Info about Meers Brook

[davided]

Hi Aussieblade,

Realy good to hear from you, as you know i lived at 120 and remember the good old days well, its what the modern day kids are missing out on. Remember playing cricket in the back ally leading to the rear of our houses,never could get you out, it wasnt the only games we played up their but i wont go into details.Mom passed away 2 years ago ,she used to look forward to the letters that winnie, i think ive spelt it right used to send from aussie land and then cynthia kept in touch when winnie passed on. How is she i hope she is ok. Give her my love. we wont talk about the cricket but I am ready for the s utd game on friday night I will be watching it on sky.As I said Ed it realy is nice to hear from you, please keep in touch.

Kind Regards

Dave

[maxiesmum]

Hi Time bandit,

I will nevet forget that explosion!

Did you ever go paddling in the dam at the back of Joseph Tyzacks? I was always messing about in it and getting muddy We had a grey long aired dog and we were always together.

I wss born in 54 and lived on Albert road

Regards,

 

Pat

[davided]

Hi Hillsbro,

Thanks for the link Looking at that photo brought back lots of memories for me and a tear to my eye, Happy days

regards

DAVE

 

---------- Post added 01-08-2013 at 10:14 ----------

 

Hi once again Hillsboro, I noticed that on the map it showed upper valley road as upper villiage road wonder if that was its original name or a typing error

Dave

[lazarus]

Here is a scan of that end of the road from the 1965 Kelly's Directory which might have some familiar names. "Henry Memmott" is shown a little further down at No 98..

 

I worked with Henry Memmott in 1960 when I was an apprentice plumber for Reeves Charlesworths builders on the new Gleadless Valley estate, Henry worked on all the one bedroom pensioner flats from the Cutlers pub to the thirteen story high rise flats (the first to be built in Sheffield) Henry was an excellent plumber and had a novel way of lighting his cigarettes, when preparing his blowlamp for work, a small sump of petrol was lit to heat the petrol in the blowlamp itself to create a gas which gave you a hot flame, Henry used to dip his finger in the lit petrol sump and with a flame on his finger he lit his cigarette, he was a lovely man.

[hillsbro]

Hi once again Hillsboro, I noticed that on the map it showed upper valley road as upper villiage road wonder if that was its original name or a typing error. Dave

I think it must be an error; all the other sources I have show it as Upper Valley Road. The houses were built around the turn of the century, and it seems that when the map (from a Kelly's directory) was being drawn the streets had only just been laid out ready for the houses to be built - the Kelly's artist perhaps misread a developer's plan.

[TimeBandit52]

You're not one of the Bailey's are you?

 

HI Duffems, No I,m not one of the Baileys although I new them all well, I lived in the old tannery (Arthington Buildings ) No 3 Downing family only me left now

Dave

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 19:18 ----------

 

Hi Time bandit,

I will nevet forget that explosion!

Did you ever go paddling in the dam at the back of Joseph Tyzacks? I was always messing about in it and getting muddy We had a grey long aired dog and we were always together.

I wss born in 54 and lived on Albert road

Regards,

 

Pat

 

HI Maxiesmum cant place you or the dog, but yes we were always paddling in the dam on the Sheaf, I served my apprenticship at Tyzack sons and Turners

from 67 to about 73. Dave

[Da link went]

My grandmother lived in Albert Rd. It was a big house and she lived alone, my grandfather died before WW2 started. During the blitz an incendiary bomb dropped through the roof and ended up in the cellar and missed her bed by a couple of feet. My father brought her to live with us on Millmount road and she told us about the beautiful sky somebody had painted on her ceiling, the bright stars and full moon, I know, but that's what she said. She was of course off her rocker. She died not long after that, the bomb never fired, it lay in the cellar among the coal for months until my father, brave man that he wasn't, told me to go down there and throw the bomb into the stream, and that's what i did.

 

The bomb disposal squad would have found it no doubt because I went to the house to pick up some things and it had gone.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 16:44 ----------

 

HI Duffems, No I,m not one of the Baileys although I new them all well, I lived in the old tannery (Arthington Buildings ) No 3 Downing family only me left now

Dave

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 19:18 ----------

 

 

HI Maxiesmum cant place you or the dog, but yes we were always paddling in the dam on the Sheaf, I served my apprenticship at Tyzack sons and Turners

from 67 to about 73. Dave

My father was a sythe grinder at Tyzack sons and Turners but because of the sand and metal in his chest he had to leave in the 50's. He started off in what is now an industrial museum at Beauchiff. If you ever saw the conditions they worked under it would make you weep.

[abroadhead]

If this is right, how can I or who can I ask to find out. I have tried Yorkshire Water, they have no idea and also the National Rivers they said much of the same thing.

 

For future reference for others, this sort of information on culverted watercourses is available.

 

Most smaller buried streams have been recorded by Sheffield City Council. I know, they have kindly provided me with maps for my research.

 

Yorkshire Water have a copy of these in digital form, which they can find on their computerised map system called "Odyssey". Finding a way in to get someone to find it for you can be difficult.

 

The Environment Agency teamed up with the Ordnance Survey to produce something called the Detailed River Network. This is a digital map of watercourses, including the routes of buried ones (i.e. more than you can see just from normal OS maps). The local office should be able to help you with this, though you may have to ask to visit them to see it, or get a print out.

[heeleybird]

Hi Maxiesmum Yes I remember the explosion well, it was one of my pals dad looking for a gas leak with a match (or so his son told us) it was the Ritchardson family about half way down. I lived in the flats at the bottom of Valley Road (the old tannery) born in 52 and grew up there till I wed in 73, any info I can help with to willing to reminis.

 

It was 6.30 on a cold January morning, no-one was aware at 21 Bradbury Street that a gas main had fractured with the cold and that gas had been seeping for some hours into the cellar at number 21. Like most families with cellar grates, the Richardson's cellar grate had been covered to stop heat escaping and the cold getting in, this would prove to be disasterous. At 6.35 the head of the family George Richardson was woken by his youngest son, Ian, who had woke and had smelled gas. As George went downstairs in this small two up two down property to investigate, a silent morning turned into what can only be described as hell. Clear air turned into a red glowing thick black choking soot riddled soup as a hundred years of roof muck and dust cascaded down onto the family of George, his wife Esther, their sons George William and Their youngest lad, Ian. Ceilings collapsed, slates and rafters fell onto the beds and a fiery glow took over as flames from below started to engulf what was left of the sitting room. George William was flung from his bed along with brother Ian, luckily landing on part of the bedroom floor that had not collapsed as they were immediately above the sitting room which was in turn above the cellar. George William quickly took control of the situation, guiding his younger brother Ian, and his injured mother (from the adjacent bedroom) to the safety of the rear yard and away from the flames. It seems a lifetime ago that this occurred but I can still see my father who's hair was burnt from his head hugging my mother. When my father had gone downstairs his first thought had been to open the back door, he then opened the living room door from the kitchen, the disaster occurred when he opened the cellar door. In his own words at the time he explained that he had opened the cellar door about three inches when the concentrated gas in the cellar, unable to get out of the covered grate, exploded in a blinding flash. His life was saved by the cellar door and the dining room door inwardly blowing off at the same time injuring my father but saving his life by enabling the fire to spiral around him. To put the record straight, and that is why I've wrote this, my father never attempted to search for a gas leak with a lighted match, the fire officer who attended the aftermath concluded that the ignition of the gas was by contact to a pilot light from an ascot water heater situated in the kitchen. Although not seriously injured my father went deaf shortly afterwards , attributed to the air compression but never proven.

[lazyec]

The Meers Brook runs down from the Gleadless Valley Estate and enters a culvert by the side of the Council Tip at Blackstock Road - it reappears near to the big house on Cat Lane and continues past the bottom of the gardens of all the houses on the L.H.S. of Northcote Avenue from Cat Lane.

 

It enters another culvert just before where the Meersbrook garage was, at the bottom of Northcote Avenue, behind the houses nos. 2 and 4.

 

It then travels down Albert Road as described in the other messages.