Glen Bridge Water Wheel

[Padders]

fantastic.. wish I"d been alive in those days. simple pleasures eh. beats all the theme parks, computers, I pods. etc etc. ha ha.

[hillsbro]

Yes - simple pleasures indeed. I suppose it's a sign you're getting old when you look back with nostalgia, but I was born [in 1948] in a long-demolished 3-room house on Low Road overlooking Rivelin Valley. Childhood memories are of paddling in the river, fishing for tiddlers, helping dad on his allotment and exploring old water mills. Returning to topic, here is a view of Glen Bridge dated 1908, shortly after it was built, and another one dated 1909, taken from beside the Nether Cut dam.

[scargill]

With all the talk about tree removal it is surprising to see so few trees in the pictures, much fewer than there are now. I presume the trees were felled used in the mills when the mills operated.

 

Great pictures thanks. As children we often walked from Nether Green to Rivelin stopping off at Crookes for a bag of spice, as a change from the Porter Valley

[carosio]

Yes - simple pleasures indeed. I suppose it's a sign you're getting old when you look back with nostalgia, but I was born [in 1948] in a long-demolished 3-room house on Low Road overlooking Rivelin Valley. Childhood memories are of paddling in the river, fishing for tiddlers, helping dad on his allotment and exploring old water mills. Returning to topic, here is a view of Glen Bridge dated 1908, shortly after it was built, and another one dated 1909, taken from beside the Nether Cut dam.

 

We used to have the first allotment (mid 50s) which would be just out of shot on the left in the 1908 photo, they're overgrown now. My father watched kingfishers and dippers hunting in the river at the bottom of the allotment.

[Elmambo]

With all the talk about tree removal it is surprising to see so few trees in the pictures, much fewer than there are now. I presume the trees were felled used in the mills when the mills operated.

 

Great pictures thanks. As children we often walked from Nether Green to Rivelin stopping off at Crookes for a bag of spice, as a change from the Porter Valley

 

I believe Rivelin Valley Road was built to provide work for the unemployed and that the existing trees were planted when the road was built. It is indeed very interesting to see it so open and large areas of it cultivated - amazing how nature reclaims the land.

The mills (mainly grinding Hulls) used water power and would not really need wood except for heating and construction.

[carosio]

I would think at one time it was forested, like much of England was.

 

My parents and their contemporaries used to refer to it as "New Road", never Rivelin Valley Road.

[Elmambo]

I would think at one time it was forested, like much of England was.

 

My parents and their contemporaries used to refer to it as "New Road", never Rivelin Valley Road.

 

I believe it is referred to in Harrison's survey of 1637, (the Firth of the River Lyn) as containing some of the finest oak woodland in England. I would guess the Navy had the bulk of it over the centuries.

 

My parents also called it the new road - must have been a common expression.

 

The really interesting thing is that even a hundred or so years ago when it was still an industrial environment, it was obviously a popular place for recreation. This must have extended as far as Rivelin Dams as I understand there were swing boats out there just past the Norfolk Arms. Fabulous pictures by the way.

[hillsbro]

Local people always called it the "New Road", and in fact this is how it is shown on some postcards - here are two examples.

 

Rivelin was always popular for recreation, as is shown by many of the early postcard views. After Rivelin Valley Road was completed in 1908, the road from Redmires through Wyming Brook down to the dams was built. This encouraged more people to visit the upper part of the valley, and then in 1914 the first buses began to operate to the Norfolk Arms - here is a postcard published in 1927 showing an AEC bus at the terminus.

Edited July 8, 2017 by hillsbro