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Part 1 (read this first
): http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1229530-The-Dairy-Maids-of-Porter-Brook-(Part-1)
The great poet Chaucer has praised Sheffield whittles,
For without knives and forks, how could folk eat their victuals?
As for our penknives, extensive our trade is,
Likewise our scissors, they’re praised by the ladies;
Our razors long time abroad famous have been,
Like our women and wit, they’re bright but they’re keen,
The bounty of nature on Sheffield town smiles,
Yet could other trades work if we did not make files?
(from The Cutler’s Song, 18th century Sheffield ballad)
Today, Endcliffe Park (formerly known as Endcliffe Woods) is one of Sheffield’s most popular public recreation spaces. It is also one of the oldest, opened in 1887 to commemorate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, in whose memory there is both a statue and monument in the park, as well as a large commemorative stone. Long before it was a park though, men came here to work at the water-wheels that once stood along the banks of the River Porter as it flows towards the centre of Sheffield, and its eventual confluence with the River Sheaf.
The Porter enters the park close to the end of Rustlings Road, under which the river flows. After only a few yards, there is an old weir, and the remains of the inlet sluice of the first dam can clearly be seen. When the park was being developed, this pond was designated for water-fowl, and islands were added to make it more scenic and allow the birds to nest. It was formerly the dam of the old Nether Spurgear Wheel (also known as Third Endcliffe Wheel or Greystones Wheel), constructed by John Ibberson in 1749. By 1794 Joseph Ibberson was employing ten grinders, and the cutlery wheel had ten trows. In 1802, the wheel was sold to a filesmith called Daniel Bramall, who enlarged the dam. Despite taking on two partners, Bramall was declared bankrupt in 1824, and the wheel was bought by Thomas Sansom & Sons, an already well-established Sheffield cutlery firm with a Royal Warrant, producing pen and pocket knives, table cutlery, and razors. By 1830, Sansom & Sons had enlarged the wheel and had seventeen trows.
However in 1833, with Thomas Sansom in his seventies, and presumably more or less retired (he was to die three years later), there was a family dispute. Amid considerable acrimony, Thomas Sansom & Sons continued to exist in a reduced form, with eldest son William in competition as W.Sansom & Co, and disputing the ongoing use of the company name by his brothers.
In 1838, only two years after his father, Abraham, the middle Sansom brother died, and in the 1840’s, the surviving brother, John, was joined in partnership by George Howson (who had been an apprentice cutler to the firm since 1803, and later a merchant’s clerk) and James William Harrison. When George Howson died in1847, his son William took over his business interests, and in 1849, Sansom & Sons was wound up. Its assets became the basis for the great Sheffield cutlery firm of Harrison Brothers & Howson, under William Howson and James William and Henry Harrison. The partners made vast fortunes, living in huge mansions on the edge of the city. When Henry Harrison died aged 68 in 1892 he left £123,938, and when his brother James passed on at 80, five years later, he left the sum of £239,675. This was at the time when an ordinary grinder might consider himself lucky to earn £2 a week, and probably not live long into his thirties.
In 1859, along with the other Endcliffe Wheels, the Nether Spurgear Wheel was sold by Harrison Brothers & Howson to Robert Younge, a wine merchant. By 1875, Younge’s nephew, Francis Otter, owned the wheel, and while it was still in good working order, it was not used after this date. The long attractive dam is well-loved by the local people, and the ducks and other water-fowl are invariably well-fed throughout the year.
A quarter of a mile downsteam, there is another weir, with the remains of the sluice-gate, and the head goit of what was once the dam of the Holme Wheel (also sometimes referred to as the Leather Wheel). The wheel was constructed by a cutler called Isaac Staniforth around 1729, and originally had four trows. In 1769, Johnathan Hall rebuilt and enlarged the wheel, and by 1794 it was running eleven trows, with George Naylor as tenant. By 1801, the wheel had grown to sixteen trows, with George Oates tenanted here. The Carr family bought the wheel in 1811, and in 1831, it was sold to Thomas Sansom. The wheel was by this time running seventeen trows. A head of water of seventeen feet and six inches turned the wheel, which was four feet and nine inches wide.
In 1849, Harrison Brothers & Howson took over the wheel, and the ownership subsequently passed to Robert Younge, and then Francis Otter, just as the Upper Spurgear Wheel. By 1891 the wheel was no longer in use, and after the area was acquired by Sheffield Corporation, the dam was turned into a boating lake and designated for ice-skating. I remember the boats myself, and though I’ve never seen anyone skating on the pond, I have walked on its frozen surface several times as a boy.
I have a reminder of the steps up to the dam in the form of a substantial scar on my right wrist, acquired when I fell while carrying a glass jar while on a school environmental studies trip. Close by, near to where the grinding hull once stood, an old woman used to come once a year with a giant set of weighing scales. You sat in a chair, and for the price of a penny she would tell you your weight.
The river flows on through Endcliffe Woods, once a central feature of the park, its cobbled causeways are now overgrown and all but forgotten. On the opposite bank of the Porter is a large playing field, and backing onto the river is Endcliffe Park Cafe, which was once owned by the same family as run the cafe at Forge Dam (see Part 1). The local area has changed a lot over the years, and this is reflected in changes to the park. While the menu has certainly improved since the days of meat-paste sandwiches, the cafe is now frequented by middle-class ‘yummy mummys’, and the park can be positively over-run with joggers at certain times of the year. The simple attractions of a set of stepping-stones and a humble set of swings have been replaced by all manner of fenced-in, safe-surfaced, fancy rides and roundabouts, which now block the corner of the river where generations of youngsters tested their metal trying to leap across it.
During World War Two, Sheffield was heavily bombed, and communal air-raid shelters were dug into the playing field. On June 22nd 1944, tragedy came to Endcliffe Park, when a badly stricken US B-17 Flying Fortress flew low over the field, and crashed in the woods on the other side of the Porter, just ahead of the Victorian stepping-stones. The brave men of Mi Amigo, flew the burning plane over the city, crashing in the woods, the only fatalities themselves. They were:
• Lt John Kriegshauser (Missouri) - pilot
• 2nd Lt Lyle Curtis (Idaho) - co-pilot
• 2nd Lt John Humphrey (Illinois) - navigator
• 2nd Lt Melchor Hernandez (California) - bombardier
• S/Sgt Harry Estabrooks (Kansas) - engineer and top-turret gunner
• Sgt Charles Tuttle (Kentucky) - ball-turret gunner
• S/Sgt Robert Mayfield (Illinois) - radio operator
• Sgt Vito Ambrosio (New York) - right waist gunner
• M/Sgt G. Malcolm Williams (Oklahoma) - left waist gunner
• Sgt Maurice Robbins (Texas) - tail gunner
Their courage and their sacrifice is remembered at an annual ceremony held on the crash-site every year. You can read the full moving tale of Mi Amigo here - http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-)?p=11886436&highlight=mi+amigo#post11886436 – and I hope you will do so.
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