in the picture , he would have been a boy of 10 or 11.

There was another thread a few months ago which overlaps with this one about the history of Endclffe Park.

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Same thing with Wakefield, where I'm from.

 

Eastgate, Westgate, all down to where there were gates and bars into the town. And thats not drinking bars!

 

and fargate , named as it was a gate far away from the main tollgate into sheffield, to stop people sneaking in without payin :D:surprised

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Similar thing in York, the gates through the city walls are called bars, Micklegate Bar, Monk Bar, Bootham Bar.

 

These were the medieval 'bars'. Essentially used to extract tolls from country folk bringing their produce into the town market. I think Sheffield's only surviving name of this type is Westbar.

 

The toll 'bars' of the 18th and 19th century were to enforce a charge for using the road. Passage was usually blocked by a gate or a chain across the road, not a bar that could be raised and lowered. Of this type the only two names I can think of that survive in this area are Hunters Bar and Owler Bar....any others ? :)

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Same thing with Wakefield, where I'm from.

 

Eastgate, Westgate, all down to where there were gates and bars into the town. And thats not drinking bars!

 

The 'gates' are all called so because they derive from the old Norse 'gata', meaning street, rather than toll gate.

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Yes i remember that from doing some research into Beccles in Suffolk. A small town with most of the roads called (blahblah)gate. I didn't imagine it had that many gates but as you said it actually means street.

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The 'gates' are all called so because they derive from the old Norse 'gata', meaning street, rather than toll gate.

 

Like Whipmawhopmagate in York?

 

Without doubt the most ridiculous name for a street in the world. Makes me smile :)

 

Apparently it's thought to have been the place where dogs called whappets were whipped on St Lukes Day.

 

Only in Yorkshire.

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Hunter House Hotel, No 685-691, Ecclesall Road. Built 1700s as a three-storey stone house. Plain front with three windows. Past owners include the Hunter family.

 

I wonder why they were so important as to have a toll gate and then a suburb named after them.

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