Anyone know about Longley Hall...?

[Leg-end]

My family has a long history in Sheffield, and part of it was in Longley Hall. My grandparents--or great grandparents, - Im not sure which, lived there.

 

Im assuming that longley park is the land and gardens that surrounded the hall.

 

Does anyone know about Longley Hall? I tried the net but there isnt much around, so any info would be gratefully recieved.

 

What do yo need to know?

 

Its on Longley Lane and is now an old peoples home or something.

 

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Longley+Hall,+Longley+Lane&sll=53.098145,-2.443696&sspn=7.551536,17.62207&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=53.414923,-1.461337&spn=0.001829,0.006062&t=k&om=1

 

Sheffield Scene has a good book on the entire area including history of the Bishopholme estate and everything else you'll ever need to know about Longley.

[Grahame]

What do yo need to know?

 

Its on Longley Lane and is now an old peoples home or something.

 

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Longley+Hall,+Longley+Lane&sll=53.098145,-2.443696&sspn=7.551536,17.62207&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=53.414923,-1.461337&spn=0.001829,0.006062&t=k&om=1

 

Sheffield Scene has a good book on the entire area including history of the Bishopholme estate and everything else you'll ever need to know about Longley.

The Old People's Home is on Longley Hall Road. The building Jabberwocky is interested in is on Longley Lane and is called Longley Hall. Can you tell us about the history of Longley Hall please?

[Jabberwocky]

Im particularly interested in any references to a Holden Family, my mothers maiden name, they owned the house. The story is a little....well its VERY convoluted and Id like to know as much as is humanly possible!

[Greybeard]

I managed to find a little more of the history of Longley Hall from an article by Betty Dickinson in a booklet published by the The Southey and Longley Local History Group.

 

 

The house is 'supposed' to have been built between 1770 and 1790 and first occupied by Kenyon Parker, described as an attorney with offices at the Bullstake in Sheffield. He was married in 1758 to a daughter of the Shirecliffes of Whitley Hall in Ecclesfield.

 

Kenyon Parker died in 1800 and his son Adamson continued to live at Longley Hall until he too died in 1837. The contents of the house and farm buildings were sold at public auction in 1838, (possibly by another son of Kenyon Parker, Francis, a clergyman who died in 1840 according to R E Leader).

 

The 1841 census shows the house occupied by George Curr, but in 1851 he had been succeeded by one John Brooke 'draper and hosier with business premises in the centre of Sheffield', whose family continued in residence until about 1868.

 

Betty Dickinson writes "Longley Hall was to change ownership several times after 1871. Then Robert Binder took up residence and appears to have remained there until at least 1905" - which suggests she saw evidence of who the occupants were in the 1881 and 1891 census but for some reason didn't include these details in her article.

 

The occupants in 1907 were Frank Crawshaw (cow-man) and James Morris when the house and land were purchased by the Sheffield Board of Guardians 1907.

 

There are still lots of questions of course. Who were the occupants between the Brooke and Binder families - a gap of thirty-seven years ? And who did the Sheffield Board of Guardians purchase the propety from ? The question of ownership is not dealt with in this article and it is quite possible that some of the occupants were tenants or lessees rather than outright owners.

[Grahame]

Don't know if this helps regarding the Shirecliffs?

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=whitley+hall+ecclesfield&spell=1

[Grahame]

There were not, we must conclude, the extremes of riches and poverty seen in later times. The lines of division were less marked, all classes being much nearer to a common level.

 

If there were many poor, there were few really wealthy. A very modest competence enabled a man to pass for rich in those days. In the neighbourhood of the town there were a certain number of families of superior station, but the modern manufacturing nabob would look with contempt on the wealthiest of these. Most of them were the descendants of yeomen, whose modest freeholds had, in the course of generations, and by advantageous marriages, been enlarged until the owners became squires and lords of manors. In some cases the revenues from landed property had been largely increased by profitable iron smelting and forging, at Wortley, or Chapeltown, or Attercliffe, or Renishaw, hy such families as the Sitwells, of Mount Pleasant, the Parkins, and others.

 

The wealth of the Clays, of Bridgehouses, came from Derbyshire lead mines; that of the Saundersons, of Grimesthorpe, from tanning. There were, hesides, the I3amforths of High House, the Burtons of Royds Mill, the Jessops of Broomhall, the Brights of Banner Cross (represented l y Lord John Murray), the Staniforths of Darnall, the Rawsons, tanners, of Wardsend, the Bagshawes (as successors to the Gills) of the Oaks, the Parkers of Woodthorpe, the Wilsons of Broomhead, and the Shirecliffes of Whitley. All these "sat on their own land." The Walkers were already beginning to build up large fortunes at Grenoside, and the Fells of New Hall were rich; but in both cases their wealth was made as ironmasters, and no instances can be found, until after 1750, of large individual prosperity derived from the town of Sheffield by those engaged in the staple trades of the place.

 

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~exy1/fh_material/18C_sheffield/ch1.txt

 

 

 

There are Shirecliffe's listed at the Ecclesfield Church. The following is a footnote of the marriage of Nicholas Sheircliffe and Barbara Wombwell June 11, 1577. Nicholas Shirecliffe was of Ecclesfield Hall,gent. He was the son of Nicolas, son of Alexander, third son of Thomas Shirecliffe, "master of game" to the Lords of Hallamshire, who was son of William Shirecliffe, living 1499. The name is derived from Shirecliffe, near Sheffield. The earliest record I can find of this family in the Court Rolls is 1334, Nicolas de Shirecliffe seeks to be admitted to one Rood

in Shirecliffe.

 

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/ELAM-ROOTS/2000-07/0964163911

 

There is a gamekeepers cottage on Woodfold Shirecliffe at the top of Rutland Road.

[Grahame]

You mentioned Hathersage earlier Jaberwocky and here

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~exy1/fh_material/18C_sheffield/ch1.txt

 

Lower down the page it says “The Ashtons having ended in an heiress, Whiteley Wood Hall”

 

I wonder if this is the same Ashton family whose daughter married William Spencer (d.1756) of Cannon Hall? He is the man who removed Little John’s bow (so-called) to Cannon Hall for safe keeping.

 

This may provide a link between Hathersage and the Shirecliffs of Whitley Hall.

 

There are some prominent families here Jabbers.

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks for all that! Itll take some reading but Im sure my bro will be as fascinated as I am.

The more I read, the more I learn about at least a part of my ancestry, and Im finding it more interesting by the day.

[Grahame]

While we are in the Longley Park area , has anyone any pics of the building that became Firth Park Grammar school & know what it was originally.

Does this help.

 

http://www.firthparkgrammarschool.co.uk/school02.htm

[Greybeard]

Don't know if this helps regarding the Shirecliffs?

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=whitley+hall+ecclesfield&spell=1

 

Not really pertinent to the occupancy/ownership of Longley Hall

 

The crux of the matter is who owned the property and when. The name 'Holden' does not appear as an occupant but the various occupants could have just been tenants.